“Enough.” Grayson hadn’t meant to use that tone, but he didn’t regret it, either. He thought about Acacia telling him that she couldn’t even think about a life without her daughters. He thought about children’s paintings displayed like fine art and handprints captured in cement.
Grayson fixed Savannah with a look and spoke with an emphasis capable of sending chills down spines. “Your mother doesn’t deserve that from you.”
“My mother,” Savannah shot back. Her expression was a study in ice-cold fury, ruined only by the tears on her white-blonde lashes. “And as for my dad…” She titled her chin up. “I always knew he wanted a boy.”
That statement affected Acacia more than Savannah’s earlier barbs. She folded her daughter into her arms. To Grayson’s surprise, Savannah didn’t fight it. They both stood there for the longest time, their arms around each other, holding on for dear life and leaving Grayson with a feeling he barely recognized.
Hawthornes weren’t supposed to long for things they could not have.
Eventually, Savannah pulled back, and Acacia turned to Grayson. “We’re going to go,” she told him. “Everything in this box—it’s yours.”
CHAPTER 54
GRAYSON
The photographs. The withdrawal slips. Grayson only allowed himself to focus on the latter. Evidence of who knows what.
“Sir.” The bank employee’s voice was stiff. “The box must be returned to the wall before the owner can leave.”
The owner. Acacia. Savannah with her. Grayson was well aware of how fragmented his thoughts were, but the alternative—actually thinking in any detail about what had just happened—was even less desirable.
“I’ll need a briefcase.” Grayson phrased that as neither an order nor a request, but there was difference between saying I need and I’ll need. The future tense implied that one expected the need to be met before it became pressing.
“A briefcase?”
Grayson stared him down. “Will that be a problem?”
Ten minutes later, he walked out of the bank holding a briefcase.
The hotel valets were very amendable to the idea of driving the Ferrari out to him. Probably a little too amendable, but when they arrived at the bank, Grayson did them the courtesy of pretending not to notice their adrenaline-soaked exuberance.
“That was incredible!”
Per the plan, one valet drove the other home, leaving the incredible car behind. Grayson wasn’t sure how long he sat in the parking lot of that bank, behind the wheel of the Ferrari, the briefcase on the passenger-side floor, out of reach.
He should have left the photos in the safe-deposit box. Should have—but didn’t.
What did it matter that Sheffield Grayson had kept tabs on him? My whole life. Those words managed to penetrate the forced silence in his brain. He watched me my whole life.
Grayson’s hand snaked out and pressed the ignition. As he pulled out of the parking lot, he thought about the look in the valets’ eyes. Clearly, both of them had taken a turn behind the wheel. Grayson wondered how fast they’d gone. How much of a thrill they’d allowed themselves.
Pulling onto the highway, Grayson pushed the pedal down farther—and farther. He looked at the positioning of the cars ahead of him, calculated the spacing between them. When Jameson needed to outrun something, he found an excuse to go way too fast or way too high. Only one of those was an option for Grayson at the moment.
It wouldn’t take much to push the Ferrari up over a hundred.
You’re not Jameson. What is acceptable for him is not acceptable for you. Grayson heard Tobias Hawthorne’s voice as clearly as if the old man were in the seat beside him. And do you know why?
Grayson wasn’t reckless. He didn’t dance hand in hand with unnecessary risks.
Because it’s going to be you. How many times had he been told that? And the whole time, his grandfather had known that it was a lie. Tobias Hawthorne had written his family out of the will before Grayson was even born.
It was never going to be me. Grayson’s knuckles bulged as his grip on the steering wheel tightened. A muscle in his calf tensed, his body waiting. All he had to do was press the pedal to the floor.
Silence the old man.
Stop thinking about Sheffield Grayson.
And go.
Grayson switched to the left lane, and like magic, the other cars got out of the way. There was nothing stopping him now. No reason he couldn’t let the car do what cars of this sort did best.
I could fly. Let go. Say to hell with safety and rules. Something like anger built inside him—because he couldn’t.