Glorious Rivals (The Grandest Game, #2) (60)

“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?”

“They’re fine, but between you and me, Nash has always been a bit of a mother hen.”

“Are we talking about the same Nash Hawthorne?” Lyra asked. “Cowboy hat. Yea high.”

Grayson’s lips curved up on the ends. “Trust me.”

I do. Lyra should have found that unsettling, but as she fixed her gaze on the ocean sunrise once more, Grayson did the same beside her, and they fell into an in easy silence, far easier than it should have been—until it was broken by the familiar thump of helicopter blades.

Back so soon? Lyra looked up. In the sky, a different helicopter hooked toward the yacht’s helipad, coming in for a landing.

“How many helicopters does your family have?” she yelled.

Before Grayson could answer, Xander’s voice sounded from the yacht’s many speakers. “Players! Your chariot has arrived. Make your way to the bow of the ship. And if I may offer a few parting words…”

Xander paused for dramatic effect, and Lyra thought about that fact that there wouldn’t be another interlude like this one. No more events. No more ballgowns. No more masks. Just clue to clue to clue—until the end.

“Live long. Prosper. Hydrate.” As Xander’s voice echoed over the bow, the helicopter touched down. “Make good choices. We’ll see you at the finish line. Xander Hawthorne, out.”

One by one, the other players arrived on the front of the yacht. The helicopter’s blades stopped spinning, and the pilot’s door opened. A man stepped out. He was wearing tattered jeans. Facial hair covered the bottom half of his face, a deeper brown than his hair, which had the faintest red tint to it, closer to mahogany than auburn.

She felt Grayson register the man’s presence.

“Who’s that?” Lyra asked, her voice low.

“That,” Grayson told her, “is Toby Hawthorne.”





Chapter 51





GRAYSON


It was an achievement, feeling like the world’s biggest liar while staring at a man who’d once faked being dead for twenty years. But Grayson had always been an overachiever—though technically, he’d dealt with all of Lyra’s questions with a minimal number of lies. Each deceptive truth had come more easily than the last.

The old man would have approved. Grayson let that grating thought come as he took in the sight of his grandfather’s namesake and only son: Toby Hawthorne—Toby Blake now, to the world at large. To Grayson, his mysterious uncle would have been little more than a stranger were it not for Avery, for the fact that Toby loved her like a daughter because he’d loved Avery’s mother in that undying, infinite, Hawthorne kind of way.

What the hell is he doing here?

“We’re one seat short in the back,” Toby called, his gaze locking on to Grayson’s. “You can ride in the cockpit with me.”





Grayson waited until the chopper was booted back up to speak. “I take it Avery called you.”

Thanks to the headphones he and Toby were wearing, Grayson’s words were delivered directly to the other man’s ears. A divider between the cockpit and the passenger section of the chopper provided additional assurance: No one else could hear them.

“Nash called, actually.” Toby tossed a glance in Grayson’s direction, pulling the helicopter into the air as casually as if he were driving a car. “Your brother seemed to be under the impression that the rest of you could use a little extra adult supervision, though he would not tell me why.”

Mother hen, Grayson thought. “I’m twenty-two,” he told Toby. “Hardly in need of adult supervision.”

“I remember twenty-two.” Toby curved the helicopter around in a long arc, setting them back on the path toward Hawthorne Island. “I spent a good portion of twenty-two working on a fishing crew in Thailand. I hate boats. Hate the water.” Toby’s voice was gravelly in a way that suggested it didn’t get all that much use. “I suppose you could say that I was trying to hate being twenty-two as much as I loathed myself.” Toby’s eyes flicked toward Grayson. “You just resisted the urge to say that Hawthornes do not try.”