Chapter 29
. . .
Isabella made a frustrated noise. “Evan, there are people here who can help you. Who will help you, no strings attached, but we need to know what we’re helping you with.”
Heath paced, unsure of his place in this conversation. If he sat with them and offered comfort, would that help or hinder? Was comfort something he could even offer? There was a chill in the air between them and a distance he could feel growing with every tick of the clock.
They’d never had the conversation he’d wanted, but after a point, it hadn’t felt necessary.
Evan’s persistent dodging was enough of an answer.
No, this wouldn’t continue once they’d left the island.
He’d suspected as much, and prepared for it as best he could, but the hopeless portion of his heart had held on to the candle until the wick burned to ash.
Evan let his head fall back against the wall with a groan. “I’m the product of an affair Chucky boy had with his executive admin while his wife was on bed rest with their first kid.”
“Charming,” Isabella muttered, and Evan peered at her. “Sorry, sorry. Continue.”
“He wasn’t then who he is now, or so she told me when I asked.
They’d worked together for years. She’d been with him since the company was a startup.
They had chemistry, but never acted on it.
I don’t know why that changed, only know it did.
She regretted it for a shitload of reasons, but she swore I wasn’t one of them. ”
Heath closed his eyes and steadied his emotions. “Of course she didn’t regret you. Look at you!”
It made Evan laugh, which was a minor victory he was happy to claim.
“So, yeah. His wife found out about the cheating and rightfully lost her shit. Almost lost my brother in the process. He spent some time in NICU, but he’s all fine and dandy now. Slipping the family noose around his own neck.”
“That’s… vivid.”
“He’s the only one on a tighter leash than I am, because he’s taking over.
Reputation is everything, right? That’s why Daddio freaked out when Mom informed him she was pregnant.
He was still dealing with the cheating fallout; having a kid with the woman was a step too far.
He demanded she take care of it, so he could sweep it under the rug and move on.
She told him she’d planned to, but not in the way he wanted.
Long story not even kinda short, he made her sign a bunch of shit that she’d stay quiet.
She agreed, and they went their separate ways. ”
“So then why does it matter if he knows about Heath?”
“Better question is, how does he know about me?”
Evan shrugged. “Fuck if I know. A buddy of mine left me a message that my younger brother leaked the info, but I don’t know how he knows.”
“Evan, can I use your phone?”
“Yeah, go for it.”
Evan folded forward and groaned, which was more than Heath could take. Sitting next to him, he reached to touch him, then paused.
“Is… is this okay?”
Evan nodded and leaned into his side, letting his forehead drop to Heath’s thigh. Heath rubbed his back and neck, and combed fingers through his hair, delighting at Evan’s immediate sigh and how his weight melted into him.
Why couldn’t they keep this? If everyone already knew, why not?
“Rich is your brother?” Izzy asked, the phone’s screen illuminating her slanted eyebrows and severe frown.
“Yeah, he’s the second youngest. Matt’s the precious baby who went to live in a commune in Mexico, last I checked.”
“Do you know what business Rich conducts in the Virgin Islands?”
The muscles he’d managed to relax tensed right back up again. “No. I keep only the loosest thread on what they’re doing so I can avoid crossing paths.”
“Well, you should have tugged this thread a little tighter, because apparently, he was visiting a friend of Olivia’s this week.”
Shit. “What information would that give him about Heath, though?”
Izzy pinched the bridge of her nose. “He’s a close friend. Olivia always checks in with him when she’s here. There’s a very high chance she told him about you two, since you’re the only non-family here and she thinks the story is darling.”
“About that,” Heath hedged, pausing at the shake of Evan’s head.
“She already knows.”
He snapped his attention to her. “You do?”
Isabella’s smile was wicked. “I’ve always known, you horrible liars. I just didn’t have the evidence I needed until Evan confessed.”
Snapping back to Evan he frowned. “You confessed without me here?”
“She scares me.”
That was an excuse he couldn’t argue with.
Evan stood and started for the door. “I need to talk to Liv and confirm this. I am fucked if this is true.”
“Why, though? I don’t understand why.”
Rounding on Isabella, Evan gripped the back of his neck until his biceps flexed, stress peeling off him in waves.
“My mom’s will specified that if the biological father were to take custody, he should be financially responsible for me through college graduation.
She’d also required he include me in his will. ”
“Is that even legal?”
“Nope. You can’t dictate what a person does with their own shit. He agreed because it gave him complete control. He established a trust and promised I’d get a fourth of the company if, and only if, I met specific criteria.”
“What sort of criteria?”
“He expected me to live like a fucking monk. Any behavior that could or did reflect badly upon him was grounds for termination of the agreement. He’s been trying to dictate my every move since I was ten.”
Heath drew closer, not liking the feeling bubbling in his gut, or the angst on Evan’s face. “But you already told him to piss off.”
“Not exactly.”
The breath exited Heath’s lungs in a painful whoosh. “Not exactly?”
Evan wouldn’t look at him, which said all he needed to know. He’d lied. Maybe not directly, but by omission, and that might not matter in Evan’s world, but it mattered in his. A lot.
Isabella moved close enough to rest her hand on his shoulder. “Evan, you say he’s been trying, but to me, it sounds like he’s been successfully controlling you your entire life. Why are you playing his game when you have more than enough clout without him?”
The veneer of calm left Evan’s expression in a shuddering breath.
“My mother worked two jobs until the day she died, because that bastard blacklisted her. When he took me in, he spent every day reminding me I was a charity case and shouldn’t have even been born.
He hadn’t even told his wife about me. She didn’t know I existed until the day I moved in. ”
Isabella covered her gasp. “Oh, God.”
“Yeah. Suffice it to say, she and I aren’t close.”
Heath thought of all the times he’d called Evan a heartless playboy and accused him of using people. No wonder he’d finally snapped.
“The entire family acted like I’d shown up on their doorstep purposely intending to ruin their lives. They didn’t care that it was the last fucking place I wanted to be. The wife ignored me. My brothers fucked with me until I learned what weight training was.”
“What about your father?”
“The kindest thing he ever did was send me to boarding school. I avoided going home. Spent the holidays with friends. Kept my nose as clean as possible and went right to college afterward to stay out of the way. All I had to do was marry someone with more social clout than him and I’d be clear, but we all know how that worked out. ”
“I still don’t understand how the will factors into this.”
Heath did. It was clear as day now that he’d listened to Evan’s list of grievances.
“You telling me you’ve never held a grudge?”
“This is your revenge,” he said, holding Evan’s gaze when he finally looked up. “For everything he’s done. You want to make sure he has to give up something of himself in return, and the business is the only target that will hurt.”
“Thank you. I knew you’d understand.”
“Oh, I don’t understand it at all,” he snapped, looking away. “I can’t for a moment understand how you’d willingly subjugate yourself to that asshole just to take a chunk of him when he’s dead. He’ll be dead, Evan. He’ll no longer have the ability to appreciate your epic gotcha.”
“He’ll know I won before he dies. That’s what matters.”
Heath buried his fingers into his hair and growled. “No, it isn’t! The only thing that matters in this life is living it. Making the most of whatever time we’re given. You’re wasting yours. You’re wasting it on someone who isn’t suffering for it in the least.”
“He—”
“He’s winning, Evan. He’s out there living his best life while you wriggle under his thumb. So what if you take your pound of flesh on his deathbed? He will still have won.”
Evan slid down the doorframe and pulled his knees to his chest, burying his face in his folded arms. It made him look young and small, and Heath could easily picture that scared ten-year-old trying to figure out his place in the world.
“What do I do?” he mouthed at Isabella when Evan’s shoulders shook and his breathing came in harsh, broken gasps. She scowled and pointed at him, then at the ground next to Evan with a stern snap of her wrist.
What if I’m the last person he wants?
He obeyed, sitting on the floor next to the man he’d just spent two weeks falling in lo—lust with, knowing it was the right thing to do, even if it felt awkward as hell.
“I can’t let him win, Heath,” he said on broken sobs. “I can’t let him get away with what he did to her. What he’s done to me.”
“But you said yourself she’d kick your ass if she could see you right now. She wanted you to be happy, Evan. This isn’t happy.”
“I know you’re right, but…”
“But you’re going to stay the course even though the storm’s bearing down?”
“We’ll make a sailor of you yet, Gilligan.”
“Goddammit, Evan.”
A rush flooded his eyes at the sight of his beautiful husband’s tear-stained face and red-rimmed, golden eyes. It didn’t matter that the truth was out. In his mind, Evan was still his until midnight.
It is always thus, impelled by a state of mind which is destined not to last, that we make our irrevocable decisions.
Isabella placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Why don’t you take him back to the villa, and I’ll have a conversation with Liv? We’ll swing by in a bit.”
“Are you okay with that?” he asked Evan, who nodded and sniffed his way to standing.
“Take me home, pookie.”