Grayson bent his head down, capturing her gaze. “No,” he told her, his voice just as quiet as Acacia’s had been a moment before.
“No mint?” Gigi said.
“Your father didn’t have a secret family,” Grayson said. Your father, Gigi, not mine. “He and I met exactly once. I was nineteen, and he made it very clear that I was not his son.”
So. Very. Clear.
“Not clear enough, apparently,” Savannah tossed out.
“Savannah,” Acacia said sharply.
Gigi ignored both her mother and her twin. Her beseeching, teary eyes focused only on Grayson. “Then why did my dad have all these pictures?”
That was the question, the unavoidable black hole of a question threatening to suck him in when the answer didn’t even matter. Couldn’t matter.
“Why are you even here, Grayson? Why are you helping me look for him?” Gigi’s breath hitched. “You must hate him. And us.”
“No.” Grayson spoke with the full force of the authority he’d been raised to assume in every interaction. The authority that had never worked on her. “Juliet, no.”
I don’t hate you. I could never hate you. Grayson remembered too late that Gigi had said their father was the only one who ever used her full first name.
“Why?” Gigi repeated brokenly.
“I’m here,” Grayson said, “because he isn’t. My grandfather had a saying: family first.”
“We are not family,” Savannah replied, her voice low and almost guttural. For the first time, Grayson registered that she hadn’t looked away from the photographs. Not once.
“He’s our brother,” Gigi replied.
The word brother meant something to Grayson. It had always meant something to him, always been a foundational part of who he was.
“No.” Savannah finally ripped her gaze away from the box. “He’s not. Dad didn’t want him to be.”
He didn’t want me. He despised me. Grayson should have been able to cut the thought off there. He should have had the discipline to leave it there. But the pictures. My whole life, he…
“I thought he was a good dad.” Gigi looked up at the ceiling, then squeezed her eyes closed. “Not perfect, but…” She trailed off and pressed her lips together. “I thought he was a good husband.” Her voice was gaining steam again. “That’s why I’ve been looking for him! Because I didn’t believe he would cheat on Mom and abandon us, but I guess the whole cheating and abandoning thing is just par for the course for him.”
Gigi was practically vibrating with intensity now. Grayson wanted to reach for her, but something in him wouldn’t let him.
“You should have told me.” Gigi took a step back, then another and another. “You all should have told me.” Hitting the wall, she shot each of them a final, furious look, then bolted from the room.
“Gigi!” Savannah started to go after her, but Acacia reached out a gentle hand to stop her.
“Let her go.” Acacia closed her eyes for a long moment, then opened them again. “Is there anything else?” she said. “In the box?”
Grayson removed and stacked the photographs, refusing to look too closely at any of them. My whole life, Sheffield Grayson knew about me. My whole life, he kept an eye on me.
At the bottom of the box, near the back, Grayson found a bank envelope. It was thick. Full. He pulled it out and opened it, expecting to find a fortune in large bills, but all he saw was slips of paper. Dozens of them.
“Deposit slips?” Acacia asked, and Grayson knew what she was thinking. The investigation. The embezzling. Her drained accounts.
He examined the papers. “Withdrawal slips, actually,” Grayson said, removing a handful of them, skimming each one with brutal efficiency. “Petty cash. This one’s for two hundred and seventeen dollars. Another for five hundred and six dollars. Three hundred and twenty-one dollars.” He turned one of the slips over. “There’s a notation on the back. KM.” He glanced up toward his father’s wife. “Do you know anyone with those initials?”
Savannah blew out a long, controlled breath. “Probably another side piece.”
“Savannah, I do not appreciate you talking about another woman that way.”
“I think you mean the other woman.” Savannah went for the jugular, like she’d utterly lost the ability to do anything else. “Or other women, plural, I guess,” she continued icily. “Not that you care.”