She should have taken that warning.
She didn’t. “Do you want me to say that I regret what I did to be named Vincent Blake’s heir? That I wish I’d chosen to remain at your mercy? At hers?” That was a reference to Avery. It had to be. “Do you expect me to stand here and tell you that money and power don’t matter?”
Of course they did. “I don’t expect anything from you.” There wasn’t a hint of emotion in Grayson’s tone—no way in, no weakness for her to exploit.
“You have no idea what it’s like to be me right now, Gray.”
She’d called him Gray. If she expected that to affect him in any way, she was going to be disappointed. “You got what you wanted,” he replied with searing, emotionless precision. “You’re the sole heir to a massive fortune.”
“I’m alone.” The words slipped from her mouth like a confession.
Vulnerability had always been Eve’s weapon of choice.
“I have to prove myself every day,” she continued, “knowing that if I fail, he’ll take the seals from me one by one, and I’ll be left with nothing.” She met his eyes, waiting for a response, and when she didn’t get one, she turned to her guard. “Slate, tell Grayson how many of my great-grandfather’s men are loyal to me.”
Mattias Slater’s face remained neutral, dangerously so. “One.”
You, Grayson thought.
Eve grabbed Grayson’s chin, wrenching his gaze back toward hers. “Would you at least look at me?”
Why would I? “What do you want from me, Eve?”
Something like hurt flickered in her eyes. “What do I want from you?” Eve drew in a breath. Then another. “Nothing.” She raised her chin. “Yet. When I want something from you, you’ll know.”
She was baiting him. And, damn it, he took the bait. “Stay away from Gigi and Savannah,” Grayson bit out, brutal force in each word.
“Is that what Tobias Hawthorne would do?” Eve said. “Would he give away leverage? Would you, Gray?” Eve’s stare was just as piercing as his—when she wanted it to be. “I wonder… What did you and your sisters find in that safe-deposit box?”
That was definitely a threat. “Move,” Grayson ordered in a tone that could have been described as arctic. “Call off your attack dog and get out of my way.”
“Or what?” Eve looked at him in a way designed to make him look at her.
“Move,” Grayson repeated, enunciating the word, “or I will move you.”
She didn’t. “Lie all you want, Grayson. To yourself. To me. But don’t forget that I know your father isn’t missing. And the only thing keeping my lips sealed about the people responsible is the promise of an honor-bound old man who won’t be around forever.” She stared at and into him. “You’ll want to be on my good side then.”
And there it was. “If you come at Avery,” Grayson said, matching her threat with one of his own, “if you even think of coming near my sisters, I’ll destroy you.”
Eve brought her lips to whisper directly in his ear. “Is that a promise?”
CHAPTER 56
GRAYSON
Grayson didn’t so much as look at the pool after Eve left. Instead, he made his way back into the hotel, walked briskly to the elevator, hit the button for his floor, and waited for the doors to close. Once they did, a single muscle in his jaw ticked. The elevator lurched upward.
Grayson made it three floors before his hand lashed out and pulled the emergency stop button. The elevator jerked to a halt between floors. A high-pitched buzz began to sound.
Grayson’s fingers curled to fists at his sides. I am in control. He believed that. He was that. Still, he found himself slipping his phone from his pocket, pulling up the photo roll. Mechanically, he scrolled back past the photos he’d taken of Kent Trowbridge’s passwords and the safe-deposit box key. The next thing that greeted him was a shot of Jameson and Xander, each holding a roll of duct tape.
Nash’s bachelor party. Grayson let the memory wash over him, clearing his mind of everything else like a wave crashing onto sand. Tree house rules. Grayson’s lips ticked slightly upward, and he scrolled back farther. Most of the photographs he took were of objects, nature, or crowds—beauty in moments, captured just so: real, true, his.
Grayson stopped when he came to a picture of a hand on the hilt of a sword. A longsword. Avery’s hand.
Real, true, his. Not the way he had imagined or longed for once, but that didn’t make her matter any less, didn’t make what they did have matter less. If Eve thought she could get in Grayson Hawthorne’s head, if she thought she still had any hold over him—she was wrong.