The door opened with a soft click before I could make a decision.

I spun around to see Ricky’s mom—the woman completely responsible for me standing here today. She couldn’t have maneuvered me more effectively if she’d had a gun to my head.

Her gaze shifted from me to the window and back to me again. The cruel curve of her smile yanked the knots in my stomach even tighter.

“The window? Really? So dramatic. I know what you’re thinking, Whitney. All you have to do is run to him and the prince will save you.” Her flinty green gaze hardened. “That’s not how this works. When he finds out that you could’ve saved his perfect little life and his inheritance, but you didn’t, he’s going to think you’re a selfish whore. He’ll hate you for the rest of his life. Is that what you want?”

“He couldn’t possibly hate me as much as I hate you,” I whispered.

“I don’t like you either, but as long as my son says you’re his one-way ticket to rock-stardom, I’ll suck it up.” She flicked her gaze toward the window again with a shake of her head. “That Riscoff boy doesn’t love you. You’re just the first cheap and easy lay he found when he got back to town. He was going to throw you away as soon as he got tired of you. And now, he’ll move on as soon as you’re gone.”

Her words sent a razor-sharp swipe across my heart. “You don’t know that.”

“I know that there’s only one thing that matters to the Riscoffs—winning.” She stepped closer, crumpling the white skirt of my dress as she invaded my personal space. “If he shows up here today, you’d better make it a good show. Make him believe that you’re done with him. Because if you don’t, I’ll destroy him and his family. Just watch and see.”

The gleefully evil smile that settled on Renee’s face reinforced the point she’d already driven home—she was crazy enough to do what she threatened. If I hadn’t believed that from the beginning, I would have gone to Lincoln.

But now, there was only one option left for me. Obey and pray.

“I’m here, aren’t I? I’m doing what you want.”

“Good. I’m glad you get it.” Renee tilted her head, and her perfectly coifed mother-of-the-groom hair didn’t move an inch. She was a pretty woman. Still relatively young-looking for having a twenty-seven-year-old son, but there was something hard and brittle about the set of her mouth and the sharpness of her eyes.

Brittleness that no doubt came from being used up by Roosevelt Riscoff.

“He’ll hide you away just like his father hid me until he pays you off to stay quiet about it ever happening.”

Renee’s bitter words from the morning she confessed her dirty secrets ran through my head, as did Lincoln’s from the last night I saw him.

“I want to take care of you, Whitney. Let me.”

As much as I wished I could stand here and tell Renee Rango to go to hell, because Lincoln would never treat me the same way his father treated her, I couldn’t deny that I’d already walked away from him for making the very same suggestion. He’d find me a house. Pay my bills. Give me spending money. Leave me bitter and jaded when he got tired of me.