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)
Ex-grifter Phoebe Graves’ new life threatens to come crashing down around her in the next unputdownable novel from the New York Times bestselling authors of the Addicted series.
As the daughter of a con artist, Phoebe Graves only knew a life of swindling the rich until her best friend and fellow grifter, Hailey Tinrock, proposed an idea to start a new, honest life in a wealthy college town of Connecticut. Once there, they decided to leave behind their deceitful tricks and be truthful for once. But you know what they say about best intentions. . . .
While Phoebe is fake-dating Jake Waterford, the third-born son to an uber-wealthy and influential family, she’s actually dating and falling deeper in love with Brayden “Rocky” Tinrock—Hailey’s older brother. To make matters more complicated, Phoebe’s mother shows up out of the blue with conniving match-making designs of her own.
Her mother’s arrival threatens to unravel Phoebe’s plans. To keep her love, her friends, and her newfound happiness, Phoebe will have to return to her old games . . . and win
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Believe nothing you hear, and only half of what you see.
—Edgar Allan Poe
PROLOGUE
Phoebe
Eight Years Ago
The Rip Deal
Malibu, California
I stare wide-eyed at a pink, a black, and a bright neon-green bikini splayed on the king-sized bed—a bed that I’ve called mine for four whopping whole days. “Why is this so hard for you?” I mutter to myself. “It’s an outfit, not a math problem. Get your shit together.”
Don’t talk to yourself out loud, bug. It’s a bad tell. Keep that up here. I hear my mom’s tip and imagine her tapping her temple with a wink. These four walls don’t need to know I’m an anxious, nervous mess. Lest I slip up in front of the things that do matter.
The four-poster bed!
The joke falls flat in my head, and I let out an audible wheezy laugh. Am I really this pathetic?
No.
I’m adept. Savvy. Confident.
I won’t slip up in front of any mark. Not for this job.
Seduce a self-absorbed, self-proclaimed “rich kid” from Malibu. In the ever-moving career of swindling the rich and handsy assholes of the world, I’ve been granted a new project. Hailey’s mom and my mom are trusting I can knock the pants off Kellan Fields while they handle more complicated threads to the larger Rip Deal, which involves screwing his father out of half a million via an under-the-table cash deal and sleight of hand. I know I have one of the easier roles.
It shouldn’t be that hard.
I’m sixteen.
This really isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve batted my lashes at boarding-school boys, and they’ve fallen for every trick in the temptress handbook. I’ve made out with an older guy in his Lambo, too, even if the actual act of being lip-locked with him is hazy in my head. I can’t remember what I did.
My short time here in Malibu has been going…okay. Day one, I “accidentally” bumped into Kellan on the pier. Day two, I went on the most boring coffee date where he name-dropped A-listers and spent a solid hour listing off the specs of his Ferrari and yammering on about his father’s yacht.
It’d been fine.
Until the end of the date when we kissed, and he reacted…strange. It caught me off guard. He thinks I’m eighteen like him, and I’m afraid my mere persona screamed adolescent! at some point. This con can’t unravel because of me.
Now he’s invited me to a beach bonfire with his friends, and I’d like to open the sliding glass doors to my new bedroom, step onto the porch, fling all three bikinis at the million-dollar ocean view, and hope the wind carries them into the Pacific.
Then my decision would be made for me.
I could just go naked.
Problem solved. The fact that I’m a second from Googling whether this is a nude beach means I’ve really lost it.
A knock sounds before my door creaks open. A second opinion. Thank God. I exhale. “Hailey,” I say without turning. “I need your help. Please, please rank these from classy slut to trashy slut. I can’t figure out what I should be wearing tonight.” I pick up the black bikini with the low-cut top and G-string bottoms and whirl around to…
My face flames. “Not Hailey.” So much for keeping my inner thoughts to myself.
Rocky raises his brows. “Not Hailey.”
My entire body roasts on a spit at being caught in a distraught state about an absurdly dumb thing like clothes in front of my best friend’s older brother.
After shutting the door, he strides farther into my room. My heart flip-flops as the space between us depletes.
His gaze falls to the bikini I’m holding. “That one is fucking trashy.”
“You haven’t even seen it,” I combat. It’s balled in my fist.
He extends a hand. “Pass it then.”
Heat bathes my face ten times more, and it’s not like I haven’t worked a con with Rocky. I’ve worked most cons right alongside him, but I would greatly like to default to his sister’s advice right now because A) Hailey is a beautiful genius and B) she’s not the one I have a crush on!
Except, the idea of not giving him the bikini, of not reeling him closer and finding out what happens next—that sounds boring. My pulse speeds as I place the bikini in Rocky’s hand, and I bask in the adrenaline rush.
It’s me, deciding my fate, my next move.
It’s him, his eyes on mine for an extended beat. Like he sees who I am before he sees the shape of my body.
Our fingers brush as I retract, and a weird sensation pulsates inside me and tickles my skin. I try not to wobble at his closeness or how he’s touching the string that might go between my legs tonight. You don’t like him. He’s annoying. He’s ugly.
Yeah. Right.
He needs to do something supremely aggravating right fucking now, so I can ignore the Jupiter-sized crush I have on him.