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)
“What would it take to get over him?” Jake suddenly asks me.
I can’t help but laugh. “If I had that answer, don’t you think I would’ve gotten over him already?”
He’s quiet until he says, “You think fake dating me will help?”
It hasn’t yet. “Do you hope it does?” I question back.
“Maybe,” he answers plainly.
“How indecisive of you, Jake.”
“Maybe yes,” he corrects. “Is that better?”
“Maybe,” I tease.
He almost laughs. Again, I swish my empty drink. He leans over to pour some of his own apple cider in my cup.
I mutter, “Thanks.” He’s sweet. Yet, my guards haven’t collapsed to the ground.
He sips his apple cider, staring at little twin siblings with tiger and fairy face paint. They’re trying to play with an oversized chess set while their oblivious parents gab with adult friends.
“I just don’t want Rocky to interfere with us,” he admits, his gaze flitting to me. “This arrangement is helping me more than you know.”
I frown deeply. “There’s more in it for you than pissing off your mom?”
“Yeah.” He takes a tight breath before saying, “Her name was Natalie Betchel. My last girlfriend.”
I watch his brows crinkle at what I assume is a painful memory.
After a beat, he says, “She was stunning, top of her class at Brown, and played doubles tennis on the weekends at the club. She was perfect for my family.” He stares off in a faraway haze. “Every girlfriend I’ve had, my mother loved. Obsessively.”
I can relate. Kind of. It’s not like Rocky and I have ever really been together, but my mother’s obsession is there.
I stay quiet. And he fills the silence. “I was with Natalie for two years, and my mother insisted she come to every family meal, attend every charity function, every single thing that warranted an arm hooked to mine or a stand-in for my absence. In my mother’s eyes, she was nothing more than a malleable thing.”
My stomach drops. Okay, my mother is not the same. She wouldn’t treat my significant other like a chess piece . . . unless they were a mark for a job.
“Why not just tell Natalie to stop listening to your mom?” I wonder.
“I did do that.” His forehead is pleated in distress like he’s traveling back to that time and place. “A thousand times, I did. But she wanted to please my family. All my girlfriends have always wanted to please my family. It wasn’t long before Natalie’s dreams of being a corporate attorney were traded in for ball gowns and afternoon tea. Then my brothers invited her to their parties and after-parties and yacht trips. And I saw her wasting away under three a.m. nights filled with coke and cashed-in dreams. Being around my family any longer would have either killed her or changed her beyond recognition, so I broke things off.”
I’m not surprised by the move, but I still ask, “Even though you loved her?”
He stares at his cup. “If I loved her more, I would have never let her enter that world. My family . . . they can be . . .” He struggles for a word before he says, “parasitic.” He winces. “I’ve watched so many innocent things slowly decay in their presence. And they keep pressuring me to find someone new to date. I’m worried any longer and my mother will just matchmake me with the first girl she finds.”
It clicks. “And you don’t want that new innocent person to become another Natalie.”
“Or worse,” he breathes out.
“So you’re dating me instead.” I nod along, since I can connect with his intent. “You’re protecting a bystander from walking into the insidious webs of your family. So . . . I’m like your shield.”
He smiles at the analogy. “If you’re my shield, then I’m your crown.” He brings the apple cider to his mouth again. “Here to grant you access into the kingdom.” He swigs the last of his drink.
I pour mine back in his cup. “According to you, it’s filled with vipers.”
“I think you can handle yourself.” He looks me over. “I don’t think you’re easily malleable, Phoebe.” Rocky believes I am. He thinks my mother has been manipulating me. No . . . there’s just no way. It’s still difficult to really make sense of that possibility.
I look up, just as Jake leans in closer. He smooths a strand of my hair behind my ear. Out of the corner of my eye, I suddenly realize we’re being watched by Claudia’s friends. I’m more caught off guard that I’ve slipped and forgotten.
“Dating you beats the alternative,” he continues in thought, his blue eyes tracing mine with softer affection. He’s not too bad at pretending.
“The alternative is what?” I ask. “Being a bachelor forever?”
He nods. “Which I would do, if I had to.”
I almost open up and divulge that I, too, always believed I’d be single forever. Living the bachelorette life. But I’d have to explain my upbringing to really dig into those weeds. So I just rest into his side like a real girlfriend. Someone who can have him.