Chapter Seven
SEVEN
Rocky
None of us say a word after Hailey passes out the letters, and we all rip them open.
Dear Mr. Grey Thornhall,
I’m formally inviting four well-to-do families to my beautiful home on the sea this summer. The Konings, the Bennets, the Thornhalls, and the Smiths. If you’d do me the highest honor in coming to summer at Stonehaven, it will be to your utmost benefit and my utmost gratitude.
As you know, I have no living heir. I’d love the chance to get to know each of you better, as I’d prefer to leave the Wolfe fortune to either a founding family of Victoria or new residents who’ve certainly made their mark.
There are no games to be played. I’d simply like to spend time with you over the summer in a more personal setting.
My doors are open, and if you accept this invite, please meet me on The Ithaka (my yacht docked at the harbor) on the first Saturday of May at 4 p.m. with your bags packed for the long-extended stay.
No RSVP required.
Sincerely,
Varrick Wolfe
Oliver and Nova switch letters, probably to ensure they say the same thing. I’ve already peeked at Phoebe’s and know it’s identical except for it being addressed to Ms. Phoebe Smith.
“It’s a setup?” Oliver asks Hailey.
“It’s a possibility.”
“How?” Jake questions.
“We don’t know if he actually wants to name an heir, or if he’s luring us there for another purpose,” Hailey explains.
“We should accept,” I say, my throat scorched with acid. “At the very least, I’m accepting.”
The only thing I’ve wanted more than revenge is Phoebe, and I doubt I’d lose her by summering at Stonehaven. Considering she also wants to skewer Varrick like he’s a Christmas ham. Being closer to him will give us information. Leverage. We’ve had so few interactions, and I need this to change.
Even if he’s trying to trap us, I know how to walk around one and push someone else in.
Jake rubs his face too many times. He’s wincing.
I shoot him a harsh look. “What is it?”
He sighs out, “This might actually solve a problem.” One he clearly isn’t excited about sharing, and I realize why when he informs us that Trent is getting this fucking loft.
Great.
Oliver rotates his pear. “Looks like we’re all going to be sleeping in the spider’s nest.” He bites out a chunk, and he’s right. There’s no big discussion because it’s just known.
We’re better when we’re all together.
“Rocky, can I talk to you for a sec?” Hailey asks, her eyes glued to her letter.
“Yeah.” Pulling away from Phoebe, I follow my sister into her bedroom, and I shut the door with my shoulder blades while she sinks onto the edge of a checkered quilt.
“What’s going on, Hails?” I ask, thinking this might be about Phebs, but as soon as she starts speaking, I know I’m wrong.
It’s about me.
“I’ve realized the most advantageous position for you to be in when it comes to Varrick, and I hate having to ask you to do this…so you can say no.”
“It can’t be worse than befriending Trent Waterford.”
Her eyes glaze, and that’s all I need to know it’s going to be so much worse.
“I know you hate him. I know he did monstrous things,” Hailey whispers. “But you have to get him to love you like a son.”
The man who ate his way through the foundation of this house.
The man who murdered my siblings. My parents.
The man who stole from me the ability to even know them.
I have to get him to love me. My stomach roils and flips in on itself. I rake two hot hands through my hair. “What if he’s not capable of loving anyone but himself? It’s likely he’s in the dark triad, and he’s also a con man. He’ll be trying to manipulate me while I’m trying to manipulate him.”
“He doesn’t know you though. Not really. He just needs to believe you trust him more than you’ve ever trusted our parents. You have to give him what he wants.”
“Which is?”
“Us.”
I have to play into his hand. “Okay.” I nod a few times. “I can do it.” I can do anything to see this through to the end.
“One more thing,” she says. “And it’s the most important thing…”
“What?” I ask.
“You can’t love him back.”
I start to laugh hard, but her gray eyes contain real fear. The noise dies in my throat. “You’re serious,” I say, pushing off the door with raised brows. “In what world would I love that man, Hails? Huh?”
“We don’t know how good he is. How charismatic. Convincing.”
“He can’t manipulate me. He won’t,” I assure her. “Don’t be afraid of that. Okay? It’s not an outcome. Don’t let it plague you.”
She nods repeatedly, blinking too much. Staring off too much. Chewing her lip too much. Christ. I’m about to ask how much sleep she clocked last night when the door cracks open behind me.
Jake apologizes for interrupting. “I’m about to go.” His phone is in the pit of his hand. “I just wanted to say bye before I head out to deal with this party Trent is throwing.” His eyes veer from me and stay on my sister as she waves a hand at him.
“See you tomorrow?” she asks.
“Yeah…” He trails off, like maybe he wants to ask something.
Let me guess. I roll my eyes. “Is Oliver spending the night with you?” I ask her. “Not that I give a shit.”
“Maybe,” she tells Jake more than me.
Jake nods slowly.
I feel like I’m in a two-mile-an-hour car crash. I just want it to make fucking impact already. “I’ll go with you,” I tell Jake.
“What?” Jake asks.
“To the fucking party,” I snap. “I need to make an appearance anyway. Your brother has been up my ass all night about it. Let me just tell Phoebe first.”
—
Keys to my McLaren in my hand, I head down the stairwell with Phoebe. “You sure you’re okay?” I ask her. “Because I’m about to leave for fuck knows how long.”
“How will I possibly survive without you for fuck knows how long?” Phoebe laments dramatically. “In that case, I might as well just throw myself down the stairs.”
“Yeah?” I skim the length of her.
“All the way down.”
“Let’s see it then,” I challenge.
Phoebe, stubborn as always, isn’t relenting. “Here I go.”
“I’ll help you.” I seize her waist, then push her so she careens forward.
“Rocky!”
I never let go, and I pull her abruptly back into my chest. Her sharp breath is a slight moan as she presses against me. I see her lips crawl into a smile, one she’s trying to hide.
My smile feels less bitter. “Adrenaline junkie,” I tease.
“You are, too,” she snaps back.
I don’t disagree. When she spins around, one stair below mine, her eyes cradle more questions. “You sure you want to do this?”
“Want? No, but I need to be at this party.” I slide her hair tie off her wrist.
“I meant with Varrick. My dad.” She lets me run my fingers through her blue hair, collecting the strands. “You understand what this means?”
“It means I have to make nice with a sick, malignant tumor. What else is new?” I tie her hair into a high pony. “This has been my life since forever.”
“It doesn’t have to be your life forever,” she whispers into the echoey stairwell.
I search her eyes at rapid speed.
Phoebe so rarely talks about weeks from now, let alone a forever from now. I wonder what she wants—if she’s even figured that out when she’s spent so long being told what to do, when to do it, and who to do it with.
I look her over. “You want me to quit grifting with you?”
She shrugs. “I mean, it’s an option.”
Now I’m on unsteady ground. “I love the control,” I remind her. “You can quit, but I can’t. I’m not going to.”
She nods a few times, staring at her feet, then the wall. “Yeah, I get that.”
“I’d believe you more if you weren’t talking to the stairs.”
She glares right at me. “I get it.”
I stare into her, my muscles cramping. We’ve always been the same, me and her, but I can’t forge an identical path to the one she is now. I’ve never imagined a life without deceit, but I also can’t lose her. “This doesn’t change us.”
“You said befriending Trent is testing your limits. I’m just worried about what this might do to you on a visceral level. Varrick isn’t some random tech boy billionaire with sadistic tendencies. What’s new is that he has history with all of us.”
“What’s the alternative?” I ask, my voice flaming like the end of a match. “We hand over the reins to the godmothers? We run from this town? I want to be in the driver’s seat, Phebs. Not our moms. Not my dad. I need to be behind the wheel.”
She crosses her arms, nodding, understanding. “Control freak,” she teases with a slight smile.
“You love this control freak.”
“Barely.”
“Tell me more lies.” I wind her pony around my fist.
She makes a breathy noise and fists my button-down. “Rocky.” It’s a warning as much as a plea. I pull her pony, wrenching her head backward. Her chin up. She tries to look away from me, and I cup her jaw with my other hand. Not letting her move at all.
Her body flushes with aroused heat. Radiating against me. “You like this,” I whisper over her lips.
“No,” she lies, her knees nearly buckling.
When I share her stair, my legs thread through her thighs, and I bear my weight against her, pinning her to the wall with my build. She tries to move forward, but I press harder into Phoebe.
Her breath shortens.
Hot blood drives straight into my cock. “You want me to kiss the fuck out of you?”
“No,” she says, too breathlessly. “I want you”—she licks her lips, stares me down in challenge—“to fuck off.”
“Keep lying,” I whisper-hiss against her ear. “Tell me how you don’t love my cock deep inside your tight cunt. Tell me how you haven’t been thinking about me pounding into you all night.”
“I’ll tell you something,” she contends in a panting breath. “You can’t have me.”
I grip her face tighter. “Bad girl.”
She lets out a strangled whimper, one that morphs into a high-pitched cry when I cage her hands above her head. Stretching her arms high. “Fuck…off.”
“How about I just fuck you instead, little nightmare?”
“No, stop.” She’s out of breath. I skim her features urgently. Her hips arch into me. Okay…she’s fine.
I resist even kissing Phoebe, the strain obliterating me as much as it does her. Tendons shriek in my arms and neck. My cock is yelling at me to ram inside her, but I go nuts inside this overwhelming, mind-altering, unhinged feeling.
“Let me go,” she tries to growl, but it comes out breathy again.
“The biggest lie of all.”
Her lips part into another soft moan. She tries to push against me.
I push against her. Her heady, loving gaze clings to mine with hot depth I could burn inside.
It’s a blistering tug-of-war with no release.
I’m high on the edging as I nip her bottom lip, as she tries to take more while simultaneously yanking her wrists against my hold.
I don’t let her go.
I smother her. I’m asphyxiating me in our gathering arousal. She mutters out quick, “Stop, stop, stop, no, Rocky,” as I suck the base of her neck and grind my hard confined length against her. As her voice escalates, I cover her mouth with my hand.
I swear to God, if Nova hears her, he just might shoot me. This needs to end here. We’re both breathing hard, and I really don’t want to tear away from her glare, more than anything, but I step back, check the time on my watch.
She knows I need to go.
Jake is waiting outside for me.
Phoebe tightens her loose pony. I peel an escaped strand of hair off her lips. She catches more oxygen to ask, “What are Trent’s parties even like?”
I motion her to follow me down the stairwell. “I could tell you, but then I’d need a couple Advil and bleach for the brain rot.”
She stops at the base. “It can’t be as bad as that one party in Manhattan where there was a literal dick-measuring contest.”
“Worse.”
She’s disbelieving. “It ended with a fratty asshole peeing on his girlfriend.”
“Worse.”
Her eyes tighten like she can’t picture the events. “Promise you’ll text me if you need backup.”
I arch my brows. “From you?”
She glares. “Fuck you and yes.”
I smile a little bit, and I nod to her. “I promise. But don’t wait around for an SOS.”
“Scared to look desperate and in need?” she taunts.
“More like I’d rather rupture both eyeballs than see Trent anywhere near you.” I force a dry smile and skim her flushed cheeks. I wish I could prolong this with her for another hour or five.
“That’s sort of hilarious because I’d rather rupture my eyeballs than look at him, too.”
We share a serious expression. The easier thing would be to put Victoria in our rearview mirrors. What we always do, but this was my home once upon a time.
And I’m not going anywhere.