Page 42 of The Hawthorne Legacy
I looked back up from the screen to Libby. “I have to take this,” I told her. “But…”
Libby just shook her head. “You do what you have to do, Ave—and I’ll try not to cause any more scenes.”
CHAPTER 35
Hello?”
For a moment, there was silence on the phone. “Avery?”
I recognized that low, rich voice in a heartbeat. Not Jameson. “Grayson?” He’d never called me before. “Did something happen? Are you—”
“Jameson dared me to call.”
Nothing—literally nothing—about that sentence made sense. “Jameson what?”
“Jameson when, Jameson where, Jameson who?” That was Jameson, in the background, his voice taking on a musical lilt, his tone almost philosophical.
“Am I on speakerphone?” I asked. “And is Jameson drunk?”
“He shouldn’t be,” Grayson said, sounding truly disgruntled. “He doesn’t really turn down dares.”
Grayson wasn’t slurring his words. His speech wasn’t slow. His voice coated me, surrounded me—but it occurred to me suddenly that Grayson might be drunk.
“Let me guess,” I said. “You’re playing Drink or Dare.”
“You’re really good at guessing things,” drunk Grayson said. “Do you think the old man knew that about you?” His tone was hushed and almost confessional. “Do you think that he knew that you were… you?”
I heard a thud in the background. There was a long pause, and then one of them—I was betting on Jameson—started cracking up.
“We have to go,” Grayson said with a great deal of dignity, but when he went to hang up the phone, he must have hit the wrong button, because I could still hear the two of them.
“I think we can both agree,” Jameson said, “that it’s time for Drink or Dare to give way to Drink or Truth.”
A better person probably would have hung up right then, but I turned the volume on my phone all the way up.
“What did you say to Avery,” I heard Jameson ask, “the night we solved the old man’s puzzle?”
Grayson hadn’t said anything to me that night. But the next day, after he’d sent Skye on her way, he’d had plenty to say. I will always protect you. But this… us… It can’t happen, Avery.
“Because right after that,” Jameson continued, “she took to the tunnels with me.”
Grayson started to say something—what, I couldn’t quite hear—but then he cut off. “The door,” Grayson said, clear as day. He sounded dumbfounded.
Someone’s at the door, I realized. And then I heard some more muffled sounds. And then I heard Grayson’s father.
At first, I couldn’t entirely make out the words being exchanged, but at some point, either the conversation moved closer to the phone, or the phone moved closer to the conversation, because suddenly, I hear every word.
“You obviously aren’t surprised to see me.” That was Grayson. He’d sobered up quickly.
“I’ve built three different companies from the ground up. You don’t achieve what I have achieved without an eye to potential eventualities. Potential risks. Frankly, young man, I expected Skye to tell you about me years ago.”
A knot in my stomach twisted. Poor Grayson. His father saw him as a risk.
“You were married when I was conceived.” Grayson’s tone was neutral—almost dangerously so. “Still are. You have children. I can’t imagine that you are happy at my intrusion on your life, so let’s keep this short, shall we?”
“Why don’t you cut to the chase and tell me why you’re really here?” That was a demand. An order. “You were recently cut out of the family fortune. Financially speaking, you may have found that you have certain… needs.”
“You think we’re here for money?” That was Jameson.
