Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126927 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126927 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
He might feel ten times more brotherly toward Sidney since his sister is no longer alive. Makes sense.
Still hate him.
Behind me, I catch more mutterings: “It’s so cute how Jake is protecting Phoebe.”
“God, I know.”
“Her and Grey are so toxic.”
A painful knot constricts in my rib cage. Seeing Sidney Burke reminds me of her father. And how Jake is a better repellent against Weston Burke than I’d been.
Weston Burke hasn’t approached Phoebe while she’s serving at the country club, not since the clambake. All because she’s dating a Koning.
Maybe Jake is protecting her in ways that I can’t.
I don’t want to believe it. Phoebe doesn’t trust him fully. Protecting her from him is the reality I’m standing in.
“You done?” Jake asks like he’s the valiant hero of this dramatic scene.
I grind my teeth and then force a smile at Jake. “Never. And if you ever hurt her—”
“Really?” He lets out a laugh of disbelief. “I wouldn’t dare, but you . . .” He canvasses me up and down. “Who knows what you’re capable of?”
A lot.
But not that.
“Jake,” Phoebe warns quietly. “Please, just let him go.”
At the sound of her voice, his posture loosens more, but he hasn’t shifted away from my narrowed gaze. “I’m not keeping him here.”
“Push him in the fountain!” someone jeers.
“Oh my God, no,” Phoebe warns me now. “Rocky.”
Jake doesn’t stop glaring. I’m shooting an everlasting glare back, but I end up raising my hands in surrender. “Not today, folks.”
Some people boo, but I hear a lady call me a bastard for even wanting to push their precious Koning boy in the town’s historical fountain.
As much as I’d love to lightly drown him, I can’t have his family rallying behind him and trying to charge me with assault. So without another word, I just leave the fake couple to do their fake thing, and I return to Hailey and her half-carved pumpkin feeling no better than before.
Thirty
Phoebe
A lump lodges in my throat as I watch Rocky depart like a dark, ominous cloud. Every part of me craves to run after him, to call him back, to share the same torrid air. But I shouldn’t want those things.
It’ll only fuel the town’s obsessions with this warped love triangle—and to be frank, it’s already chaos.
Judgy eyes.
Gossipy whispers.
They still linger after Rocky is gone.
Face hot, I take a short breath. Within this chaos, I’ve gained a semblance of a social standing that I can wedge my feet on. Jake is my boyfriend. People are starting to sympathize with me, and I’ve even been summoned to a future Koning family dinner. Which I’m told is the equivalent of being handed a golden ticket to the chocolate factory.
But being summoned feels nothing like a warm welcome. I’m expecting to be grilled and eviscerated. Jake’s mother has been forty feet away all day and hasn’t even said boo to me.
Luckily, that’s the coldest invitation I’ve received. Mrs. Kelsey asked me to an afternoon tea with her and her twenty-two-year-old daughter. “You’d make lovely friends,” she told me. I’m aware that I’m just being used because of my proximity to Jake, and being one degree away from town royalty has its perks.
Those benefits make it easier to keep up the charade and sink into my natural role of pretending. At the festival, I’ve maintained full focus on Jake.
Until now.
I’m watching Rocky return to the pumpkin carving table by Hailey and Oliver, and my stomach somersaults while my heart volleys in my chest. It’s a fabricated love triangle, isn’t it? Then why do I feel like there is a real loser? Why don’t I want that person to be Rocky?
It’s impossible to look away from him, even as I sense Jake’s intense side-eye on me.
“You still have feelings for him,” Jake says under his breath.
I’ve always had feelings for him. I punt-kick that thought away and avert my eyes to my empty cup. All my apple cider was chugged in one anxious gulp.
Off my silence, his attention travels across the festival. “Come this way . . .” Jake brings me around the fountain, closer to the cast-iron swan spurting water, and I realize he chose this spot because of the ambient noise. The sound of splashing drowns out our conversation from possible eavesdroppers.
Instinctively, I want to glance at Rocky, but I force myself to concentrate on Jake. What every awesome fake girlfriend would do.
His fingers glide against my elbow before he gently takes my hand in his. It’s featherlight affection that I should try to naturally lean into, but I’m a little stiff. I can see he’s doing it for show anyway. And he’s good at it.
He’s good at pretending. At lying. At hiding something.
It unnerves me that I don’t know more. That information is gridlocked behind a wall that I can’t reach.
Together, we take a seat on the fountain’s brick edge, and most of the town’s gossipmongers stroll away like the show is over. Nothing to see here, people. I swish my cup but remember it’s empty.