Getting close to them was a mistake. Feeling this way was a mistake.
Gigi shrugged. “I like eating candy on the roof.”
“But not chocolate.” The inference escaped Grayson’s mouth before he could stop it.
“Not chocolate,” Gigi confirmed, and then she grinned. “I told you I’m growing on you! Now…” Her expression grew serious again. “What do you think my dad kept in that box? It can’t be good, right? I mean, as a general rule, people don’t commit identity fraud to rent safe-deposit boxes under fake names for funsies.”
“I don’t know.” Grayson lied to her, and it felt like lying to his brothers. “Why don’t you go eat some candy on the roof,” he suggested gently. “I’ll wait here for your mom.”
Grayson didn’t wait in the foyer for Acacia Grayson. He went looking for the library instead. The girls’ key wouldn’t open the safe-deposit box, but if Sheffield Grayson’s wife was an authorized user, there was a chance she could have another one issued.
Grayson had not been raised to leave anything to chance.
“It shouldn’t be this hard to cancel a membership.” Acacia’s voice was audible through the cracked-open door. Grayson came to a standstill just outside, listening. “I know there are fees!” She paused, and Grayson could practically see the woman gathering herself. When she spoke again, it was with every ounce of poise a woman who had grown up with Engstrom wealth could summon. “The club needs an event planner. It’s been more than a month since Carrie left, and I think you’ll agree, based on my charity work—not to mention the events my family has hosted in your ballroom—that I am more than qualified.”
This was Acacia Grayson asking for a job. Grayson pictured the expression on her face when she’d told him that she wasn’t weak.
Whatever response the person on the other end of the line gave her, Acacia wasn’t impressed with it. “Well, I imagine they’ll say I’m bored and lost without my husband. Let them.” There was another silence, longer this time, and then: “I understand.”
Grayson waited until he was sure she’d hung up before gently pushing in the door. “Problems?”
Acacia looked up from the chaise longue on which she was sitting, her legs curled beneath her body, and gave Grayson a firm look. “None that you need to concern yourself with.”
Grayson strode to take a seat several feet away from her. “Your husband had a safe-deposit box under a fake name.” The subject change was intentional. He’d circle back to her financial problems when she was less prepared to circumvent his questions. “The girls are going to ask you to open it. You’re an authorized user.”
Acacia pressed her lips together. Her blonde hair was pulled back in an elegant twist, not a hair out of place. “I don’t know why I would be authorized to do anything,” she said quietly. “He never talked to me about financial matters—or business ones.” She looked away from Grayson, then back again, like she couldn’t let herself have a reprieve from this conversation or everything he represented. “I have a degree in finance, you know. That’s where Sheff and I met. I was quiet and awkward, and he was…” Her voice broke slightly. “Well, it doesn’t matter now, does it?”
He married you for your money. That’s what you’re thinking. What you’re trying not to think.
“Do you ever play what-if, Grayson?” Acacia asked softly. “What if you changed one decision, one moment in your life?”
Grayson wasn’t in the habit of daydreaming, but he’d relived his biggest mistakes often enough to know what those moments were, to know exactly what he would undo if he could.
“Or what if one thing had been different from the start?” There was something wistful in Acacia’s expression. “I used to play all the time when I was a kid. What if I’d had an older brother? What if I’d been born with a different last name? What if I’d looked just a little less like my mother?”
What if you’d left your husband when you found out about me?
Acacia let out a long, slow breath. “But what-if is different once you have kids, because all of a sudden, everything leading up to their births, those choices, those realities are set in stone. Because if things had been even a little bit different, they might not exist, and that is the one possibility you cannot bear.”
Acacia looked down at her hands, and Grayson noted that she still wore her wedding band.