The Rake (Boston Belles #4)(108)

Sam Brennan.

“Is he still on the case?” I asked.

“No.”

“Give me his details, just in case.”

I was going to give them to Sam and ensure Rick knew the next time he got close to Emmabelle, he was going to leave the situation in a body bag.

Mum rolled her eyes, sticking her cigarette into her mouth and scribbling something on a side table by the settee. She tore the paper from a notepad and handed it over to me.

“There. Happy now?”

“No. So he followed her?”

“Sent other people to do it a handful of times. One of them she confronted in quite an uncouth manner to be honest.”

“And sent her letters?”

Mummy frowned, taking another drag of her cigarette, folding her arms over her chest. “No. I didn’t ask him for that, and highly doubt he took such a liberty.”

That meant there was someone else after Sweven, just like I suspected.

A second someone.

Frank.

I needed to wrap this up and get back home.

“When did Rick start going after her?”

I wanted to know when it all began. Mum gave me a guilty look.

“Well …”

“Well?”

“Before she got pregnant,” Mum admitted, her shoulders sagging as she puffed on her fag. “After your father passed away, I used Rick to try and see if there were any obstacles that might prevent you from marrying Louisa. He said you were all over this Penrose woman. So we tried to push her out of the picture.”

“Real classy.”

“Are we going to talk about what’s going to happen to me and your sister now that you’ve officially decided to fail us?” She huffed. “Because this thing with Emmabelle wasn’t unprovoked. You must see my point of view. You’re about to flush the family’s fortune down the drain to make a point about your father.”

“No, I’m about to flush the family’s fortune down the drain because it comes attached with a stipulation no one should agree to. And also because I’m in love with someone else and refuse to sacrifice my own happiness so you and Cece can drive fancy cars and take monthly vacations in The Maldives.”

“Devon, be reasonable!” She snuffed the cigarette out, smoke still escaping her lips as she rushed toward me. She seemed to be trying tough love and groveling simultaneously, which made for quite the odd conversation. “You’re burning down a legacy! All you’ll be left with is the title.”

“I don’t care much for the title either,” I drawled.

“How dare you!” She slammed her fists against my chest. “You’re irrational and vindictive.”

“I’ve tried being reasonable. But there is no reasoning with you people. You’re on your own, Ursula. If you want money, go earn it, or better yet, find a sorry sod who is willing to marry you. And on that note, here’s a fair warning: if you try to harm the mother of my child ever again, I’m going to end you. I mean that literally. I will end your life as you know it. Spread this message to Cece and Drew too. Oh, and my love, of course.” Manners were manners, after all.

“You can’t do this to us.” She fell to her knees, hugging my ankles. The waterworks started. I stared down at the back of her head with a mixture of annoyance and disgust. “Please, Devon. Please. Marry then divorce Louisa. Just for a bit … I … I … I won’t be able to survive! I simply won’t.”

I shook her touch off of me, stepping away from her embrace.

“If you don’t, it’s none of my business.”

“You know …” She looked up, her eyes shining with madness, anger, and desperation. They were so big, so manic I thought they were going to pop out of their sockets. “I knew. That time when he locked you in the dumbwaiter and cut the electricity off so the pumps wouldn’t work … we were both in on that.”

Revulsion creeped over my skin.

My mother knew my father had tried to kill me all those years ago, and she was in on the plan.

Our entire relationship, as I knew it, was a lie. She never cared for me. She had simply bided her time because she knew my father would die one day and wanted to be on my good side when she asked me to marry Louisa.

I smiled coldly, stepping away from her. “Consider the will unfulfilled. You’re poor now, Mother. Although, really, you have been poor your entire life. Money means nothing in the grand scheme of things when you don’t have any integrity. Spare us both the trouble and embarrassment and don’t call me anymore. From now on, I won’t pick up.”





I felt like a rare bird. An explosion of colors, high heels, and outrageous bling as I dragged my faux-crocodile suitcase behind me, slinking into my parents’ suburban house. I could feel the neighbors’ stares heating the nape of my back through their Roman blinds and sensitive shutters.

I was sure there were plenty of things for a thirty-year-old former party animal to do in the suburbs of Boston.

Unfortunately, I had no idea what they were.

Not that it mattered. I couldn’t exactly dance my sorrows away at a roof party, drink to a point of distraction (what a buzzkill you are, Baby Whitehall), or even treat myself to a shopping spree that ended in the same way all shopping sprees should end—munching on an order of Wetzel’s Pretzels cheese dog bites while trying to balance one hundred and fifty shopping bags, their handles digging into the flesh of my forearms.