Money, Power, Glory [Grayson Hawthorne]

V

Avery

There was no way I could sleep, no way I could even close my eyes—so I explored. Down one long hall, I found a theater. Not a movie theater, but something closer to an opera house. The walls were golden. A red velvet curtain obscured what had to be a stage. The seats were on an incline. The ceiling arced, and when I flipped a switch, hundreds of tiny lights came to life along that arc.

I remembered Dr. Mac telling me about the Hawthorne Foundation's support of the arts.
The next room over was filled with musical instruments—dozens of them. I bent to look at a violin with an S carved to one side of the strings, its mirror image on the other.

"That's a Stradivarius." Those words were issued like a threat.
I turned to see Grayson standing in the doorway. I wondered if he'd been following us—and for how long. He stared at me, his pupils black and fathomless, the irises around them ice gray. "You should be careful, Ms. Grambs my fiancée doesn't like it when people touch her things."

"I'm not going to break anything," I said, stepping back from the violin.
"You should be careful," Grayson reiterated, his voice soft but deadly, "with Jameson. The last thing my brother needs is you and whatever this is."

I glanced at Oren, but his face was impassive, like he couldn't hear anything that passed between us. It's not his job to eavesdrop. It's his job to protect me—and he doesn't see Grayson as a threat.

"This being me?" I shot back. "Or the terms of your grandfather's will?" I wasn't the one who'd upended their lives. But I was here, and Tobias Hawthorne wasn't. Logically, I knew that my best option was to avoid confrontation, avoid him altogether. This was a big house.
Standing this close to Grayson, it didn't feel nearly big enough.

"My mother hasn't left her room in days." Grayson stared at and into me. "Xander nearly blew himself up today. Kylie has fainted and then thrown herself into her work so much that she leaves before I can wake up and come homes after I'm asleep. Jameson is one bad idea away from ruining his life, and none of us can leave the estate without being hounded by the press. The property damage they've caused alone..."

Say nothing. Turn away. Don't engage. "Do you think this is easy for me?" I asked instead. "Do you think I want to be stalked by the paparazzi?"
"You want the money." Grayson Hawthorne looked down at me from on high. "How could you not, growing up the way you did?"

That was just dripping with condescension. "Like you don't want the money?" I retorted. "Growing up the way you did? Maybe I haven't had everything handed to me my entire life, but—"
"You have no idea," Grayson said lowly, "how ill prepared you are. A girl like you?"

"You don't know me." A rush of fury surged through my veins as I cut him off.
"I will," Grayson promised. "I'll know everything about you soon enough." Every bone in my body said that he was a person who kept his promises.

"My access to funds might be somewhat limited currently, but the Hawthorne name still means something. There will always be people tripping over themselves to do favors for any one of us."

He didn't move, didn't blink, wasn't physically aggressive in any way, but he bled power, and he knew it. "Whatever you're hiding, I'll find it. Every last secret. Within days, I'll have a detailed dossier on every person in your life. Your sister. Your father. Your mother—"

"Don't talk about my mother." My chest was tight. Breathing was a challenge.
"Stay away from my family, Ms. Grambs." Grayson pushed past me. I'd been dismissed.

"Or what?" I called after him, and then, possessed by something I couldn't quite name, I continued. "Or what happened to Emily will happen to me?"

Grayson jerked to a halt, every muscle in his body taut. "Don't you say her name." His posture was angry, but his voice sounded like it was about to crumble. Like I'd gutted him.

Not just Jameson. My mouth went dry. Emily didn't just matter to Jameson.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. Oren. His expression was gentle, but clearly, he wanted me to leave it alone.

"You won't last a month in this house." Grayson managed to pull himself together long enough to issue that prediction like a royal issuing a decree. "In fact, I'd lay money that you're gone within the week."

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Kylie

My black eyes stare back at me through the mirror, my hair wet and my bathrobe tied around me, I had been avoiding Grayson I know I had, I just couldn't bear to stare at him as if I didn't inherit what he was working for some much.

Behind me I heard the bedroom door locking and Grayson's formal shoes against the marble floors.

"K? Baby are you in there?" Grayson asks after he knocks at the bathroom door. "Ya I'm here, I think we need to talk..."

I quickly unlock the door and see the gray eyes that I fell in love with all those years ago. "We need to talk, about the will and my inheritance, how things have changed and how you're holding up, ok?" I ask him in such a way that it's not really an option.

"Let's go for a swim first, then we can talk all we want ok baby? I just want some us time." Grayson said as he pulled me into a hug, resting his chin onto my head.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We swam and swam for about two hours, each stroke better than the other, we completed against each other not only in speed but also in technique.

Now the two of us are wrapped up in our duvets a cup of coffee in Grayson's hand and a cup of strawberry green tea in mine.

We had spoke on how Gray thought Avery as somehow manipulated the old man, he spoke about how he has been dogged about her past but she seemed like a normal person. We finally got to the elephant in the room, my inheritance.

"Gray... I'm so sorry, the Foundation should have been yours, not mine it was your birthright, and the million bucks.. god I don't even need it and I doubt you either, but since we're eventually getting married I want to share the inheritance between us..."

Gray's eyes soften as he heard me ramble and he looked like he was about to melt when I mentioned sharing the inheritance.

"K, baby you don't have to share anything... I might have been better at the logistical aspect when it came to the foundation but you have it that touch of humanity it needed, the old man clearly saw that and left it behind for you, it wasn't your fault so stop apologising."

Hearing his words I put my hands on either side of his face and bought our foreheads to rest against each other. "I love you gray... never forget that"

"I love you too Kylie, more than I can ever show"