“Let’s try to avoid the word asshole, shall we?” Landon said, her British accent pronounced. “Avery, we need for you to project gratitude and awe. It’s fine to be overwhelmed, but you need to be overwhelmed in the best possible way.”
Gratitude. Awe. I was expected to be some kind of wide-eyed everygirl, and all Grayson had to do was sit there, with those cheekbones and that suit and be a Hawthorne.
“Avery’s right.” Grayson was still in interview mode. He projected confidence, his tone dripping power, like he was an immortal deigning to explain to humans what they should believe, think, and do. “We all make decisions, and those decisions affect other people. They ripple through the world, and the more power you have, the greater the ripple. Fate didn’t choose Avery.” Grayson’s tone brooked no argument. “My grandfather did. We might never know his reasons, but I have no doubt that he had them. He always did.”
All I could think was that we did know the reasons—or at least, we had theories. But that wasn’t something I could say in front of Landon. It wasn’t something I could admit on national television.
When you can’t tell the truth, I could hear Landon lecturing me, tell a truth.
“I wish I knew what those reasons were,” I said. For sure, I added silently. I shot Grayson a look. “Sometimes, it feels like Hawthornes always just know. Like you’re all so sure of everything.”
Grayson’s eyes locked on to mine. “Not everything.”
There was something about the way he looked at me when he said those words that made me realize I might be the one person on the planet with the ability to make Grayson Hawthorne question himself and the decisions he’d made.
Like the decision to step back from me. To be friends.
Landon clasped her hands together. “Avery, that’s the most natural I’ve heard you sound. Very relatable! And, Grayson, you’re perfection.” Like he needed anyone else telling him that. “Just remember, both of you: short answers if they ask about the attempts on Avery’s life. Grayson, don’t be afraid to seem protective of her. Avery, you know the rest of your ‘no’ questions.”
If they asked if I knew anything about my mother’s past: no.
If they asked what I had done to work my way into Tobias Hawthorne’s will: nothing.
“Grayson, whenever possible, talk about your grandfather. And your brothers! The audience will eat that up, and we want them walking away with the idea that your grandfather knew exactly what he was doing when he chose Avery, and no one’s worried. And, Avery?”
“Gratitude,” I said quickly. “Overwhelmed. Relatable. One day, I’m scrounging to pay the electric bill, and the next, I’m Cinderella. I don’t know what I’ll do with the money yet—I’m just seventeen. But I’d like to help people.”
“And?” Landon prompted.
“Someday I’d like to travel the world.” That was something we’d settled on as a talking point, something that made me sound dreamy and wide-eyed and overwhelmed. And it was true.
“Perfect,” Landon said. “One more time, from the top.”
CHAPTER 62
By the time Landon finally let us go, the sun was starting to set.
“You look like you want to hit something,” Grayson observed. He was getting ready to go on his way, and I was getting ready to go on mine—probably to find Max.
“I don’t want to hit anything,” I said in a tone that did absolutely nothing to sell that statement.
Grayson tilted his head to the side, and his eyes settled directly on mine. “How would you feel about swinging a sword?”
Grayson took me through the topiary garden to a part of the estate I’d never seen before.
“Is that…，” I started to say.
“A hedge maze?” Grayson had a way of smiling: lips closed, slightly uneven. “I’m surprised Jamie’s never brought you out here.”
The moment he mentioned Jameson, I was hit with the feeling that I shouldn’t be out here—not with Grayson. But we were just friends, and whatever Jameson and I were at the moment, it came with no strings attached.
That was the point.
I turned my attention to the maze. The hedges were taller than I was, and dense. A person could get lost in there. I stood at the entrance, Grayson beside me.
“Follow me,” he said.
I did. The farther into the maze we got, the more I focused on marking our path—not on the way he moved, the shape of his body in front of me.