Chapter 19 Keaton
KEATON
Idon’t even remember the drive home. I’m in a daze after what I just heard. What I just read.
Thirty-two women over the course of the last thirty years.
Thirty-two women have occupied these made-up executive assistant positions that my father has had created.
Thirty-two women have fallen into the trap.
Of thinking they are taking a step forward in their career.
Of being in need of stability, maybe for themselves, or for their families.
Of thinking that Everett Enterprises was the opportunity they had been waiting for.
Ten of those women have come forward to talk to Wren, the reporter for the Manhattan Star.
It started with one. One brave woman who decided the secret was getting too heavy to carry with her.
And then Wren started to dive in, going undercover, learning that there is a sort of pseudo-community of ex-Everett employees who know each other’s secret because they went through the same thing.
I want to find the other twenty. We’re working on that now.
Julian is having someone he trusts in HR start pulling files, and he’s hiring a private investigator to track them all down.
If they’re dead, we will track down their families.
We will do whatever we have to do to take down my father and to make it as right as we can.
I know we can’t fix the damage he did, but we can at least help them get ready to take on a new day without carrying it.
It’s such a tangled web—NDAs, statute of limitations, women who have changed their names so as not to be found—but we’re working through it. We have to.
And all the while, we have to stay under the radar, keep up the facade that life is going on as we’ve all known it.
But thinking about having to sit at a table with my father tomorrow night, while hearing those women’s terrified voices…it makes me sick.
“He would request that I would join him back at the office after hours. He would pick out an outfit that he would have waiting for me. Sometimes, he would request that I change in front of him. He would often have me join meetings with him and some of his colleagues, though none of them I recognized or could ever find their names in our company directory. Sometimes, he would request that I change in front of them too. Then came the touching. He’d ask me to walk around the board table, letting the men ‘feel the fabric’ of my dress.
It started off with them doing that, but the more meetings I’d attend, the more comfortable they got. ”
When Wren asked the woman what happened next, I felt sick.
“There was one time he requested that I meet him at a hotel. I thought we were meeting in a conference room or the lobby, but instead, he had me report to a suite. When I arrived, I found two other men who were waiting for me. When I walked in, one man told Mr. Everett that I would do. When I realized what was about to happen, I turned to leave. Mr. Everett told me that my leaving was a neglect of my duties and would result in immediate termination. When I said I didn’t care, he reminded me that I had signed an NDA.
As I was fleeing the room, I heard him tell the men not to worry, that he had someone else lined up who would follow through. ”
It was the “someone else lined up” part that made me especially shiver. Because it meant that he had an open door, a never-ending turnstile of women so that his “supply” never ran out.
My father is a fucking pig.
I feel my fists clench at my sides. I see red. I want to drive to Bendmere, the rambling estate where we grew up. I want to walk past all the gold-encrusted decor in his house and hit him so hard that it makes a Cato-shaped hole in the fucking wall.
But I can’t.
Because tomorrow is his motherfucking birthday.
And instead of hitting him, I’ll be celebrating him.
I blow out a long breath when I feel her warm hand wrapping around my fists. She gently weaves her fingers through mine, unclenching them, and leans across the seat so she’s looking right into my eyes. I take a few breaths, and I feel the weight on my chest start to lift.
“I’m right here,” is all she says, and it’s all I need to hear.
When we get back to the apartment, she leads the way. She takes my hand and walks me down the hallway to our suite.
“Our” suite.
Even in my most dazed inner thoughts, what’s mine is hers.
She goes into the bathroom, and I hear her turn the water on in the tub.
Then she comes back into the room, making a beeline to me. She pulls me to my feet from the bed but doesn’t say anything. She slowly, gently starts to undress me. She pulls my shirt up over my head, the chain I wear with my mother’s ring falling against my chest.
Then she unbuttons and unzips my jeans, letting them pool at my feet.
She tugs down my boxers, and my breath hitches.
I feel the blood going straight to my dick, but this doesn’t feel sexual—yet.
It feels sensual, but like the purpose is innocent.
She peels my socks off then leads me into the bathroom to the tub.
She motions for me to get in, and I oblige her.
I’ve never stepped foot in this tub until right now.
I submerge myself into the hot water, and she adds something to it that smells like vanilla that I didn’t even know I had.
Then she kneels next to the tub as I lean my head back against the fancy little pillow that the decorator insisted I have—yet another purchase I took for granted and am now thankful for.
Once I close my eyes, I feel a warm cloth dab gently across my chest. I feel her fingers weave through my hair, gently scratching my scalp, and I feel the knots in my stomach loosen up. We don’t speak a word. She just washes my body, massages my head, and I just lie here and let her.
When I finally open my eyes, she’s staring down at me, her thumb gently stroking my cheek.
“I’d do anything for you, Keaton,” she whispers. “I’m sorry it took me so long. But I’m here. And if you’ll have me, I’m not leaving you.”
Something about this moment, the way I have turned to putty in her hands, how she has me completely naked—in more ways than one—makes those words hit me like a punch to the gut.
“If I’ll have you?” I ask her. “What on Earth would make you think that was up for debate?”
She clears her throat, her eyes falling down to the water.
“I don’t know what… I don’t know what kind of future you want. Or if…the kid thing—”
“You, Evie. You are the future I want. Full stop.”
Her lip quivers as her big green eyes slowly lift back to mine. I stare up at her through narrowed eyes, and I feel a thickness in my chest, crawling up my throat.
I grab her hand and pull it to my lips, closing my eyes and letting myself sit in it all for a moment. I finally open them, and I see that her eyes have tears in them.
“Don’t you cry, Evie Dawson,” I whisper. “Not when I’m about to.”
She lets out a strangled giggle as her voice cracks.
“You don’t cry,” she says. I let a sad smile show, but our eyes meet again.
“I cry, baby,” I tell her, reaching my other hand up to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear. “I cry over you.”
Her eyes widen like saucers, and I regret saying it. I wasn’t intending to make her feel bad. I just need her to know how much she means to me. What she does to me. What she has always done to me.
I stroke her cheek.
“I need you to stop apologizing to me, Evie,” I tell her.
“I mean it. You didn’t owe me anything then.
You don’t owe me anything now. You were just a twenty-one-year-old kid making the best decision at the time with the tools you had.
No one can fault you for that. It didn’t matter if it took one year, eleven years, or if it took thirty more.
Shit, it didn’t matter if I died before I got to have you, Eve. I was always going to be yours.”
She presses up onto her knees and leans over the tub, pressing her lips to mine for a long, hard kiss.
I wrap my arms around her, waiting for her to break it off.
But she doesn’t. Instead, she leans farther over the tub, the fabric of her shirt dipping into the water as she kisses me harder, devouring me.
I rub my wet hands up her back, clutching onto her just as tightly.
She lets out the softest moan when I bite down gently on her lip.
We finally come apart, and I pull her in even closer, the fabric of her soaked shirt now pierced by hard nipples.
I bend down, sucking one through the pink fabric, and she moans again.
Then I massage the other before reaching for the hem of her shirt and pulling it up over her head, dropping it in a heavy mound on the tile.
She stands, and I reach up to unzip her jeans and tug them down, along with the red lace panties underneath them. God, I want to fucking devour her.
I wrap my hands around her waist, tugging her back so her thighs are touching the side of the tub. Then I scoot over so my mouth is just inches from her pussy. I slide a finger through her folds, then I flick my eyes up to hers, big, and round, and pleading.
“You’re soaked, baby,” I whisper, sliding the finger into my mouth. I salivate at her flavor. She moans. “Is this for me?”
She nods wildly, and then I reach around and grab a hold of her ass with both hands.
“Then let me have it,” I say just as I dive in.
I lick and suck her clit, letting my tongue glide through her folds, my mouth suctioning against her.
She writhes beneath me, and I feel her fingernails digging into my shoulders.
She hums and moans with pleasure, one hand weaving through my hair and squeezing a fistful of it.
“I need you, Keat,” she whispers. “Please.”
I hold her to me harder, eating her until her juices are running through my beard, when I feel her legs start to vibrate.
“Please, Keat, I—” she starts, but before she can finish her thought—or her orgasm—I tug her into the tub with me so she’s straddling me.
I fist my cock and give it a few pumps, then I guide her hips over top of it.
Her eyes alight with this need that sets me over the edge, and then she slides down, taking me inch by inch while I lean back against the fancy tub pillow.
She bounces up and down on my dick, the water sloshing all around us, soaking my bathroom floor.
But I couldn’t give two fucks. I press my fingertips into her hips while she goes, her tits bouncing up and down as she drops her head back.
I run one hand up her stomach, pressing it between her breasts, holding her steady so she keeps hitting the spot she needs.
She moans and screams my name, one hand slapping down on the cool ceramic, the other pressing down on my chest. She rocks back and forth, and I give my hips a slight lift.
“That’s it, baby,” I growl. “Just hold it steady for me. I’ll get you there.”
She lets out a low moan, dropping her head back.
Her long red locks spill into the water as I fuck her, and I’m not letting up.
I feel her thighs tighten around me, and when I know she’s close, I slide my hand down.
I press gently against the bottom of her stomach and add a little bit of pressure to her clit until I feel her whole body lock up.
I have my release, spilling myself into her just as she collapses onto me.
We sit like this for a few moments, her forehead against my chest, my hands running up and down her sides gently as we both come down.
Finally, we have enough energy to get out of the tub and into the shower, and it’s my turn to wash her.
We get out, dry off, but elect to stay naked, getting into my bed and curling up into each other. I love the way she smells. Her hair, her skin. Everything about her pulls me in, and I am so sick of fighting it. I just want to hold her like this until the end of fucking time.
One last moment where I don’t know where she begins and where I end.
Then I could die a happy man.