Grayson continued blithely, “I certainly didn’t send those emails.”
There it was—the bob of his opponent’s Adam’s apple. “What emails?” Trowbridge demanded.
Grayson didn’t reply. He glanced pointedly at court number seven. “You’ll have to let me know if the judge still wants to play next week.”
Within the week, said the promise beneath that seemingly innocuous sentence, no one will be willing to risk a connection with you.
Grayson turned to leave.
“He didn’t deserve her!” Trowbridge wasn’t yelling so much as vibrating with fury. “She should have listened to me.”
“On the day of her mother’s funeral?” Grayson didn’t even bother turning back to face the man. “Or years earlier when she said that the two of you would be better as friends? Or maybe more recently, when you set Savannah up to think that in seven short months, she would be in a position to solve her family’s problems?”
Protect them.
“Acacia was never going to let Savannah do that,” Trowbridge snapped.
Grayson still refused to turn around. “Acacia would say yes to you first,” he said quietly. “That was the plan, was it not?”
Trowbridge was incensed now, bordering on apoplectic. “You arrogant, spoiled, cocksure—”
“Brother,” Grayson finished. “The word you’re looking for is brother.” Now, he looked back. “No one hurts my family.”
Whatever Gigi and Savannah thought of him now, he would protect them.
Trowbridge’s phone buzzed again. He looked down at it this time and paled at the number that flashed across his screen.
“I’ll let you get that,” Grayson said with one last, well-targeted smile. “Something tells me that it just might be critical after all.”
CHAPTER 95
GRAYSON
That night, after they’d made it back to Hawthorne House, Grayson lay in his bed staring up at the ceiling. Tonight was clearly going to be a night when sleep didn’t come easily, if at all. His mind wasn’t racing. He wasn’t tossing or turning. He was just… awake.
Trowbridge was taken care of, in a way that would divert the FBI’s investigation for the foreseeable future. Acacia’s financial woes had been remedied. She now had a very good lawyer. Grayson had checked every item off his Phoenix to-do list.
His Grayson family to-do list.
Do you ever play what-if, Grayson? The question Acacia had asked him came back to Grayson, and for just a moment, he let the answer be yes. If he’d had a more normal childhood, if he’d spent even a few weeks a year with his father, with Acacia and the girls, would it have changed anything?
Changed him?
Bullshit, he could hear Nash saying. You know how to love people just fine. Grayson thought about the ring tucked inside his suitcase. In his mind, he could see the magnificent stone as if he were looking straight at it.
Grappling for a distraction, for something—anything—else to hold on to, Grayson considered a riddle, one he could still hear said by a girl with a honey-rich voice.
What begins a bet? Not that.
As if summoned by some unholy magic, his phone rang on the nightstand where it was charging. Grayson sat up, the sheet falling away from his chest. In his gut and in his mind and in his aching body, he somehow expected the caller to be that girl.
But it wasn’t.
It wasn’t Eve this time, either.
It was Gigi. Grayson stared at her name on the screen, unable to quite bring himself to pick up. Less than a minute later, he received a text. No cat picture this time, just words.
I’m at the gate.
Grayson had no idea what Gigi was doing at Hawthorne House—or how she’d even gotten there. But his sister didn’t give him a chance to ask a single question.
“Inside,” she told him. “We’ll talk inside. You look creepy in the dark.”
Grayson tried his best not to take that personally. Whatever she threw at him, whatever she’d come here to say or do—he wouldn’t take it personally.
The two of them rode from the gates to Hawthorne House in silence. Grayson was well aware of the fact that their progression was being tracked by security, but none of Oren’s men tried to stop them.
In the grand foyer, Gigi didn’t mince words. “Mom says her money’s back.” Bright blue eyes pinned his. “You did that, didn’t you?” She paused. “Or you convinced Dad to?”
Grayson’s heart twisted in his chest. After everything, she was still holding out hope. Because that was what Gigi did. She hoped. “Gigi…”
She stabbed her index finger in his general direction. “How dare you do something wonderful when I’m mad at you?” Mad at him? He’d thought she was done with him. “Do you know how hard it is for me to stay mad at people?” she continued, scowling. “How very dare you!”
Grayson couldn’t let himself smile, not even a little. He couldn’t risk it. “Your father didn’t return the money,” he told Gigi, “because he wasn’t the one who took it from your mother’s trust. Trowbridge did.”
Gigi glared at him. “Kent or Duncan?”
“Kent.”
Gigi blew out a long breath. “Can I hate Duncan anyway?”
This time, Grayson couldn’t help the slight twitch of his lips. “Please do.”
“Good,” Gigi said. “Because as bad as I am staying mad at people, I truly excel at holding permanent and unholy grudges against anyone who hurts my sister. May his crotch forever itch in places that are very difficult to scratch and his fingers turn to sausages on his hands.”
It was probably a good thing that Gigi had been as yet unsuccessful at her attempts to develop magical powers.
“You were wrong earlier,” Gigi told Grayson, her change of subject swift and firm. “You said your father—but he isn’t just my father, Grayson, or Savannah’s. He’s yours, too. You must have had a reason for what you did—not the good stuff, not the money stuff, but the rest of it.”
Sabotaging their efforts. Betraying her.
“I warned you from the beginning not to trust me,” Grayson told her. He waited for anger that never came.
“Why?” Gigi said. “Even after everything, you helped us, Grayson. You got Mom a lawyer. You found the money somehow. You beat the bad guy.” She paused. “You did beat the bad guy, right?”
Grayson nodded. “Yeah,” he told Gigi. “I did.”
“Why?” his little sister demanded again. “Because it looks an awful lot to me like you care.” She stared at him. “You do. I know you do. So why would you—”
“I had to.” Grayson hadn’t meant to say that, and he hadn’t meant for the words to come out tortured and low. “I had to, Gigi.” Maybe he should have left it there. A week ago, he would have. “I know something about your father that you don’t know, something that you shouldn’t know.”
“Our father” came the stubborn correction.
“He wasn’t a good guy, Gigi.”
“Because of the whole embezzlement-and-tax-evasion thing?”
I could say yes. I could leave it there. And I could lose her. Grayson thought back to his conversation with Avery—Avery, whom he wanted to protect more than just about anyone else in the world.
Just about.
“Before he disappeared, your father—” At his sister’s glare, Grayson corrected himself. “Our father… he tried to kill someone who matters to me. You might not have seen it in the news back then—”
Gigi stared at him. “There was a bomb, right? On a plane? Someone tried to kill the Hawthorne heiress.” Gigi frowned. “Wasn’t your mother arrested for that?”
Grayson swallowed. “They arrested the wrong parent.”
Gigi’s eyes were very round. “Dad?” she whispered. “That whole thing with Aunt Kim and the Hawthornes getting theirs…”
Grayson was walking a dangerous line now. He knew it, just like he knew that no matter what he said, Gigi might still choose to walk away. But he had to try. “He wanted revenge.” Grayson gave her as much of the truth as he could. “For Colin.”