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)
“No, thank you.” I sit a little straighter. “We’ll be fine here as servers.”
“And how have you managed in one of Connecticut’s richest towns as a server?” Not well. “Have you been dependent on your landlord?”
Yes. I swallow a sip of macchiato. “Jake has covered our rent for more than a few months,” I admit.
She leans back with a slight smile, liking this answer. “You should keep squeezing him.”
Guilt flips my stomach. “It’s not like that. He’s just being kind.”
“And you’re using his kindness to your advantage.” She slips designer sunglasses over her eyes. “I’ll have to tell Bethy all isn’t lost with you two. Somewhere, deep down, you and Phoebe know this is the right path.”
I’m not so sure myself anymore. I despise the insinuation that I’m using Jake for his money. All my mom sees is what he can provide us, and I haven’t envisioned him as a pot of gold I’m trying to reach. It’d make me no better than all the ladies scrambling to be the next Mrs. Jake Koning Waterford.
But he is supposed to pay us out at the end.
So am I really any better?
I want off this Jake Waterford merry-go-round, so I begin thinking about my childhood. About the jobs I never questioned because I’d receive little details when I did.
You weren’t a part of those, she’d say. I can’t incriminate you. That time is long gone, Hailey.
I want to know her past. Because it’s mine, too. “I was in Newport when I was little, wasn’t I? Around four?”
“Around then.” She picks up her wine again, her voice incredibly stilted, but the warning look in her eye tells me to drop it.
I won’t. Not anymore. “You said you adopted me so Phoebe would grow up with another girl. Like you and Elizabeth were childhood friends. Well, I remember being at a fancy estate with Oliver, but why was I separated from Phoebe? Why keep me from her when we were little?”
She peers around.
At first, I think it’s to avoid my question, but I realize she’s just calculating how many people could be listening over the music, chatter, and sea.
“We were in Newport for a short time back then.” She speaks in a quieter tone. “A piggyback job.”
I assume they befriended New England socialites, then influenced them to pay their tabs and hotel fees with promises of “I’ll get you next time, of course” only to then disappear. “Did something go south?” I ask.
“Not at all. It went perfect.” She takes a tiny sip, staring more at the liquid than at me. “But it was necessary to have Phoebe be with Brayden.”
Brayden. Rocky’s birth name. “You were trying to pair Phoebe and Rocky together that young?”
“No,” she emphasizes like this is absurd. “Brayden was…he was a traumatized little boy. He had these screaming fits, and the only way he’d calm down was when he was around Phoebe. We didn’t know why he felt safe with her, and we didn’t question it. So when we were in Newport at a family’s estate, we didn’t want a meltdown from my six-year-old to cause attention. The horrible woman we were deceiving would make comments about ill-mannered children, and she’d cast us aside if she thought mine made a scene.”
I process this slowly. “You could’ve let me be with Phoebe and Rocky then.”
“You were a shy child. It was better if you were around Oliver. He made you less skittish—darling, stop…” She trails off, and I catch myself picking at my cuticles while she catches herself lecturing me.
Tension builds between us.
My face contorts as mistrust circles through me. “Or…you were attempting to match me with Oliver. To see which pairing would stick—”
“You were four. We cared more about whether you all were fed, bathed, clothed, and if you’d say anything inappropriate to the wrong people.” To their marks, she means. “We were only twenty-seven back then. We weren’t thinking decades ahead.”
I want to believe you.
God, I do.
It hurts that there’s any doubt. But I spent months in tormented, sleepless nights trying to track down the holes she left in her lies.
She can see the pain cross my face. I don’t have to say words. Not when it comes to her. We speak through our eyes. Her carriage rises in a deep, aching breath.
“I’m telling you the truth,” she professes. “I’m honest now. With everything.”
“I’m trying to believe that.” The pieces of our relationship are large fragmented shards, and maybe with time, they’ll be able to be glued back together one day.
But right now, I can’t shake how she spent my entire life making me believe I was her biological daughter. Making me believe Trevor and Rocky were my biological brothers.
In reality, I was adopted from foster care. Trevor is the son of a rich, elitist couple like the ones we scam. My parents, Addison and Everett Tinrock, paid the couple’s surrogate to give the newborn to them instead.