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)
Nova scrapes his hand back and forth over his buzz cut. He turns his back to us, his expression so tightly wound, I know he’s swallowing a furious scream.
“Don’t kid yourself,” Rocky tells her sharply. “He’ll want to fuck his wife.”
“Not me,” Hailey says.
“That’s a big if, Hailstorm,” Oliver says lightly.
Jake shakes his head repeatedly. “If you don’t put out, Hailey, he won’t want to marry you.”
“Maybe he still will.” Her glazed faraway eyes haven’t come into focus. “This will work.”
Varrick smiles.
No.
She’s pregnant.
“I’ll do it,” I interject as I spring onto my feet. I avoid Rocky, or else I might break down and cry.
“You can’t,” Hailey breathes.
“I’d rather you not, Phoebe,” Varrick suddenly says.
My face contorts. “So, you’d want Hailey to marry a sleazebag but not me?”
“You’re my daughter.”
Like that means something? My stomach somersaults. “This is what I was trained to do.” It hurts even saying it. “And doesn’t it make more sense to be me? Trent is already trying to get with me this summer.”
“To fuck you,” Rocky emphasizes so it drills into my head. The pain in his narrowed eyes is eviscerating. “There is no avenue where Trent marries you and won’t want to fuck you, Phoebe. Do you understand that?”
I understand helping my best friend.
I understand completing the job.
I’ve understood sacrificing my body time and time again to do it, and this town—this place was my fresh start.
My new start.
“You gave up this role for a reason,” Hailey says, her gray eyes lifting to mine. “You can’t go back.”
I know she’s right. I just don’t know how to help her if I’m not the one taking the stray bullets. “Hails…”
“I can do this,” she says to me. “You’ve all put yourselves at risk every time I’ve placed you on the board. I think it’s time I put myself in the game. It’s only fair.”
Not now.
“Inertia,” I tell her, my eyes welling with burning tears. “Inertia.” I’m invoking our childhood pact that sent me here to Victoria, that changed the course of our lives.
An object will continue at its current motion until some force causes a change in its speed or direction.
I’m that force this time.
Hailey rises from the couch and comes closer to where I stand. “It’s a piece of paper. A marriage certificate. It’s nothing.”
“It’s Trent.”
Hailey wraps her arms around me. I wrap mine around her in a tighter hug, and it feels like we’re alone in the parlor. Just the two of us with our lifelong friendship and love. She whispers against my ear, “I need to do this. Please, Phebs. Take it back.”
Take the inertia back.
I didn’t realize just how much guilt she’s felt over past jobs. Especially for the Fiddle Game, the con she constructed in Carlsbad. I want her to feel absolved, but I wish it weren’t in this way—putting herself at risk like she’s put us at risk over so many years.
“Now’s not the best time,” I whisper to her.
“It’s just a summer job.”
Her baby isn’t due until December.
Very quietly, she whispers to me, “Can you imagine if it all ends here? This could be it, Phoebe. I-I know I haven’t been well, but I need you to believe I can be. I need you to believe I am.”
I have the utmost faith in her. I really, really do.
“I need to do this,” she pleads. “Please.”
“I take it back.”
EIGHTEEN
Rocky
As if Trent wasn’t a lesion festering on my skin enough—now this. With my sister. I want to reject it on the pure basis that Varrick set it up. I want to reject it because Hailey really shouldn’t be taking lead in this type of role. But she’s right when she says, “It’s our bread and butter.”
It should be easy for us.
This job is typical Tinrock-Graves fare. Phoebe has been engaged to dirtbags. I’ve been married to marks. Legally, sure, under the name Cal Creighton. So fake. I can’t even count my marriages to Phoebe. Some lasting five hours for a short con, some lasting months for long ones.
Now I’m Grey Thornhall. Legally divorced from Phoebe Smith. Thanks to Carter for gouging me for those papers. Hailey’s marriage will also be fake in the sense that she’s not really Hailey Thornhall, but it is a name that she wanted to be hers for longer than a job.
Then again, most jobs like this have been challenging in a different way. The emotional ties we have to each other make this type of deception feel like quicksand.
I’m used to fighting the grip against my legs.
Oliver, also a professional.
Jake, not at all.
He’s the one shaking his head before Varrick is even out the door.
I’m the first one to speak once Nova confirms Varrick has left not only the hidden parlor but the attached smoking room. “I don’t like that Varrick is dictating shit,” I tell my sister. “If this were your choice to start, it’d be different, but it feels like he trapped you here.”