Page 44 of Hush Money
“Let’s go home and go to bed,” I tell him. He smiles as he looks down at me.
“Home,” he says, and it’s then that I realize what I just did. I referred tohisapartment as “home.” And while I will spend the rest of the night thinking and overthinking it, I will let him soakit in. I need him to smile. I need him to feel lighter. And I’ll do that anyway I can.
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 dowhatever 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 heardhim 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 becelebratinghim.
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.
