Page 17 of The Hawthorne Legacy
Down below, I saw movement in the pool. Grayson. His arms cut through the water in a brutal, punishing breaststroke. Even from a distance, I could see the way his muscles pulled against his skin. No matter how long I watched him, his pace never changed.
I wondered if he was swimming to get away from something. To silence the thoughts in his mind. I wondered how it was possible that watching him made breathing easier and harder at the same time.
Finally, he pulled himself out of the pool. As if guided by some kind of sixth sense, his head angled up. Toward me.
I stared at him—through the night, through the space between us. He looked away first.
I was used to people walking away. I was good at not expecting anything from anyone.
But as I retreated back inside the office, I found myself staring at my birth certificate again.
I couldn’t make this not matter. I couldn’t make Toby—Harry—not matter. Even though he’d lied to me. Even though he’d let me live in my car and buy him breakfast, when he came from one of the richest families in the world.
He’s my father. The words came. Finally. Brutally. I couldn’t unthink them. Every sign pointed to the same conclusion. I forced myself to say it out loud. “Toby Hawthorne is my father.”
Why didn’t he tell me? Where is he now?
I wanted answers. This wasn’t just a mystery that needed solving or another layer to a puzzle. It wasn’t a game—not to me.
Not anymore.
CHAPTER 15
We need to talk.” Jameson found me hidden away in the archive (prep school for library) the next day. Until now, he’d kept his distance within the walls of Heights Country Day.
Not that anyone but Eli was around to see us.
“I have to finish my calculus homework.” I avoided looking directly at him. I needed space. I needed to think.
“It’s E-day.” Jameson pulled up a seat next to mine. “You have plenty of free time.”
The modular scheduling system at Heights Country Day was complicated enough that I hadn’t even memorized my own schedule. But Jameson apparently had.
“I’m busy,” I insisted, annoyed at the way I always felt his presence. The way he wanted me to.
Jameson leaned back in his chair, balancing it on two legs, then let the front legs drop down and leaned to whisper directly into my ear. “Toby Hawthorne is your father.”
I followed Jameson. Eli, who couldn’t possibly have heard Jameson’s whisper, followed me—out of the main building, across the quad, down a stone path to the Art Center. Inside, Jameson strode past studio after studio, until we ended up in what a sign informed me was the Black Box Theater: an enormous square room with black walls, a black floor, and stage lights built into a black ceiling. Jameson flipped a series of switches, and the overhead lights turned on. Eli took up a position by the door, and I followed Jameson to the far side of the room.
“What I said in the archive,” Jameson murmured. “It was just a theory.” The room was built for acoustics, built for voices to carry. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
I glanced back at Eli and chose my words carefully in response. “I found a hidden compartment in your grandfather’s desk. There was a copy of my birth certificate.”
I didn’t say Toby’s name. I wouldn’t, not with an audience.
“And?” Jameson prompted.
“The name was my father’s.” I lowered my voice so much that Jameson had to step closer to hear it. “The signature wasn’t.”
“I knew it.” Jameson started pacing, but he turned back toward me before he got too far away. “Do you realize what this means, Heiress?” he asked, his green eyes alight.
I did. I’d said it out loud once. It made sense—more sense than anything else had made since I arrived for the reading of the will. “There could be other explanations,” I said hoarsely, even though I didn’t really believe that. I have a secret. My mom hadn’t invented that game out of nowhere. My whole life, she’d been telling me there was something I didn’t know.
Something big.
Something about me.
“It makes perfect sense—Hawthorne sense.” Jameson couldn’t contain himself. If I would have let him, he probably would have picked me up and twirled me around. “Twelve birds, one stone, Heiress. Whatever happened twenty years ago, the old man intended to use you to pull his prodigal son back onto the board now.”
