Page 95 of The Grandest Game
“I reject the premise that you have anything to blackmail me with.” Now it was Savannah’s turn to take a single, threatening step toward him. “I’m Grayson Hawthorne’s sister. I will get the benefit of every doubt. And you broke Jameson’s ribs. Do you really think Avery Grambs has forgotten that? That she’ll listen to or believe you over me? Based on what? The fact that I didn’t play this game your way in the dark?”
“Half sister,” Rohan said.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re Grayson Hawthorne’s half sister,” Rohan murmured, “as you’re so very fond of pointing out.” He could have pushed harderthere, but he didn’t. As he’d told Savannah, he had no interest in coercing her into anything.
“Since there’s no need to look for a light…” Rohan took that as a given. “Perhaps we should focus on something else?” He took care of the remaining space between them and brought his hand to her left hand—and the object she held in it.The vial of glitter.
Wrapping his fingers lightly around hers, Rohan spoke: “The fan is in your other hand, and the lint roller is tucked into the chain around your waist, isn’t it?”
“Why ask if you are already so convinced that you know everything?”
“Put the fan down for the moment.”
He was fully prepared to be told to go to hell, but she must have wondered what he was up to, because a moment later, Rohan heard her slip the fan into the chain.
He reached for Savannah’s free hand, then coaxed her fingers into exploring the vial as his did the same. “This vial is made of glass.” In the darkness, Savannah made no attempt to shrug off his touch. “The cork at the top is made of rubber,” Rohan noted. “There’s a raised emblem on it.”
“A star.”
“The cork could function as a stamp if we could find something to use as an inkpad,” Rohan murmured. “Or it could work as a key for a certain kind of lock.”
“There might be something hidden inside the glitter.” Savannah was not the type to let someone else take the reins for long.
“Or perhaps,” Rohan countered, his voice low and heady, “what we really need is the vial. Glass can break. Shards are sharp.” He thought about the glass rose and the hourglass and wondered if she was doing the same.
I see you, Savannah Grayson, even in the dark.
“The lint roller is the disposable kind with sticky sheets that tear off.” Savannah’s tone was remarkably even, but Rohan still knew: He almost had her.
We’re better together, love. And above all, you want to win. Youneedto.
“What do you think would happen,” Rohan said, “if we unrolled the sheets?”
“What did the inside of the birthday card say?” Savannah shot back.
So demanding.“Happy birthday,” Rohan reported. He used his free hand to fetch the card from his tuxedo jacket and opened it, allowing the music to fill the air. “‘Clair de Lune,’” Rohan told her, and then he translated the song’s name: “Moonlight.”
Savannah’s body shifted, and Rohan felt movement in the air.The fan.She’d retrieved it from the chain and opened it once more. Rohan called an image of the fan up in his mind, moonlit thread against deep navy silk, and a single word:SURRENDER.
“Close the fan,” Rohan told Savannah. “Partway. Slowly.” She started to do exactly that, and he brought his hands to hers once more. “Bit by bit by bit.”
Rohan wasn’t a novice when it came to his own body’s responses or the effect his touch could have on others. He’d done far more things—and far more creative things—in the dark than this. It defied all logic that touching Savannah Grayson’shandscould feel like an earthquake inside of him, like he was exploringherbit by bit by bit.
“Stop,” Rohan said. Savannah stopped. Rohan ran his fingers along the embroidered letters on the fan, some of them now obscured.
“And so,” Rohan murmured, “surrenderbecomessunder.”
“Sunder.To split apart.” Savannah didn’t miss a beat. “To sever. To rend. To rip. That’s our clue. That’s where we start. We sunder the fan.” She paused, and Rohan read into that—not hesitation butconsideration.
He allowed his fingers to skim the back of her hand, knuckle to knuckle to wrist, and he told himself he had full control. Strategy and want, after all, didn’t have to be mutually exclusive.
“You want an alliance.” Savannah’s words seemed to live in the space between them. He could feel them, feel her. “I want the longsword.”
“To sunder the fan?” Rohan said immediately. “Or for later?”
“Does it matter?”
