Chapter Twenty-Two #3
I scrawl an illegible curly signature that could read as SpongeBob. I hand the pen back with a smile. I’m going to hell.
At least Rocky will be there. It morphs my fake smile into a flush-inducing real one.
I’ve started thinking maybe it’s okay to not be honest all the time. Is it possible to give up the pieces of grifting I hate, but not reject everything I learned? Or will I have to hang up my con artist cap for good?
Questions of the future seem too far away to grasp when I can barely predict what’ll happen when everyone knows Hailey is pregnant. Today.
God, I can’t believe that’s happening today.
I’m nervous for her.
The postman leaves, and I slip the envelopes in my back pocket. (Will give those to Jake later, I’m not a total asshole.) I set the newspapers beside a glass dispenser of cucumber water, and I pluck a Victoria Weekly off the stack. Immediately flipping to the gossip column written by Sidney Burke.
SIDNEY SAYS
Entries for this year’s Victoria’s Sweetheart are now open. New residents = new competition this year?
Trent Waterford seen out with Hailey Thornhall once again! This time, a stroll through the park with Phoebe Smith and Grey Thornhall. A double date, perhaps?
Looks like a romance between Phoebe and Jake isn’t being rekindled anytime soon. Sad news for the Watersmith shippers.
Varrick Wolfe’s quest for an heir continues with the Konings, Bennets, Thornhalls, and Smiths summering at the infamous Wolfe property: Stonehaven.
Sources say he’ll be naming the heir in the coming months.
Be sure to watch from the pier to catch a glimpse of their comings and goings from the mansion.
Sidney has been covering the Wolfe drama since it began.
Trevor told her the reason we’re all summering at Stonehaven.
Gossip abounded. I’ve overheard some ladies at the pool putting bets on the outcome.
The attention is good. It pulls people’s eyes off the growing discontent between Jake and Trent.
I keep reading, glazing over lines about a florist dating Mr. Ortiz and college students forking the dean’s yard, and then the warmth of a figure prickles my body.
Someone is behind me.
I see a male arm reaching inches away from my hip to grab a Weekly instead of politely asking me to move.
I whirl around on him. Not my boyfriend. Not any guy I would want within five feet of me. Could today get any worse?
Signs point to yes.
Because it’s Weston fucking Burke. Sidney’s dad. He wears all-white attire as if he’s posed for leisure sports like croquet or golf.
I can’t tell what I hate more—his self-satisfied expression, like he one-upped Rocky just by finding me alone, or the fact that he’s not budging backward and offering me much-needed space.
“Phoebe,” he greets. “Beautiful afternoon for a Cognac. Isn’t it?”
The fact that Cognac has become a sexual innuendo between us is nauseating and partially my own doing. At times, I wish I was never the new girl who flirted with the widowers to “appease” them during my shift. I wish I never felt like I had to.
Still, I am glad.
I’m glad that in almost a year, they haven’t checked out another server’s ass. I’m glad they’ve fixated on me. I worry if Jake hires a new girl, their attention will divert to her, and for what? It’s not like they’re tipping us.
I look away from him.
“Why don’t you go get me one, sweetheart?” I feel his gaze drip down me. “I’ll wait.” He unfurls the paper.
I don’t respond. I don’t entertain him. I don’t ask why he’s still a member at VCC when he should be flocking to the Mariner’s Club with the other widowers.
I don’t care if he’s a rat come to spy and snitch.
Or if he can’t leave the delicious tomato bisque served on Mondays.
The best way to crush his superiority complex is to deem him irrelevant.
I promised Rocky that I wouldn’t engage if this were to happen. So I sidestep away.
Weston matches my movement.
I do my best to holster a glare.
“I have a question for you before you go,” he says casually. “If you’ve broken up with Jake Waterford, why do you continue to serve here? Doesn’t it make it a little awkward?”
Fire flames my insides. “Get out of my way. Please and thank you.” My pleasantries sound excessively snide. Sorry not sorry, Rocky. I have the ability to contain a glare, but I don’t want to. I want to explode on this rich prick until his flesh bubbles and melts off his bones.
“It’s a simple question,” Weston says with heat. “No need to be rude.”
“Why are you such a perv?” I retort. “That’s a simple one, too.”
He lets out a disgusted noise. “Excuse me?”
Yes, I’m so unbecoming. I will gladly act my age—younger even—and be exceedingly uncouth if it even marginally turns him off. When his seedy gaze crawls over my body, I only see a man wanting to take. Like I’m up for grabs. Like my voice means absolutely nothing in every single power play.
Fuck him.
“You know what I believe, Phoebe?”
“Like I care.” I try to push past him without making physical contact.
He blocks me against the refreshment table. His hands on the wooden edge on either side of my waist. Confining me. Shit. I glower as he adds, “I believe you love being ordered around—”
I knee him in the dick.
He buckles forward with a pained grunt, and I slip so far out of his reach, my pulse skipping away from me in abrupt panic, but fury still sears my veins.
Fury still grows, vaporizing my flight response.
Fuck him. “Fuck you,” I snap as I breathe harder and harder.
“For thinking you can just trap me and make me listen to whatever sick thought crosses your mind. Fuck you for thinking that’s at all okay, and, no, I will not get you a Cognac. Get it yourself.”
Weston is red in the face from me crushing his family jewels and from…anger. I’m supposed to serve his every desire, and definitely without the hostility or the attitude.
His tightened eyes veer to the security camera near the crown molding. There are very few in the club, and none capture sound. Since day one, I’ve been aware of the ones that exist and precisely where they’re located.
“You’ll be fired for this,” he threatens into a cough. “This is assault.”
Fuck him five billion times over. “You harassed me.”
“I was grabbing a newspaper to read my daughter’s column.” He straightens up, clearing the wounded knot out of his throat. “You were in my way.” He fists the paper and smacks the wrinkles out of it on his thigh.
“Then ask me to move,” I growl out, just so ready for men like him to feel a deep, unrelenting sting. To be singed long enough to be scarred. “Jake and I might be broken up, but we’re still friends. He won’t fire me. So go ahead and try.” Weston has no authority over me here. Not with Claudia gone.
I ride the high of my burning rage, and I flip him off with two fingers. Hoping he detests this juvenile behavior.
He grinds his jaw. Quietly seething.
This feels way too good. I pocket the small victory, internally smiling in vindication. I move to find Hailey so I can rehash everything to her. When I take a single step toward the dining room, Weston follows me.
Ughhhhh.
“About that Cognac,” he says.
I stop in place. “Shut up about your stupid Cognac,” I retort. “I will never serve you. Not on my hands, not on my feet, not on my back or my fucking deathbed.”
He releases a biting laugh, then gazes around the windowed rotunda as natural light streams onto the white marble.
“You think I was planning to stay? I’ve already sent in my application to the Mariner’s Club.
Where the service respects decorum. This place has gone downhill fast. Hiring any whore who comes into town. ”
His words don’t pierce me. I outstretch my arm toward the long hallway that leads to the main entrance of the country club.
“Hated to have you here. Glad to see you go.” I force the fakest smile alive.
“Byeeeee.” My overly feminine, high-pitched tone and joyful shoulder shrug cause his face to sour.
Good.
But he passes too close to me. I try not to visibly stiffen at his nearness. He sneers, “You’re a child.”
“I am decades younger than you.” I glare. “Happy you finally noticed.” I swat the air like he’s a pest I’m shooing out the door. “Go—” He seizes my wrist midair, and I tug back, but he clamps harder. “Get off me,” I grit out.
“Weston Burke, isn’t it?”
I go motionless at the smooth masculine tone as casual footsteps clap toward us from the long hallway, and Weston immediately releases his painful grip at the sight of Varrick Wolfe.
My father.