“What was the man’s name?” Grayson asked. What was her father’s name?
What’s hers?
“First name Thomas, last name Thomas.” Nan snorted.
“Thomas Thomas?” Grayson’s eyes narrowed. That was almost certainly some kind of code. What begins a bet? he thought. Not that. “I don’t suppose the file said anything about a daughter?”
CHAPTER 55
GRAYSON
Grayson made it exactly one step into the lobby before the manager locked on to his position and walked briskly to greet him. “Mr. Hawthorne, I wanted to apologize for the misunderstanding earlier, with your guest.”
Gigi. The second Grayson thought the name, an image of her face came to him: bright blue eyes going round at him as she realized exactly who he was to her.
“It’s fine,” Grayson said, and a less ambitious hotel manager would have taken his tone as a dismissal.
This woman, however, was not so easily put off. “Would you like me to clear the pool?”
Grayson stepped out onto the pavement and became immediately aware of two facts. The first was that the pool was not empty. And the second was that the person treading water in the deep end was Eve.
“Does it pain you?”
“My existence?”
“Your wound.” Grayson has the sudden urge to brush her hair gently back from the bruise. He dismisses it—brutally, absolutely.
“Some people would want me to say yes.” There’s a challenge in Eve’s words. “Some people want to think that girls like me are weak.”
Grayson will not touch her—but he steps closer. “Pain doesn’t make you weak.”
Eve’s eyes lock on his, and for a moment, she looks nothing like Emily. “You don’t really believe that, Grayson Hawthorne.”
Snapping out of it, Grayson channeled an apathy capable of icing out everything else. He’d been a fool, and no one got to make a fool of Grayson Hawthorne twice.
He turned, fully intending to leave. Mattias Slater stepped out of the shadows. In daylight, the sentinel’s dark-blond hair bordered on gold, but his eyes still looked almost black. With a single step, he blocked Grayson’s path back inside.
Fast. Unafraid. Armed. All aspects of Grayson’s earlier assessment still seemed to apply. The ink on the sentinel’s biceps was more visible now—not one tattoo, but many: thick, black, curving lines, like tally marks reflected in a fun house mirror.
Or claw marks. “Get out of my way,” Grayson ordered.
Mattias Slater did not get out of his way.
Grayson side-stepped. His opponent anticipated the move and blocked him again. Grayson turned and began striding toward a side gate, but before he could make it there, he heard the audible click of a gun.
You’re not going to shoot me, Mattias. Grayson didn’t turn around. He didn’t so much as break his stride. But the next thing he heard was Eve climbing out of the pool, and that froze him in his spot.
It shouldn’t have.
He knew better.
“Hello, Grayson.” Eve’s wet feet were audible against the pavement as she walked toward him.
“I have nothing to say to you.” Grayson forced his body to move, but Mattias Slater was suddenly in front of him, blocking the gate.
“That’s a lie.” Eve passed him, then turned slowly toward him, leaving them face-to-face. “But then, we always were liars.”
Grayson felt those words—and her presence—in a deep and hollow place. A singular muscle in his jaw tensed. “There is no we, Eve.”
“At least when I lie, there’s a utility to it. A purpose.” Eve took a single step forward. “At least I don’t lie to myself.”
She’d used him. She’d made him a pawn, then discarded him. She had come after his family. Apathy was what she deserved—the best she deserved, and that only because Grayson wouldn’t risk the complications that could come with exacting a fair price for her betrayal.
So she got nothing. “What are you doing here?” Grayson said, a Hawthorne question, more order or demand.
Eve responded with a question of her own. “How are things going with your sisters?”
Fury surged inside Grayson. If that was a threat…
“It’s not easy,” Eve continued. “Coming to a family as an outsider, seeing what might have been. What you might have been if things had been different.”
Grayson saw how she was playing this. We are not the same, Eve. “You made your choice.” His voice was low and full of warning.