CHAPTER 63
That night, when I couldn’t sleep, I told myself that it was because we still hadn’t heard anything from Libby and Nash. Every text I sent went unread and unanswered. That was what kept me up so late that I was guaranteed to wake up the next morning with dark circles under my eyes. Not Grayson.
The next evening, I still hadn’t heard from Libby, and Grayson Hawthorne and I were sitting next to each other, under a flood of lights, with Monica Winfield smiling into the camera.
I am so not ready for this.
“Avery, let’s start with you. Walk us through what happened the day Tobias Hawthorne’s will was read.”
That was a softball question. Gratitude. Awe. Relatability. I could do this—and I did. Grayson answered his first softball question just as easily.
He even managed to make eye contact with me the first time he said my name.
We got two more softballs apiece before Monica moved on to trickier territory. “Avery, let’s talk about your mother.”
Keep it short, I could hear Landon telling me. And sincere.
“She was wonderful,” I said fiercely. “I would give anything for her to be here now.”
That was short, and it was sincere—but it also opened me up to a follow-up. “You must have heard some of the… rumors.”
That my mom was living under a fake name. That she was a con artist. I couldn’t lose my temper. Spin the question. That was what I was supposed to do: Start talking about my mother but end up talking about how grateful and awed and gosh darn normal I was.
Beside me, Grayson leaned forward. “When the world is watching your every move, when everyone knows your name, when you’re famous just by being—you stop following rumors pretty quickly. Last I heard, I was supposedly dating a princess, and my brother Jameson had some very questionable tattoos.”
Monica’s eyes lit up. “Does he?”
Grayson leaned back in his seat. “A Hawthorne never tells.”
He was good at this—much better than I was—and just like that, the interviewer was redirected off the topic of my mother. “Your family has been very closemouthed about this entire situation,” she told Grayson. “The last the world heard, your aunt Zara was implying there might be a legal solution to your dilemma.”
The last public statement Zara had given had more or less accused me of elder abuse.
“You can say a lot of things about my grandfather,” Grayson replied smoothly, “but Tobias Hawthorne wasn’t known for leaving loopholes.”
Something about the way he said that made it clear that the topic was closed. How does he do that?
“Avery.” Monica zeroed back in on me. “We’ve talked a bit about your mother. Let’s talk about your father.”
That was one of my “no” questions. I shrugged. “There’s not much to say.”
“You’re a minor, correct? And your legal guardian is your sister, Libby?”
I could tell where this was going. Just because the network wasn’t airing the interview with Ricky and Skye didn’t mean that Monica hadn’t filed away their statements for future reference. She was going to ask me about custody.
Not if I redirect. “Libby took me in after my mom died. She didn’t have to. She was twenty-three. Because our dad was never around, we hadn’t spent much time together. We were practically strangers, but she took me in. She is the single most loving person I’ve ever met in my life.”
That was one of the core truths of my existence, and I didn’t have to work to sell it.
“I suppose that’s one thing Avery and I have in common,” Grayson added beside me. He didn’t elaborate and forced Monica into asking the follow-up question.
“And what is that?”
“If you’re going to come at our siblings,” he told her, his smile sharp, his gaze full of warning, “you’re going to have to go through us.”
This was the Grayson I’d met weeks ago: dripping power and well aware that he could come out on top in any battle. He didn’t make threats, because he didn’t have to.
“Did you feel protective of your brothers after you realized your grandfather had essentially written them out of the will?” Monica asked him. I got the sense that she wanted Grayson to say that he resented me. She wanted to poke holes in the message he’d been delivering.
“You could say that.” Grayson held her gaze, then broke it to glance deliberately at me.
“I think we’re all protective of Avery now. It’s not something that my brothers or I expect anyone else to understand, but the simple truth is that we’re not normal. My grandfather didn’t raise us to be normal, and this is what he wanted. This is his legacy.” His gaze burned into me. “She is.”