Page 94 of Take The Risk

​“Rowdy caught me sneaking around and—”

​“And told her to stop listening to my crazy-assed mother.” Rowdy sounded disgusted. “It’d taken some doing, but I knew Mom was up to something where Phoebe was concerned. I heard her and her wicked witch of a sidekick talking about getting Winterbourne Manor back. Something about a camera and listening.”

Wade’s head snapped up.

“I don’t know what it all meant. I had seen her talking to Delilah one day and had a bad feeling, so I hunted this one”—he jerked his head at her— “down. I found her eavesdropping in the pizzeria parking lot and thought it best to set her straight. Phoebe wasn’t here to ruin anything, and if anyone was ruining things, it was my mother. Granted, I didn’t know about Cady-Jo until Delilah told me.”

​My mother. Again.

​“Where are Phoebe’s papers now?” I pinched the bridge of my nose.

​“So…”

​Phoebe was right. Nothing good ever followed when someone started a sentence like that.

​“Mom has them.”

Of course she does.

Getting to my feet, I knew I needed to get to Phoebe’s. She’d be losing her mind over her missing documents, and I needed to talk to her. Our plans just took a huge turn.

“Wait!” Delilah grabbed my arm. “There’s more. Amber-Rae came to the house this morning…”

Chapter 35

​“You preyed on my son!” Cady-Jo spat at me, Helen and Louise barely holding her back.

​“I didn’t!” I yelled, rubbing my head where the door hit it when Cady-Jo burst in before I fully opened it. My scalp stung from her pulling my hair. Yes, the quintessential hair pulling. She’d screamed I was a slut, a liar, and a predator.

​Helen, having heard the commotion, came running from the kitchen where she’d been taking an urgent call from another client. She was here to help me go over some legal things I was considering given my manuscript was now missing and my Cady-Jo plan.

​“Explain this, then!” Cady-Jo threw the papers in her hand. They skittered across the coffee table, some falling to the floor.

​“Is that?” Helen looked at the white pages with black ink. The photos. The damning photos.

​Nodding to Helen, I tried to explain. “I know how this looks, Cady-Jo. I can explain.”

​“Explain?” She jerked against Louise’s hold.

​I was suddenly really grateful Louise had chosen today to come by and bring the ingredients I needed to make this week’s cookies.

​“Explain how you lied and have been screwing my son! Explain how you wrote sick, disgusting, sex letters to Jesse!” Cady-Jo’s face turned an even darker shade of red, spit flying from her mouth. “You’re a sick pervert!”

​“Jesse? I never gave these to Jesse!” I never would—that thought was disgusting. He was eighteen. A kid, even if he was legally an adult.

​“LIAR!” she shrieked. “I found them, bitch. I found them in his room! I read what you wrote. You preyed on both of my sons!” Cady-Jo was practically incoherent with rage.

​“Cady-Jo, you need to calm down.” Helen tried to reason with her.

​“Calm down? Calm down?” Cady-Jo screeched. “You’re looking at proof she’s been fucking my sons—Jesse is only eighteen!”

​“I’m not sleeping with Jesse!” I swore vehemently. “I’d never do that.”

​“Look, clearly there is some kind of misunderstanding here.” Louise tried to be the voice of reason. “Let’s just all sit down and talk about this.”

​“Those notes weren’t for Jesse, Cady-Jo. I don’t know how he got them. But they weren’t for him or from him,” I added.

​Outside, I could hear the sound of sirens in the distance. I knew this was going to get ugly when I saw Jessamina on the street just as Cady-Jo burst in. I just knew she’d call the cops. She hated Cady-Jo as much as Amber-Rae did.