Chapter Thirty-Three
THIRTY-THREE
Rocky
The Badger Game
Victoria, Connecticut
“Don’t mess with the plan, Trev.” He’s driving Phoebe and Hailey to the Koning estate and dropping them off. With the Honda out of commission, he’s taking Nova’s Pontiac GTO, which Nova hasn’t let anyone behind the wheel of since he bought it at auction. He’s been flush with cash after he oversold some flowerpot painting like it was an original van Gogh.
That car is his current baby. He won’t even let me sit in the driver’s seat. So Trevor should be fucking happy.
His insistence on wanting to shadow Varrick and integrate himself into his life is killing me. Varrick being a con artist who knows my name should be a big enough warning to stay away—but my brother doesn’t see danger as a caution sign. I just want to keep him safe.
“When you drop them off,” I say, “don’t go looking for him.”
He’s quiet.
“ Trevor. I don’t want to worry about you getting stabbed while I’m here, and no one will be around to help you. Just think about that, please. I won’t be there. ”
“Okay,” he says. “Okay.” He’s relenting. “This is all weekend?”
“Saturday and Sunday. We’ll be done tomorrow morning,” I tell him. Family and close friends are invited overnight for the Koning soiree, filled with a ten-course dinner, and then we wake up to Easter Sunday brunch. It’s the first time Hailey has been hired on as staff for a Koning dinner, and we’re taking it as an opportunity to get the evidence we need to bury Claudia.
This weekend, we pull the rope.
Phoebe is principal on this job. She’ll take center stage, and I’m more on edge than I’ve been for any other gathering.
“Sounds good,” Trevor says. “See you later.” He hangs up quickly. Too quickly. I have a strange feeling in my stomach. See you later. He does mean tomorrow?
I carry this gnawing pit in my gut with me to the Koning estate. By the time I arrive and I’ve been greeted with an icy stare-down by the family butler, Niall Greensboro, I start walking the grounds.
Ever since I became BFFs with Trent, I’ve been to the estate enough to have it blueprinted on my eyeballs. Library on the first floor, west wing. Den next to the entryway. A theater room in the basement. The property covers over thirty acres and includes two greenhouses, an apple orchard, a private beach, a seventy-five-foot swimming pool with a pool house, and a main home with twenty-one rooms. It is extravagant.
And yet, it isn’t the most luxurious property I’ve ever spent the weekend at.
Trent Waterford is in line to inherit it all, and that not only digs under my skin, but it drives me forward.
Staff mill about, mostly tending to different needs. Watering the plants on windowsills, changing out lightbulbs, and setting the table for dinner. No one gives me a second glance the farther I make my way through the property. It’s as if I already belong. I walk around like I do.
The clock strikes three p.m. when I find my girlfriend’s fake boyfriend outside.
“You’re early,” Jake tells me as he slams a tennis ball into the net. Before he approaches me, he fixes his attention on the gray-haired instructor on the other side of the grass court. “Stephen. Thanks for running me ragged with that backhand, old man.”
Stephen laughs. “Not ragged enough.” He hugs Jake over the net.
“Congrats again on grandchild number three,” Jake says quietly, patting his instructor’s back with warm familiarity. “Let Lydia know she’s welcome to use the pool house for the baby shower.”
I can’t hear the instructor’s response, but it’s clear he appreciates Jake’s generosity and benevolence. While collecting scattered tennis balls, Stephen peers over at me with a more guarded expression.
On a property brimming with staff, I’m not known as the ex-husband of Jake’s current girlfriend. I am the best, best friend of Trent Koning Waterford.
Niall, the family butler, has given me an arctic breeze ever since we met. His icy disposition is shared among the staff.
It’s clear which son they favor.
The tennis instructor heads toward the carriage house, which lies closest in proximity to the main house, and I step onto the grass court.
“Trent told me to come whenever,” I explain. “Perks of being besties with your big brother. I get an open invitation.” I wear a dry smile and toss Jake a gold-embroidered towel hanging over a bench.
“A perk I could’ve given you.” He rubs at the sweat along his temples and neck.
“And then I’d have to decline your invite. Your brother would bust a blood vessel if his closest friend ditched him for the brother he just loves so very much.”
“Point taken.” Jake nods, then studies my white-and-blue collegiate sweatshirt. Columbia is stitched on the chest. He knows it’s all just a stage show. A prop. My wardrobe.
“It’s my alma mater,” I remind him casually.
“Got it,” he says, but his blue eyes also tell me, I’m not blowing your cover . I didn’t think he would. We’ve been knee-deep in this together for long enough that I do trust him.
Trust.
That word rolls over in my head. I’m surprised by myself that I’ve become capable of letting someone else in this deep. But here we are.
I watch a petrel fly over the court and toward the pool. “Hailey and Phoebe will be here in a couple hours.” I squint out into the sun. From here, the sea laps against the rocky ridgeline of the coast, and farther out, the Salty Miss is moored with other sailing vessels. Gently swaying with the ripple of the water.
Nova should be aboard. Our getaway. I imagine he’s behind the nav table and watching the waves roll, probably obsessing over different worst-case scenarios where he’ll have to drive the dinghy to shore so we can all make a quick escape.
I hope we don’t need him tonight.
Jake and I start walking back to the main house, and my nerves are at high tide as I wait for Phoebe’s arrival and likely for Trent to come steal me away. We pass the entrance to a hedged garden, and Jake asks, “Did Niall show you your room yet?”
“I assumed I’d be staying in my usual one.”
“The toilet’s not working. You’re being moved to the east wing.”
“I was not informed,” I say without much surprise. I’m sure Niall would’ve loved if I had to unclog a toilet all night.
Jake opens the back door himself, even though there’s staff waiting in the wings to do it for him. “I’ll lead the way,” he says.
My new guest room is on the third floor. It has dark oak-trim windows, a four-poster bed, toile wallpaper, and a bookshelf full of works by Jane Austen. Sense and Sensibility , Pride and Prejudice , Emma , Persuasion , Northanger Abbey , and Mansfield Park . There must be dozens of different editions of each title, from leatherbound to more modern cover art.
“I’m guessing this is your collection,” I say to Jake. “You being the bookworm and all.”
“Those were Kate’s actually.” He opens the thick champagne-colored drapes, a stray ray of light seeping through. He fastens the drape with a thick roped tieback. “She begged me to read Austen, then Nora Roberts, and she started my obsession with J. D. Robb.” He glances over at me. “Did Hailey ever try to get you to read her favorites?”
Hailey. My sister. The girl he’s sleeping with behind my back. But is it behind my back? Is he required to share these details with me? I don’t know that answer. I only know my irritation.
“No,” I say, bottling my emotions for a beat. “We had an extensive reading requirement growing up. Classics, history texts, languages, all imposed by the dear old Mom and Dad.” I give him a tight smile. “Hailey didn’t want to add to it, but I’d pick her brain about whatever book stole her attention the most.” I pluck out Pride and Prejudice . “You seem to be really warming up to my sister.”
Jake’s gaze meets mine, unyielding, unwavering. He clearly knows that I know he’s been a little too close for friends. And then he nods slowly. “I won’t lie to you, I like her.”
“Good,” I say. “Because I’d beat your ass if you were sleeping with my sister and didn’t like her.”
He sighs. “We’re both going through a lot, and she’s probably the most interesting person I’ve ever met.”
“Like a science experiment,” I say dryly. “You want to dissect my sister. Slit her open with a scalpel.”
He laughs hard. That surprises me.
“Something funny, Jake?”
“I think it’s more likely she would cut me open. I think she would like to dissect me . And weirdly, I’d let her. She’s about the only person I would, and I don’t know why. I can’t even tell you why. It’s been driving me…” He laughs to himself. “Ah, fuck.” His smile fades. “I haven’t felt like this about someone in a long time, and I can’t…I can’t be with her.”
My jaw muscle tics. That shouldn’t piss me off as much as it does. Jake rejecting my sister when she’s already practically shelved him in a similar fashion. “Because of your family?” I’m guessing.
“Always because of them.”
Jake gets a sudden call from his mother. He’s being whisked away to speak to a florist. This is the typical Claudia/Jake dynamic that drives me batshit. Whenever he’s with a guest, she calls upon him to cage his attention.
She keeps him busy.
She separates him from others. It’s an uncreative power move that I have the misfortune of watching.
Once he’s gone, I shower and change into dinner attire. Ready for tonight’s festivities.