Grayson made it exactly one step into the lobby before the manager locked on to his position and walked briskly to greet him. “Mr. Hawthorne, I wanted to apologize for the misunderstanding earlier, with your guest.”
Gigi. The second Grayson thought the name, an image of her face came to him: bright blue eyes going round at him as she realized exactly who he was to her.
“It’s fine,” Grayson said, and a less ambitious hotel manager would have taken his tone as a dismissal.
This woman, however, was not so easily put off. “Would you like me to clear the pool?”
 |
Grayson stepped out onto the pavement and became immediately aware of two facts. The first was that the pool was not empty. And the second was that the person treading water in the deep end was Eve.
“Does it pain you?” “My existence?”
“Your wound.” Grayson has the sudden urge to brush her hair gently back from the bruise. He dismisses it—brutally, absolutely.
“Some people would want me to say yes.” There’s a challenge in Eve’s words. “Some people want to think that girls like me are weak.”
Grayson will not touch her—but he steps closer. “Pain doesn’t make you weak.”
Eve’s eyes lock on his, and for a moment, she looks nothing like Emily. “You don’t really believe that, Grayson Hawthorne.”
Snapping out of it, Grayson channeled an apathy capable of icing out everything else. He’d been a fool, and no one got to make a fool of Grayson Hawthorne twice.
He turned, fully intending to leave. Mattias Slater stepped out of the shadows. In daylight, the sentinel’s dark-blond hair bordered on gold, but his eyes still looked almost black. With a single step, he blocked Grayson’s path back inside.
Fast. Unafraid. Armed. All aspects of Grayson’s earlier assessment still seemed to apply. The ink on the sentinel’s biceps was more visible now— not one tattoo, but many: thick, black, curving lines, like tally marks reflected in a fun house mirror.
Or claw marks. “Get out of my way,” Grayson ordered. Mattias Slater did not get out of his way.
Grayson side-stepped. His opponent anticipated the move and blocked him again. Grayson turned and began striding toward a side gate, but before he could make it there, he heard the audible click of a gun.
You’re not going to shoot me, Mattias. Grayson didn’t turn around. He didn’t so much as break his stride. But the next thing he heard was Eve climbing out of the pool, and that froze him in his spot.
It shouldn’t have. He knew better.
“Hello, Grayson.” Eve’s wet feet were audible against the pavement as she walked toward him.
“I have nothing to say to you.” Grayson forced his body to move, but Mattias Slater was suddenly in front of him, blocking the gate.
“That’s a lie.” Eve passed him, then turned slowly toward him, leaving them face-to-face. “But then, we always were liars.”
Grayson felt those words—and her presence—in a deep and hollow place. A singular muscle in his jaw tensed. “There is no we, Eve.”
“At least when I lie, there’s a utility to it. A purpose.” Eve took a single step forward. “At least I don’t lie to myself.”
She’d used him. She’d made him a pawn, then discarded him. She had come after his family. Apathy was what she deserved—the best she deserved, and that only because Grayson wouldn’t risk the complications
that could come with exacting a fair price for her betrayal.
So she got nothing. “What are you doing here?” Grayson said, a Hawthorne question, more order or demand.
Eve responded with a question of her own. “How are things going with your sisters?”
Fury surged inside Grayson. If that was a threat…
“It’s not easy,” Eve continued. “Coming to a family as an outsider, seeing what might have been. What you might have been if things had been different.”
Grayson saw how she was playing this. We are not the same, Eve. “You made your choice.” His voice was low and full of warning.
She should have taken that warning.
She didn’t. “Do you want me to say that I regret what I did to be named Vincent Blake’s heir? That I wish I’d chosen to remain at your mercy? At hers?” That was a reference to Avery. It had to be. “Do you expect me to stand here and tell you that money and power don’t matter?”
Of course they did. “I don’t expect anything from you.” There wasn’t a hint of emotion in Grayson’s tone—no way in, no weakness for her to exploit.
“You have no idea what it’s like to be me right now, Gray.”
She’d called him Gray. If she expected that to affect him in any way, she was going to be disappointed. “You got what you wanted,” he replied with searing, emotionless precision. “You’re the sole heir to a massive fortune.”
“I’m alone.” The words slipped from her mouth like a confession. Vulnerability had always been Eve’s weapon of choice.
“I have to prove myself every day,” she continued, “knowing that if I fail, he’ll take the seals from me one by one, and I’ll be left with nothing.” She met his eyes, waiting for a response, and when she didn’t get one, she turned to her guard. “Slate, tell Grayson how many of my great-grandfather’s men are loyal to me.”
Mattias Slater’s face remained neutral, dangerously so. “One.”
You, Grayson thought.
Eve grabbed Grayson’s chin, wrenching his gaze back toward hers. “Would you at least look at me?”
Why would I? “What do you want from me, Eve?”
Something like hurt flickered in her eyes. “What do I want from you?”
Eve drew in a breath. Then another. “Nothing.” She raised her chin. “Yet. When I want something from you, you’ll know.”
She was baiting him. And, damn it, he took the bait. “Stay away from Gigi and Savannah,” Grayson bit out, brutal force in each word.
“Is that what Tobias Hawthorne would do?” Eve said. “Would he give away leverage? Would you, Gray?” Eve’s stare was just as piercing as his— when she wanted it to be. “I wonder… What did you and your sisters find in that safe-deposit box?”
That was definitely a threat. “Move,” Grayson ordered in a tone that could have been described as arctic. “Call off your attack dog and get out of my way.”
“Or what?” Eve looked at him in a way designed to make him look at her.
“Move,” Grayson repeated, enunciating the word, “or I will move you.”
She didn’t. “Lie all you want, Grayson. To yourself. To me. But don’t forget that I know your father isn’t missing. And the only thing keeping my lips sealed about the people responsible is the promise of an honor-bound old man who won’t be around forever.” She stared at and into him. “You’ll want to be on my good side then.”
And there it was. “If you come at Avery,” Grayson said, matching her threat with one of his own, “if you even think of coming near my sisters, I’ll destroy you.”
Eve brought her lips to whisper directly in his ear. “Is that a promise?”
