Chapter 1
Jenner
If there was one thing I was good at, it was keeping secrets. Hell, I got paid well to keep my big mouth shut.
I was a lawyer, and I was good at my job.
But there was one secret I had kept for almost ten years. It had nothing and everything to do with me being able to keep paying my bills.
And if that one secret—let’s call it Phil—ever got out, I’d be fucked.
I kept Phil well-hidden. Just a tiny scrap of paper no one would ever see.
“Guess who’s staying at The Blue Spot?” Hamish leaned back in the small wooden chair as he lifted the paper cup filled with coffee to his lips.
Hamish Blackwell was a big client of mine. And by big, I meant he was a billionaire. If a billionaire called me, I knew to drop everything and do what he asked.
Hamish wanted to meet at the Hard Grind, a coffee shop in the small mountain town of Castle Ridge. It was quaint, with everything wood and brown, and the coffee-scented aroma filled the air.
I stared into his gray eyes that seemed to dance with amusement. If there was one thing I knew about Hamish, it was that he made mistakes—lots of mistakes—but he could afford to. And when he got that sparkle in his gaze, I knew I had a lot of work to do. Because at the end of whatever job he threw my way, I’d be paid handsomely. But that didn’t stop my shoulders from tensing, my heart from quickening its pace, and that ulcer in my stomach to increase in size.
Despite all that, Hamish was my friend, and I’d come even if it didn’t involve a job.
“Please don’t tell me Dick escaped and showed back up at The Blue Spot.”
Dick was Hamish’s asshole cousin. I made sure Dick paid for his dickish behavior to Hamish a few months ago.
Hamish shook his head. “No, not him. Eric. Eric Hudson.” His brow rose as if it was the juiciest secret in the world.
“I know. He’s my friend. He’s on his honeymoon.” I lifted my paper cup and sipped the piping-hot coffee.
Hamish’s brow rose. “I thought he married years ago?”
“No. He got divorced last year. It was all over the internet. Remember, she caught him with the nanny.”
“Nanny? Wait. He has a kid?”
I snorted. “No. It was his ex-wife’s sister’s nanny.”
“What number?” Hamish asked.
“Number?”
“Marriage. It’s his third, right?”
“No, fifth.”
Hamish made a face that I understood immediately.
Eric was born into a very poor family, and his father became rich by being a ruthless jerk. I hated to speak ill of the dead, but, yeah, that guy sucked the big one. My dad worked for his dad, and that was where my family’s problems began.
From what Eric told me, he was just as terrible to him and his sister as he was to every human being he ever met. Eric could never be a kid; his father forced him to work for him instead of attending school.
It surprised me that his father was never arrested, just on his kid’s truancy alone. My guess was he paid many a cop off to look past Eric’s lack of school attendance.
Once Eric became an adult, he decided it was time to act out and be the kid he never was. He was a nice guy and the most loyal friend I ever had, but the guy was one big man-child. And when it came to finance, he was very much a child. Luckily, his father left him with lots and lots of money.
“How old is he?”