Dedication

To everyone out there who are written off without having a chance to tell their side of the story.

Chapter One

Beau

“Tell me that my brother is not Ethan’s father,” I hiss. My heart pounds in my chest while the tears stream down my face as I stand here looking at who are supposed to be my best friends. The tie around my neck suddenly feels tight. I have the white paper clenched in my hand so tight that my whole body feels like it’s shaking. Savannah stands there looking more beautiful than she has ever looked in her whole life, and trust me, I know. I’ve been watching her for what feels like my whole life.

“Tell me!” I shout, and the tears flow down her face.

“Ethan is mine,” says Jacob, my best friend and father of Ethan. Kallie, who left eight years ago when Savannah found out she was pregnant and said it was Jacob’s, stands beside him. When I learned the news, I was cut off at the knees. I was gutted and hollow, thinking that my best friend had slept with the only woman I have ever loved. I pretended to be supportive of them, but deep down inside, I died. A piece of me was gone forever.

“Really,” I say. Shaking my head, I walk around the big brown desk that belonged to my father for the past twenty-five years. And before that, it was my grandfather’s. Today was supposed to be a day I never forgot, and after this, it will be. Jacob and I would always sneak into this office and take a couple of swigs of the top-of-the-line whiskey my father kept in here. More than once, we got caught, but my father would just smile and walk back out of the room.

“Beau.” Casey says my name, and my eyes fly to his. Casey is Kallie’s brother and another one of my best friends. I look at everyone in the room and wonder if they all lied to me. Was it all a lie? Was everything a lie? “Sit down.”

I shake my head. “Imagine my surprise …” I start, my voice low so Savannah can hear me. She stands there watching me, her face wet from tears. “When I walked in here to take a drink with my best friends.” I swallow. “To take one shot of whiskey. Then my leg hits something on the desk, and the sound it made caused me to stop. But it would sound weird since the desk was one hundred years old. But when I bent down, this little box was under there. And if you look closely, you can see it is a hidden compartment.”

“Beau.” Savannah whispers my name, and my heart shatters in my chest.