“You’re smiling,” she told me.
“You would, too,” I told her, “if you knew Jameson.” He was exactly what he’d always been—a thrill chaser, a sensation seeker, a risk taker—and he was so much more.
“How did he react when he found out that you were giving so much of the family’s fortune away?”
“He was shocked at first,” I admitted. “But after that, it became a game—to all of them.”
“All the Hawthornes?”
I tried not to smile too big this time. “All the boys.”
“The boys, as in the Hawthorne brothers. Half the world is in love with them—now more than ever.”
That wasn’t a question, so I didn’t answer.
“You said that after the shock of your decision wore off, giving away the money became a game to the Hawthorne brothers?”
Everything’s a game, Avery Grambs. The only thing we get to decide in this life is if we play to win. “We’re in a race against the clock to find the right causes and the right organizations to give the money to,” I explained.
“You set up your foundation with the stipulation that all of the money had to be gone in five years. Why?”
That was more of a softball question than she realized. “Big changes require big actions,” I said. “Hoarding the money and doling it out slowly over time never felt like the right call.”
“So you put out a call—for experts.”
“Experts,” I confirmed. “Academics, people with boots on the ground—and even just people with big ideas. We had open applications for spots on the board, and there are more than a hundred of us working at the foundation now. Our team includes everyone from Nobel Prize and MacArthur genius award winners to humanitarian leaders, medical professionals, domestic abuse survivors, incarcerated persons, and a full dozen activists under the age of eighteen. Together, we work to generate and evaluate action plans.”
“And review proposals.” The interviewer kept the same thoughtful tone. “Anyone can submit a proposal to the Hannah the Same Backward as Forward Foundation.”
“Anyone,” I confirmed. “We want the best ideas and the best people. You can be anyone, from anywhere. You can feel like you’re no one. We want to hear from you.”
“Where did you get the name for the foundation?”
I thought of Toby, of my mom. “That,” I told the whole world watching, “is a mystery.”
“And speaking of mysteries…” The shift in tone told me that we were about to get serious. “Why?”
The interviewer let that question hang in the air, then continued.
“Why, having been left one of the largest fortunes in the world, would you give almost all of it away? Are you a saint?”
I snorted, which probably wasn’t a good look with millions watching, but I couldn’t help it. “If I were a saint,” I said, “do you really think I would have kept two billion dollars for myself?” I shook my head, my hair escaping from behind my shoulders as I did. “Do you understand how much money that is?”
I wasn’t being combative, and I hoped my tone made that clear.
“I could spend a hundred million dollars a year,” I explained, “every year for the rest of my life, and there’s still a good chance that I would have more money when I died than I have right now.”
Money made money—and the more of it you had, the higher the rate of return.
“And frankly,” I said, “I can’t spend a hundred million dollars a year. Literally can’t! So, no, I’m not a saint. If you really think about it, I’m pretty selfish.”
“Selfish,” she repeated. “Giving away twenty-eight billion dollars? Ninety-four percent of all your assets, and you think people should be asking why you’re not doing more?”
“Why not?” I said. “Someone told me once that fortunes like this one—at a certain point, it’s not about the money, because you couldn’t spend billions if you tried. It’s about the power.” I looked down. “And I just don’t think anyone should have power like that, certainly not me.”
I wondered if Vincent Blake was watching—or Eve, or any of the other high rollers I’d met since inheriting.
“And the Hawthorne family was really okay with that?” The interviewer asked. She wasn’t combative, either. Just curious and deeply empathetic. “The boys? Grayson Hawthorne has dropped out of Harvard. Jameson Hawthorne has had brushes with the law on at least three continents in the past six months. It was recently reported that Xander Hawthorne is working as a mechanic.”
Xander was working with Isaiah—both at his shop and on several pieces of new technology that they were very excited about. Grayson had dropped out of Harvard to turn the full force of his mind to the project of giving the money away. And the only reason Jameson had been arrested—or almost arrested—so many times was that he couldn’t turn down dares.
Specifically, mine.
The only reason I hadn’t made similar headlines was that I was better at not getting caught.
“You forgot Nash,” I said easily. “He’s tending bar and working as a cupcake taster on the weekends.”
I was smiling now, emanating the kind of contentedness—not to mention amusement—that a person couldn’t fake. The Hawthorne brothers weren’t, as she’d suggested, going off the rails. They were—all of them—exactly where they were supposed to be.
They’d been sculpted by Tobias Hawthorne, formed and forged by the billionaire’s hands. They were extraordinary, and for the first time in their lives, they weren’t living under the weight of his expectations.
The interviewer caught my smile and shifted subjects—slightly. “Do you have any comments on rumors of Nash Hawthorne’s engagement to your sister?”
“I don’t pay much attention to rumors,” I managed to say with a straight face.
“What’s next for you, Avery? As you pointed out, you still have an incredibly massive fortune. Any plans?”
“Travel,” I answered immediately. On the walls all around us, there were at least thirty souvenirs—but there were still so many places I hadn’t been.
Places where Jameson hadn’t yet taken an inadvisable dare.
Places we could fly.
“And,” I continued, “after a gap year or two, I’ll be enrolling as an actuarial science major at UConn.”
“Actuarial science?” Her eyebrows skyrocketed. “At UConn.”
“Statistical risk assessment,” I said. There were people out there who built models and algorithms, whose advice my financial advisors took. I had a lot to learn before I could start managing the risks all on my own.
And besides, the moment I’d said UConn, Jameson had started talking about Yale. Do you think their secret societies could use a Hawthorne?