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)
She’s trying not to smile. “Don’t.”
“Be a little more convincing next time and maybe I’ll consider it.”
She groans out like I’m horrible, but she’s also fighting a grin.
Then I swing the door open. All dark banter vacates the loft. Because I face the ever so fucking tall Jake Koning Waterford.
“Hey, sorry.” He’s out of breath, and he looks like a sopping-wet golden retriever.
Water drips off his light brown hair, and a soaked blue button-down suctions to his six-pack and chest. Look who forgot an umbrella and probably sprinted through the rain.
I hope he drowns in the thunderstorm and slips into a sewer and eats shit.
“Are you all right?” Phoebe asks.
Is he all right? “He’s fine, Phebs.”
“I am fine,” Jake interjects, finally filling his lungs with oxygen. He wipes the wet rain trails off his face with one hand. “I just got caught in the rain, and I wanted to check on Hailey. She asked me for some books from my family’s library, and I met her last night at Seaside Griddle to give them to her…but she seemed off. She wouldn’t let me walk her home, and it’s kept me up all night. She is here, right?”
Phoebe sends me an I told you so smug expression. She’s just short of saying, See, Jake cares.
I grip either side of the doorframe so Phoebe doesn’t butt in and soften this exchange. “Ever hear of this modern device used to call people?” I mime a phone with my hand. “Hey, Grey, how’s your sister doing? Good? Great. Bye.” I hang up and force an acidic smile. “Is it that hard?”
“With you, yeah.” He nods strongly. “Yeah, it can be, Grey. You’re a real fucking piece of work, and it boggles my mind how you could even have a sister as nice as Hailey and a wife like Phoebe—though, the ex part of wife, I definitely get.”
I boil. “Your presence is unwelcome.”
Jake has a hardened scowl.
“It irks you,” I say. “Mr. I Own This Town being told he doesn’t belong somewhere.”
“You’re in my loft.”
“Yeah.” I look at him head-on. “I fucked your fake girlfriend in it.”
Jake is borderline enraged.
“On your kitchen counter. Against your cabinets. And I’ll continue fucking her. Over and over again.”
He controls his anger enough to find Phoebe behind me. He’s protective of her—that is vitally clear now.
But as soon as he catches sight of Phoebe, something switches in his face. Uncertainty?
It’s this moment that I peer over at her.
Her breath is shallow. Each lungful pushes her perked nipples against her cropped blue T-shirt. Jake sees that she’s turned on by me, and I hate that he’s staring at her tits.
I shove him back from the entryway and grip the door, about to slam it closed and meet him on the landing in private.
But Phoebe grabs the knob. “Rocky, seriously, don’t.”
She can keep the door open. It isn’t stopping me from pushing Jake up against the fucking wall. At the top of the stairwell, he extends his arms in a slight surrender, but I say between gritted teeth, “You’re pissing on the wrong grass. Find a new plot of land that doesn’t belong to her or my sister.”
Jake exhales a slow, taxing breath, and his muscles loosen like he’s relinquishing this fight. “Okay, okay.” When I let him go, I expect him to say a quick goodbye to Phoebe and get the hell out of here, but he lingers.
I run my tongue against my molars.
He expresses deeply, “I only want to check on Hailey. Then I’ll go.”
Jesus, he’s not giving up. I would respect it more if I liked him more.
“Rocky, it’s okay,” Phoebe says. “It’s pouring out. Just let him inside. We can ask Hailey if she wants to see him.”
“We’re friends,” Jake professes to me. “We go to the same book club on Tuesdays. Look, I just need to know she’s all right.”
“You don’t believe me when I tell you she is?”
“No offense, but I’d feel better if I saw with my own two eyes.”
Funny enough, I relate to that feeling. I understand needing more than words so you aren’t sold a bag of lies, and it’s not the first time I’ve found Jake relatable. I hate that it’s swaying me, but here we are.
Against sound judgement, I let him through.
We’re not even two steps into the kitchen, and I instantly regret it. Because my nineteen-year-old brother stumbles weakly out of Hailey’s bedroom in a slim, black Brioni suit with various white gold rings on each finger like he’s planning to dine at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
“Where are you going?” I ask him, trying to ignore the confusion radiating off Jake.
“Out.”
I put a hand to his chest. “Like hell.” He can barely stand up straight without wincing. His arm is hovering over his abdomen. And underneath the designer suit is a bandage, stitches, and a fresh stab wound.