Glorious Rivals(59)

Slate was not amused. “Do you even know how to drive a fishing boat? Or a boat this old, period?”

Gigi folded her arms over her chest. “I can learn. The ocean is a great place for learning.”

“You are a hazard to yourself.”

“Thank you.” Gigi tried to dart around him and ended up running smack into his chest again.

Slate caught her shoulders and righted her. “Wasn’t a compliment.”

“Let me go or I’ll scream,” Gigi replied. “And I have to warn you, Slate: My bellowing skills are second to none.”

“Mattias.” Beneath the blond hair hanging down over his face, the expression in his eyes shifted slightly. “My first name. It’s Mattias.”

Gigi didn’t want to remember that when he’d given her the name Slate, he’d said it was both true and false. She also didn’t want to ask: “Slate is your last name?”

“Slater, actually.”

Mattias Slater. There was something about this moment—the sunrise, an ocean mist thick enough to gather on their skin, his hands on her shoulders, the fact that he’d just given her his name—that threatened Gigi’s resolve.

“Mattias,” she said quietly. And then she opened her mouth and screamed. Wildly. Loudly. Directly in his fuzzy face.

Wait. Fuzzy? Mattias Slater’s blurry hands fell from Gigi’s shoulders. Time slowed. Gigi’s head pounded, and the next thing she knew, she couldn’t feel her face. She went down with a thud.

Slate fell to his knees beside her.

Prone on the wood floor of the boat, Gigi belatedly realized: the mist. Her vision began to go black around the edges, and the last thing Gigi saw before the world gave way to total darkness—seriously? again?—was a pair of leather boots stepping onto Jackson’s boat.

They were red.

Chapter 50

LYRA

Sunrise on the Pacific was a sight to behold. With Grayson beside her, Lyra stood at the front of the yacht, feeling like the sky had been split open. She looked down at the diamond-studded mask in her hands—at the words engraved in tiny letters on the back.

Time Signatures

Another puzzle, solved. Lyra wondered how many of the other players, besides her and Grayson, had looked at the back of their masks, and then she wondered what, if anything, else their competitors had found on the yacht. We were told there were hints to puzzles, plural. Lyra’s mind went first to Brady and whatever puzzle he was working, and then to Savannah and Rohan.

Rohan. The things he’d said ate at Lyra. She knew that he’d meant for them to, that Rohan had meant for the assertion that Jameson Hawthorne had placed a target on her back to cause problems—for her, for Grayson, for the way they’d been playing the Grandest Game. Together.

But that didn’t mean that it wasn’t true.

“What is it?” Grayson asked beside her.

Lyra ran a finger over the edge of her mask. It had been easier to hide her emotions from him when she was wearing it. But at this point, wasn’t she done hiding? She’d bet on him, on this thing between them, the moment she’d let go, the moment she’d confided in him about Eve.

You either trusted someone or you didn’t.

“Rohan told me that Jameson asked him to find a reason the game makers could use to kick me out of the game.” Lyra looked from the broken-open sky to Grayson. “Would Jameson do that? Did he?”

“In all likelihood?” Grayson’s eyes darkened slightly. “Yes.” The muscles in his jaw tightened, and the effect was visible all through his face, his cheekbones becoming that much sharper, his brow just a shade more pronounced. “But I assure you, that won’t be an issue moving forward.”

“Because you won’t let it be an issue?” Lyra guessed based on the look on his face.

“Because Jameson now knows that the person who sent you your ticket is Eve.” Grayson turned his head toward hers. “And Eve is not a threat.”

Lyra read between the lines there. “Who did your brother think sent me the ticket before?”

“There is a reason that my grandfather kept a List and a reason that we spell the word List with a capital L. My family has a not insignificant number of enemies. It might not have mattered to Jameson which of them sent you here—only that someone had, and their motives were questionable at best.”

“But Eve is not a threat?” Lyra was pretty sure Eve would have begged to differ about that.

“Eve is a known quantity,” Grayson said. “And I assure you, your spot in this game is secure. You’ve more than proved yourself, and I would not allow—”

Grayson’s words were cut off by a rhythmic roar. Lyra turned around to see a helicopter on the front of the yacht powering up, its blades spinning faster and faster.

“Nash,” Grayson informed her, raising the volume of his speech enough to be heard. “My brother has somewhere to be this morning.”

“Everything okay?” Lyra yelled back as the helicopter lifted off.

“Nash and his wife are expecting twins.” Grayson lowered his volume as the helicopter grew smaller in the sky. “Girls.”

Lyra gave herself exactly one moment to entertain the idea of Grayson as an uncle to two little girls. “Are they okay? Nash’s wife and the babies?”