Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 162520 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 813(@200wpm)___ 650(@250wpm)___ 542(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 162520 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 813(@200wpm)___ 650(@250wpm)___ 542(@300wpm)
Her cheeks flush, and her gaze falls.
The same thought seems to be circling my brothers. Nova looks ready to hurl as he says, “You’re getting back with him?”
“No.” She pushes blonde tendrils out of her eyes, her face contorting in a grimace. “But in the name of being transparent…in the event the job doesn’t go to plan, I’ve been using every tool in my arsenal to seduce him out of this town. Which, yes, includes sleeping with him.”
I’m speechless.
Nova pinches his eyes closed.
Oliver tosses up his hand like it’s just another weekend in our mad, mad world. “What every kid dreams of, Mom and Dad getting back together.” The joke almost lightens the air.
Our mom shares a small smile with Oliver.
Nova shifts his weight with aggressive heat. “Varrick isn’t leaving, so how’s that fucking working out?” he asks her harshly.
“Nov,” I retort, defending her, because it must’ve been a hard choice. “She doing that for us.”
“I didn’t ask her to get in bed with Varrick,” he says hotly under his breath, then narrows a dark look at her. “I’d never want you to do that for me.”
“I know.” Her gaze is so gentle on him, like he’s fifteen again and not twenty-five. “I know. But it’s what I’m good at.” She has a melancholy yet cheery smile, as though she’s accepted all the bad parts of being a seductress and learned to live with them.
Will that be me…in twenty-some years? It terrifies me. I’ve never wanted to become my mom and make the same awful choices she does where men are concerned.
I hug my arms around my body, and I ache for Rocky.
Nova scrapes a hand against the back of his neck before gesturing to our mom. “About last night…” He starts telling her about the party. The details from the start to the end. It’s an olive branch, this offer of information.
Her brows subtly spring upward. She’s good at concealing her shock in public, but her exhales sound heavy and pained. “I’m so sorry, bug,” she apologizes to me, then frowns in thought. “I didn’t think it was real, but some people have been saying Rocky accused Trent of rape…Did he actually—”
“I wasn’t,” I cut in, my stomach in knots. “He didn’t touch me.”
Nova chucks another seashell. “He got someone to drug her.”
She reaches out to hug me.
I instinctively recoil. “Isla,” I force out, reminding her she’s not my mom here.
“I’m comforting you. It’s something Isla would do. It’s also something your mom really would love to do, too. Please.”
I want to walk into her maternal warmth. Except, some part of me isn’t ready. I step even farther back. “I’m fine.”
Her hurt flares, but she nods, understanding. I see her twist her Cartier bracelets. A small tell that she’s uneasy. One she rarely makes. Then she feels for the delicate gold chain around her neck, and I watch as she unclasps the heart-shaped locket. Jewelry she’s had forever.
As a little girl, I used to play dress-up with her heels, her sparkly pink eye shadow, her bangle bracelets, and that locket. She’d put it on me, and I’d crack open the heart to find the inside nearly always empty.
“Why don’t you put pictures of us in here, Mommy?” I’d ask. “Or of Daddy!” I’d bounce on my toes, thinking maybe she’d show me a photo for once.
She’d bop my nose and smile. “You think the love I have for you can fit in a heart this small? It’s grown so big outside of it, bug. And this gold heart is meant for trickery.” She wagged her brows playfully.
“And treats!”
“And treats.” She’d tickle me. I’d giggle and calm down as she said, “When you get older, you’ll see.”
I did see her fill the heart with lies. With stock photos of men she’d call “soul mates” who passed tragically. With pictures of us she’d call beloved “godchildren.” With Pomeranians she never had.
I loved her heart of lies because it was our cherished secret. Maybe that was the treat, knowing where the deceit was kept, knowing I was in on the truth. She was honest with me.
I’m stunned when she brushes back my hair and drapes the necklace around my throat, clasping the locket. The gold heart thumps over my breastbone. Light and less cumbersome than I thought it’d be.
“A sympathy gift from Isla,” she says. “A belated birthday gift from your mom.” She squeezes my hand.
My real heart flip-flops. We turned twenty-five last month. “Is May twenty-ninth even our actual birthday?” I ask her.
“Yes, it is,” she assures, careful of eavesdroppers again before whispering, “but I didn’t give birth in a hospital. I delivered you at a beach rental in Pensacola and paid off the midwife. There is no record of you anywhere. Every lie was simply to protect you. It was never meant to hurt you.”