Hush Money (Everett Brothers #2)

Prologue

TWELVE YEARS AGO - KEATON

“Why do you always order pistachio when you know you don’t like it?

” Evie asks me as we walk down the boardwalk.

I shrug as I shoot her a devious smile then grab her wrist and bring her ice cream to my face, stealing a lick off the side of the cone.

She swats me away with a giggle. “Keaton!” she says. I laugh as I lick my lips.

“I just get a kick out of stealing some of yours,” I say, veering off the boardwalk and onto the sand.

She follows behind, and we both slip our shoes off.

It’s March and still cool. Seasonal shops are slowly starting to open up, but Coney Island itself is still pretty dead.

We’re both home for spring break, and I am really fucking happy to see her.

College has been rough for me. I have a month and a half left, and then I’m done—thank God.

She’s my bright spot, like she always has been—since the third day of freshman year of high school.

But when I got into Stanford, it was a no-brainer that that was where I was going.

They had all the programs I wanted. I loved California.

And the best part was that it was three thousand miles away from my father.

But Evie…she stayed here in New York. She started at a community college here then finished up her social work degree at NYU so she could commute and keep working.

I tried to get her to come out to California with me.

She applied to Stanford too—“just for shits and giggles”—and to no one’s surprise but hers, she got in.

I had long pictured us exploring the West Coast together.

I wanted to show her all the things I loved about it.

I wanted to get her out of New York, maybe give her a new perspective on herself.

Maybe she would see herself the way I saw her.

But she said no. She said she had to stay with her family, where she could afford it, where she got the scholarship.

I even offered to pay for her tuition at Stanford out of my trust fund, but she vehemently refused. I was hoping maybe I could change her mind if she could just let go of the stress of the money, if she could just be a college kid. I really needed her. I really need her.

When she made up her mind about staying, I offered to pay for her rent in New York so she could move out of her mom’s, but she still said no. And even though I was still tempted to do it without her permission, I knew she’d never forgive me if I did it.

I’m not the biggest extrovert, and growing up as an Everett made that pretty difficult.

When your father is the third richest man on the planet, it’s hard to stay invisible, no matter how hard I have tried.

Evie, though…she caught on early. She’d steal the show when the spotlight was on me for too long, or she would suggest leaving campus for lunch or skipping football games when she could tell the noise was getting too loud. She is the best friend I have ever had.

I think it’s one of the reasons I fell in love with her when I was fourteen years old. Her knack for reading people is nothing like I’ve ever seen. She wants to be a social worker, and she will be the absolute best at it. Her empathy knows no bounds, and God, I love her for it.

Like, actually.

I’m in love with my best friend, and I think I have been since the moment we first spoke.

The thing is, she has no idea—or maybe she does.

But we’ve never discussed it. I’ve been biding my time while we’ve been apart.

She’s been enjoying her college years. She wasn’t the most social in high school because she always felt out of place.

But now, the playing field is a little more even for her.

She’s made a lot of friends and has finally been letting go of all the weight she carries—at least, a little bit.

She goes out to parties, stays with her girlfriends in the city, and has been enjoying her life.

Since I can’t be there with her to be her escape, I’m glad she is finding her place.

For me, it’s been a different story. I’m still the billionaire from New York.

Still an Everett, no matter what side of the country I’m on.

Finding and sustaining legitimate relationships of any kind is a struggle because even the ones that don’t need a friendship with you can still want it for the wrong reasons.

So I sort of keep to myself. I’ve been on a few dates in the past few years, but the truth is, I only see Evie when I look at someone else.

It’s like drinking out of an empty cup. The only times I’ve been out in the last four years is when I’ve flown her out for a visit, and she forced me to.

But with her, I don’t give a damn where we go.

I don’t care who is gawking. I don’t care who whispers around me. When I’m with her, I’m good.

She’s dated a few guys off and on, but much to my pleasure, none of them have lasted very long.

One broke up with her because of her closeness to me, claiming she could never feel the way about any other guy that she did about me since I am “a fuckin’ billionaire.

” While I did enjoy being the one who made the other guys jealous, it bothered me at the time that he was claiming it was because of my family fortune.

But I know in my heart that Evie has never given a shit about the money or the fame.

I realized how I really felt a few months ago when I had to make a decision on what to do after graduation. I had always thought I’d stay out in California. That I’d find something or start something of my own on the West Coast. Keep my distance from all things Everett.

But the truth is, these few years without her have been impossible.

I’m having experiences I always wanted to have, I’m seeing things I always wanted to see, and I’m learning things I wanted to learn, but none of it means a thing without her.

She’s the first thing I see when I wake up and the last thing I think about before I go to bed.

I don’t want to be three thousand miles away from her anymore.

She wants to stay in New York. I’ve always known it was my “duty” since birth to come back and work for the family, and even though I have wanted to resist falling in line, the thought of it doesn’t disgust me as much as it used to.

As much as I don’t mind the physical distance between my father and me, I’d happily see him every day so long as I saw her too.

“So, are you ready?” she asks as I finish spreading the blanket out on the sand, and we take a seat.

“For?” I ask.

“Graduation. Coming back. Being with your dad every week,” she says. I sigh as she switches our ice cream cones, finishing off my barely eaten pistachio while I finish her cookies-and-cream.

I shrug.

“Working with him will suck,” I say matter-of-factly. “But it’ll be good to be with my brothers more often—and you.”

She looks up at me, a sheepish smile flashing across her face. Her long strawberry-blonde locks fly around in the wind, and she tucks a strand behind one of her ears. I want to go on.

This is it, Keaton.

You have waited eight years for this.

Tell her.

“So,” she says, clapping the crumbs off her hands and turning to me, “I wanted to talk to you about something.” My stomach churns.

“Okay,” I say, turning to face her. God, she’s beautiful. “I’m ready.”

“So you know that guy I told you about?” she asks.

Now, my stomach sinks. I clear my throat.

Yeah, I remember. Some guy she started seeing at the start of the school year.

She said it was casual. I don’t ask about him.

I have never asked about any of them. I just wait until they are out of the picture.

“Tucker?” I ask coyly. She shoots me a look.

“Tanner,” she corrects me, both of us knowing damn well that I remembered his name.

I nod. “Well, we’re still seeing each other.

It actually got a little more serious throughout the year.

” My stomach is churning. It doesn’t even feel like butterflies.

It feels like…I don’t know. Bats? Like rabid bats flying around my stomach.

“Well, he actually got a job lined up here in the city when we graduate.”

Now my stomach starts twisting.

“Oh, yeah?” I ask, trying to sound casual.

“Yeah,” she says. “He’s coming into town next month to start looking for places, and…I

think I’m going to go with him. Because…I think we are going to move in together.”

There it is.

Quite literally nothing could have prepared me for this.

I saw this day going so, so differently.

I feel all the breath shoot out of my lungs, and my head is spinning.

There’s a long, awkward pause as I turn to look out over the ocean.

Then, she breaks it.

“You gonna say anything?” she asks with a nervous giggle. I turn to her and smile.

“I’m happy for you, Eve,” I say with the fakest grin in the fucking world. She clears her throat, her eyes dropping down to her hands.

“You’re lying to me,” she says quietly. I swallow, my eyes darting back out to the sea. It’s not a question, and it’s not an accusation. It’s just a fact.

I clear my throat.

“What do you want me to say, Eve?” I whisper. She clears her throat again.

“I want you to say that you want to meet him,” she says. “That you want us to find a place. That you want me to be happy.”

I finally get the balls to look up at her.

“I always want you to be happy, Evie, and you know that,” I tell her. “But the rest…we’ve already established that you know when I’m lying. What would be the point?”

And then, I see something that makes my heart start to splinter in my chest.

Tears in her eyes. Caused by me. In all the years we’ve been friends, I have never once made her cry. And once, when I saw her mom make her cry when we were in high school, I swore to myself that I never would.

“I’m sorry, Eve, I just—”

“Why are you being like this?” she asks me, her lip quivering now. Fuck me.

I slide my hand over top of hers, interlocking our fingers and lifting them off the blanket. I bring her hand to my lips and leave a soft kiss on it.

“You know why, Eve,” I whisper. She shakes her head, like she doesn’t believe me.

“No, I don’t,” she says. I sigh.

“Evie…” I say.

“But…you’ve never said anything. You just…I thought…” her voice trails off. She starts to cry, and I pull her into my chest. I stroke her long hair, letting her rest on me like she has so many times before.

God, why was I such an idiot?

“I know,” I say, “but I’m saying it now.

” She pulls back slowly, her green eyes bloodshot and watery.

I take in a deep breath. “Evie, you…you’re my whole heart.

You make my world make sense. I’ve never really been anyone else’s, because I think I’ve always been yours. And if you want me now, you have me.”

More tears well in her eyes as she shakes her head slowly.

“Keat, I…this is a lot,” she says. I nod.

I wait for her to say something—anything—else.

But she doesn’t. A highlight reel plays in my head of every moment, every opportunity I’ve had over the last eight years to tell her how I felt.

And if I could, I’d go back in time to every single one and punch myself in the face for not speaking up.

“If this is what you want,” I tell her, “then I want it for you. Because more than anything, I want you to be happy. You deserve the happiness that you bring everyone else, Eve. But I’m not going to stand here and tell you that I want to be a part of it. That would be a lie.”

She sniffs, and it breaks me even more.

I reach out and bring my hands to her face. I stroke her jawline with my thumb, and I let my eyes roam her freely, trying to commit every corner of her face to my memory in case that’s all I have left. Finally, I lean forward and kiss her forehead.

“Evie, no matter what happens, I need you to know that you have me. Always,” I say, pushing myself to stand. “Even when you have him, you have me.”

You’re too late, Keat, I tell myself.

Or maybe—the scariest thought of all creeps in—maybe I never stood a chance in the first place.