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)
I put my arms around him and bring him into my chest.
This ends his position as Trent’s friend. Our reunion again. So, if he wanted, he could push me off, but all he does is hold on.
Trevor has always wanted my role. He’s always wanted to be in a position where he’d manipulate a mark face-to-face. I never thought that, finally given the chance, he’d hate it.
I doubt he thought he’d hate it, too.
He adds in a tortured breath, “I’m not as good as you.”
My heart. My kid. “You’re right,” I breathe out. “You’re better, Trev.” I never wanted this for him. I never wanted him to be me. The fact that he can’t stomach it—maybe I did one good thing here.
He winces up at the sky. “I’m screwing this up. Tonight.”
“We can make this work. Just go back to Stonehaven. You’re out.”
His nose flares. “I can help with the boa—”
“No.” I glower. “Go…be with Sidney. Be a fucking teenager for once in your life.” Forget about this, I want to add. But he’s already pulling out his phone, I hope to text her. Sidney officially moved into the Reynoldses’ boathouse last weekend. Completely cut off from Weston Burke, her new independent life is being funded by Hailey and Phoebe’s meager savings. How long that’ll last—no clue. I have bigger issues to deal with.
Trevor’s eyes flit up from his phone. “What are you still doing here?”
I push away. Time to go. “Thanks for the reminder, shithead.”
When I’m five feet down the hill, he calls out, “Rocky.” I turn, and his eyes soften on me before he gives me the middle finger.
I smile, and I give him two back.
His lips rise.
I hang on to that.
I have to. Because I can’t look for Phoebe. The very last thing I need to do is see her face before I go to the boat. My resolve won’t last.
And I need to do this—for all of us. Pull the rope. Bite or get bitten.
* * *
—
“Let’s sit in the bow,” Varrick suggests, fisting the neck of a champagne bottle. We’re not on his boat. But I love how he’s calling the shots here. So fucking gracious of him.
We’re technically on Oliver’s speedboat. The Salty Miss is moored at sea among dozens of other vessels for the Fourth of July. From catamarans to large yachts to other midsized speedboats.
Varrick agreed to take the Salty Miss to the Bennets’ party—the mansion and private docks in view from the water—mainly for privacy. His yacht needs staff to operate it. This boat, we can drive ourselves.
The air is a mess of noise.
Of sizzling and hissing fireworks. Of boisterous laughter and chatter and pumping music from other boats and onshore. My temples pound as we congregate in the curved bow seating. I lean closer to just hear him speak.
“I want to make this right,” Varrick tells his son. He pours champagne into Nova’s flute, then mine, then his own. Only the three of us on the boat. “You should feel like you can ask me anything, and maybe I didn’t make that clear enough from the beginning.”
Varrick isn’t desperate to regain Nova’s trust—not when he barely had it in the first place. But he does want to maintain this relationship, especially since keeping Nova close ensures he’s close to Phoebe.
I told Varrick I had news to share about his daughter. That I needed to do it somewhere private and that the Fourth of July was probably the best time. He believed me because I wasn’t lying, so he said, “Let’s bring Nova. I need to make some inroads with him, too.”
I let out a laugh. “Yeah, you do. Good luck with that,” I told him.
His lips quirked. “I’m not shocked I produced a stubborn son. Their mother is the same.”
I never considered Elizabeth as stubborn. Maybe she has always been stubbornly determined to protect her children from him.
Nova is clutching the champagne flute so tight, I’m surprised it doesn’t shatter in his fist. His cheek is stitched and bandaged. Boating accident, he’s told people in his gruff don’t ask me more Nova way.
Honestly…he shouldn’t be here.
I didn’t want Nova to come, but the mental fuckery I’d need to perform just to talk Varrick out of it was too much. So that is precisely why this boat meeting is a three-person affair and not two.
Nova runs a hand over his head. “I have questions that I know you won’t answer.”
“Try me first.” Varrick sips the bubbling liquor. “Have some faith, Nova.”
I tilt my ear to them, listening while I scan the water.
“Fine.” Nova glares. “Where are you from?”
“America. Now, where exactly was I born? Toledo.”
“Ohio?” I raise my brows.
“You know your geography,” he quips with a smile into another sip. I hate this conversation already.
“And Elizabeth?” Nova nods over at him.
“Huh.” Varrick leans back with a breathy laugh of surprise. “I would’ve thought she’d trust her own children with that information.”