The Next Best Thing (ePub)

Evie Dupont, a twenty-something interior designer has it all. A prominent last name, a hundred-million-dollar trust fund, and a man or two who love her. But she doesn't want any of it. She adds an 'E' at the end of her name to throw internet searchers off the scent—a conceit her twin brother, Michael, finds hilarious. And in order not to dip into the family till, she needs to rely on the one-percenters she's been trying to purge from her life in order to keep her fledgling business afloat during the slow economy.

Add to that, Ethan Brandt, decade-plus older, brilliant tech-entrepreneur is chasing after her. He isn't exactly a movie star, but Sullivan Pearce is. This mega-movie star/former high-school classmate pops by Evie's Brooklyn brownstone between movie shoots for sizzling sex. And while some women might find the prospect of a secret lover titillating, Evie finds it terrifying. Sully is her secret and she is his, but secrets have a way of getting messy. Sully lives for the spotlight while she avoids it at all cost. But some secrets are too delicious to keep under wraps.

Evie is aware these first-world problems are ones many women would gladly trade with her—which is another reason she hates her life right now. Three nights a week she brings food to the local women's shelter near her office in a renovated brownstone in DUMBO. Seeing the empty look in the women's eyes spurs her to do more than hand out care packages, ultimately realizing using her wealth and influence to build a new shelter is worth stepping out from behind the scenes.

Will she choose Ethan's geeky charm or Sully's soulful declarations of love? And when it comes to love, are her choices really only between a man who makes her the center of his universe, or a man whose star is so bright everyone else dims by comparison?

Or maybe there's another choice.