“I had a right to know.”
The day of your mother’s funeral? Grayson thought.
“Have you told the girls anything?” Acacia asked, her voice going hoarse. “About the money?” Before Grayson could reply, she began issuing assurances. “The house is safe. Their school fees, cars, wardrobes, cost of living—all taken care of by their trusts. They’ll be fine.” She stood and walked toward the library door. “The rest of it, I’ll just have to figure out for myself, starting with that safe-deposit box.”
The door opened before Acacia reached it. Savannah. “He told you.” She’d obviously overheard her mother’s last statement. Grayson could see Acacia wondering if she’d overheard any of the rest.
“I need you to let me handle this, Savannah,” Acacia said firmly.
Savannah’s eyes flashed. “You don’t handle anything, Mom. You just sit back and take it.”
Acacia looked down. Grayson’s eyes narrowed.
“I didn’t mean that.” Savannah looked down.
Acacia walked and put an arm around her.
“So…” Gigi popped up behind them. “Who’s in an opening-a-safe-deposit-box kind of mood?”
Grayson in no way expected that to work. But after a long moment, Acacia nodded. “We’ll do this together.” She looked from the twins to Grayson. “All of us.”
CHAPTER 49
GRAYSON
They went back to the bank. Grayson half-expected Acacia to make all three of them wait in the parking lot, but she didn’t. And when she presented her identification and the key that Savannah gave her—the decoy that Grayson had swapped in—the same bank employee who had sent Savannah away called for his manager.
That manager walked them back to the vault. Inside, there were walls of safe-deposit boxes. The manager inserted the bank’s key into one of the slots and waited for Acacia to insert hers. She did, but when she went to twist it, nothing happened.
She tried again.
I planned this. Grayson ignored the stab of guilt. This is what was supposed to happen.
“If you don’t have the key, ma’am, and you’re not the primary account holder, then I’m afraid you’re going to have to—”
The bank manager didn’t get the chance to finish that sentence. Savannah reached beneath the high-necked shirt she was wearing and pulled out a chain, identical to Gigi’s.
On the end of the chain, there was another key. “Try mine,” Savannah said.
Grayson stared at her.
“Since when do you have a key?” Gigi asked.
“I found it,” Savannah said quietly, “with the ID.”
Grayson Hawthorne was not often taken by surprise. This is what happens when you fail to look ten steps ahead. Tobias Hawthorne’s voice was as clear in his head as if the old man were right there. When you let your emotions get in the way. When you allow yourself to become distracted.
Savannah slid the key off her chain and handed it to her mother. Acacia placed it in the lock. And this time, when she turned it, the lock clicked.
The bank manager carefully removed the box from the wall and set it down on a tall glass table in the middle of the room. “I’ll give you a moment,” he said.
Acacia looked at her daughters in turn, then Grayson. Slowly, she opened the lid to the box.
The first thing Grayson saw was a photo of himself.
EIGHT YEARS AGO
Grayson stared at the massive ring of keys. The alternative was looking at the old man, who must have followed him all the way across the estate to the tree house.
“Yours wasn’t the slowest time,” Tobias Hawthorne commented, no particular emphasis in his tone. “But neither was it the fastest.”
Grayson watched as his grandfather bent and laid the ring of ornate keys down on the tree house floor. There were easily a hundred keys on the ring, each with a distinct head, many of them elaborately designed and delicately made. The challenge had been to figure out which key opened the newly installed lock on Hawthorne House’s grand front door.
Grayson had come in third.
“Jameson won.” Grayson set his jaw, refusing to allow that to bother him. It was a simple fact, after all, and the only thing that his grandfather respected as much as winning was control.
“Do you think it was a competition?” Tobias Hawthorne queried, cocking his head slightly to one side. “I was aiming more for rite of passage.”
After completion, they’d each been given a bronze pin, fashioned in the shape of a key. Grayson could feel his digging into the palm of his hand now. “Then why are you here talking about my time?”