Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
I’m tossing antiseptic cream into a basket at my feet when Jake calls me.
Phoebe. She’s the first person I think about.
Phoebe is at the country club today.
Phoebe is with Jake.
Phoebe is supposed to break up with Jake.
Raw concern for her is a shot of adrenaline, and I answer on the first ring. “Hi, Jake.” I narrow a glare at bottles of supplements. Magnesium. 250 mg. Melatonin. I calm down so my voice isn’t caustic. “This better be about my new equestrian purchase.”
I hope this has absolutely nothing to do with Phoebe. But it doesn’t hurt to remind Jake of two things. One, that I’ve recently done him a solid by buying his dead sister’s horse. And two, that I know he helped fake her death.
So if he fucks with Phoebe, I will bury him.
“It’s not about that.” Jake sighs like talking to me isn’t on his top-ten list of daily desires. He wouldn’t even make my top one hundred, so why the fuck is he calling me? “Listen, Grey…” He lets his voice taper off.
I wait and wait for more. There’s nothing.
“You afraid to talk to me, Jake?”
“I just want you to think about what I’m going to say rather than react,” Jake explains. “Please.” His voice has lowered to a whisper.
I scan the wellness aisle and smile kindly at an older woman who passes by. She beams back, and I tell her, “Have a good day” before she leaves for a beauty supply section.
“Where are you?” I ask into the phone.
“The country club.”
“But where?”
“The hall…outside guest locker rooms.”
Interesting. He wants something from me, but if he didn’t want anyone to overhear, he should’ve gone to the bathroom or slipped into a closet. While I read the label on the melatonin, I say, “I’m listening.”
“I know you want Phoebe to break up with me.”
“She wants to break up with you, too.”
“She also expressed that,” he says. “But I really need this to continue, at least until my family dinner.”
Hell no. “We’re together,” I force out. “Me. Phoebe. We got back together.” So fuck off.
I couldn’t care less that he’s the first to know. I want it to be vitally clear that she’s mine and she’ll never belong to him.
“Yeah, Phoebe told me,” Jake whispers.
A smile tries to pull at my lips. She already told him we’re together.
Then I realize Jake likely couldn’t accept Phoebe saying “We’re breaking up right now,” and so she had to throw out the truth to get him off her back. Or half-truth—considering this isn’t two divorcés mending a relationship.
The entire town and Jake believe Phoebe is my ex-wife. When in reality, we’ve never actually been together outside of a con. Not until now.
I just hate that he’s pressuring her to keep this shit going.
Jake adds, “She even warmed up to the idea of staying with me—which is why I’m calling you. She told me I needed you to say yes, basically.”
Why would Phoebe want this to continue? What’d he pitch to her?
I return the melatonin bottle to the shelf. “I’m saying no.”
“Hear me out, please.” He’s desperate. Then I hear the pitch that Phoebe likely got. He goes into this whole spiel about his overbearing mother pairing him off with Julia Kelsey, a shy twenty-two-year-old who’s susceptible to manipulation and won’t survive the cutthroat nature of the social elite. He’s protecting Julia—a girl I’ve met briefly in town.
And yes, she’s quiet. Yes, she will be chewed up and spit out.
“But what about Phoebe?” I ask him.
“Phoebe’s different. She can handle this family dinner.”
Fire brews in my chest, burning my lungs. “Your mother hates her.”
“Phoebe can hold her own. She’s capable and something of a spitfire.”
Hearing him describe Phoebe to me like I don’t really know her is aggravating on several accounts. “She’s capable,” I repeat. “You want her to take shit from your mom while you protect soft little Julia. Just because Phoebe can take it.” Fuck him.
“Phoebe wants to help,” he counters. “She cares about Julia, too.”
“The answer is no.” While he’s out here protecting Julia, all I care about—all I can think about—is protecting Phoebe. She’s not his tool, and it pisses me off that he’s trying to use her under some moral pretense.
“Can you please think about this?” he whispers. “Please. Phoebe is okay with it. Why can’t you be?”
“Because I don’t care about little fucking Julia,” I whisper coldly into the phone, then I eye a middle-aged man who enters the aisle. I exit with my basket and slip into a quiet section stocked with condoms and lube.
I don’t tell Jake that I care about five people. Just five. For that list to grow, I’d be more susceptible to manipulation. So I have no soft spots for these “damsels” that Jake is so adamant on shoving out of his social circle. And clearly, he hopes to save them from becoming distressed.