Glorious Rivals(51)

“May I?” Rohan asked.

“If you must,” Savannah said.

Oh, I must, Savvy. Rohan started low on Savannah’s arm this time and worked his way up, letter by letter. His touch light, Rohan weaved his way in and out of the writing, taking in each piece of the puzzle—each music note, beginning with the waltz and ending with “Clair de lune.”

Halfway through, Savannah’s breath hitched. Like that, do you, love?

Three-quarters of the way through, Rohan let himself imagine Savannah Grayson slipping off that dress and slipping fully into the hot tub.

As he saw his task through to the end, he leaned toward her, tilted his head down, and spoke directly into her ear. “D, A, G, A,” he murmured. One section of “Clair de lune.” “E, E, F.” Another.

“Adage.” Savannah’s voice wasn’t nearly as high or clear as her normal speaking tone. “Or aged. Or fade.”

Rohan let his touch linger on the final note. “There’s too many notes across the three songs for this puzzle to be as simple as spelling a word.”

Savannah reached up to run her own hand over letter after letter, her gaze on Rohan. “Our next move seems clear then, does it not?”

She smelled faintly of jasmine and vanilla. “Why don’t you clarify that move for me, love?” He added the endearment just to see her eyes flash.

“It’s clear,” Savannah said tartly, “that Brady Daniels has already solved this puzzle. Equally clear is the fact that he is without any allies in this game. And we have leverage on him.”

Rohan thought about the invisible messages on the backs of those photographs of Calla Thorp. “Proof of communication with his sponsor. We could take him out of the game.”

“Or,” Savannah murmured, “we could use him.”

He brought his fingers to Savannah’s collarbone, lightly tracing it from one shoulder to the other. “What precisely are you suggesting, Savvy?”

Savannah gripped his jaw and angled his head back, exposing his neck. “I’m suggesting,” she said, bringing her mouth down to speak directly into his ear, “that I convince Brady Daniels that my loyalties are… fungible.”

Her lips brushed over an artery in his neck, and Rohan wondered if she could see his pulse, feel it.

“Your loyalties are fungible,” he pointed out. “But if you can get something useful out of Brady Daniels before we have him disqualified, if you can string him along and keep getting things out of him…” There wasn’t all that much of her hair left to grab, but Rohan made do, angling her head back. “So be it.”

Chapter 43

GIGI

It had taken some doing, but eventually, Gigi’s gruff rescuer had broken and given her his name. Now Gigi’s new buddy Jackson was asleep in a chair at his beat-up kitchen-table-for-one, his shotgun beside him, his chair turned to face the metal door to his tiny house—which, Gigi had to admit, a less optimistic person might have referred to as a shack.

A less optimistic person might also have been concerned with the fact that said shack was in clear view of the lighthouse, but Gigi excelled at looking on the bright side.

Such as: Jackson had given her the bed—or technically, the mattress. Such chivalry! Such beard!

And to be honest, Cranky Men Who Hate Everyone were kind of Gigi’s specialty. Besides, it was the middle of the night. Even if she did manage to make it into town somehow, everything would be closed. And even if she managed to somehow get ahold of a phone, Gigi only had three telephone numbers memorized: Grayson’s, her mother’s, and Savannah’s. Two of the three of them were in the game without their phones, and the third was in Arizona, which meant that Gigi’s only real option in town would have been to go to the police, and that wouldn’t get her to Hawthorne Island.

It wouldn’t get her to Savannah.

So waiting until morning it was. Unfortunately, all Gigi could do was lie there and think about how much Savannah was probably hurting and the lengths her sister would almost certainly go to in order to pretend she wasn’t.

A whistling of wind. A creak of wood. Sounds broke Gigi from her thoughts. Slate? Gigi glanced at Jackson—and his gun. It would serve Mr. I Am Sorry About This right, she thought. But…

Gigi sat up and slowly made her way to the door. She didn’t want Slate dead. Just… properly remorseful.

For what felt like a small eternity, Gigi stood on the inside of the metal door, listening, but there wasn’t a single sound. Not the wind. Not the creaking of wood.

Finally, she flipped the deadbolt and opened the metal door all of an inch. There was no one there—but there was something on the ground. Gigi couldn’t quite make it out with only a bathroom light on behind her, but that didn’t stop her from crouching down to get a better look.

A flower. Gigi shook her head. It was only a flower.

Chapter 44

LYRA

Lyra tried to be methodical about the way she searched the yacht, but it was a yacht. Maybe some people were wired for yacht parties and moonlit masquerades, but to Lyra, it was like having fallen into Wonderland.

Poker chips made out of meteorites.

A ship so massive it had its own movie theater.

Bars—plural—stocked with ornate bottles, most of which looked like they cost at least as much as Lyra’s diamond-studded mask.