SWNOVELS The Brothers Hawthorne: Chapter 19
As he followed Gigi, Grayson committed the house’s floorplan to memory. A pair of bold, abstract paintings hung in the hall to the left of the foyer. As he and Gigi passed them, Grayson noted the small bronze plaques affixed to the wall beneath the massive canvases.
Savannah, age 3, one read. And the other: Gigi, age 3.
Not abstract paintings, then. Children’s paintings. Up close, it was clear there was no method to the brushstrokes, no mastery of white space or visual metaphor. The paintings simply were.
Grayson ripped his gaze from the wall.
“Two things,” Gigi declared when she stopped in front of a door at the end of the corridor. “Don’t interrupt. And don’t comment on the music.” She threw open the door.
The first thing Grayson saw was himself. Mirrors. Three of the four walls of the massive room were lined with mirrored panes, ceiling to floor. The music Gigi had referenced was classical—and loud. At first glance, it would have been easy to mistake the space for a dance studio, if not for the markings on the floor and the hoop.
This was a half-court. Basketball. A girl stood on the free-throw line. Pale blonde hair braided back from her face framed her head like a wreath. Or a crown. She wasn’t dressed for sports. A pleated silver skirt hit just below her knees. She was barefoot, a pair of black heels beside her on the line. On her other side, there was a rack of balls.
As Grayson watched, the girl—presumably Gigi’s fraternal twin—sank three shots in a row.
Don’t interrupt, Gigi had advised him. And don’t comment on the music. It seemed to be blasting from all sides. Tchaikovsky, he recognized.
When there were four balls left, the girl in the silver skirt took three steps back. She picked up a ball and sent it arcing high, straight into the basket.
Three balls left. Two. By the last shot, she was back past the three-point line, and the music had built to a painful crescendo. Nothing but net.
Abruptly, the music cut off. And just as abruptly, Savannah Grayson stalked toward them—and past them—without a word.
“Her room’s this way,” Gigi announced helpfully.
They followed Savannah all the way back down the long hall, only to have the door to her room shut in their faces.
“She’ll be out in a minute,” Gigi translated. “And she says it’s very nice to meet you.”
“Patio.” That word was issued from the other side of the door. Savannah’s voice was high and clear, but her intonation was almost… familiar. “Ten minutes.”
“So it has been spoken,” Gigi intoned beside Grayson in a stage whisper. “And so it shall be.”
The patio was covered, tiled, and larger than most homes. Grayson counted seating for thirty. There was a full outdoor kitchen despite the fact that the actual kitchen was visible through four sets of double glass doors. Twin tile staircases stretched up to a second story of outdoor seating.
To his own annoyance, Grayson caught himself staring at the pool. It was wide in some parts, narrower in others, and curved like a river around twin palm trees, each of which sat opposite a firepit. The water was dark blue, the pool lit, even in the daytime.
A treacherous part of Grayson’s mind conjured up the image of his younger self swimming. He tried to direct his attention elsewhere, but his gaze caught on the pool’s edge—and two sets of tiny handprints immortalized in cement.
“Let me do the talking,” Gigi advised as the sound of heels clicking against tile announced her twin’s arrival.
Savannah’s braids were gone now, her long, pale hair held back by a silver headband. Where Gigi was dimples and animated features that looked almost too big for her face, Savannah was angles carved out of ice. She had Grayson’s high cheekbones, his sharp jawline, and eerily familiar eyes that straddled the line between silvery gray and unforgiving ice blue.
She’d looked softer in the pictures he’d seen of the twins together. Less like me.
“I see we have a visitor.” Savannah stayed standing long enough to cast him an assessing look, then sank into one of the many outdoor dining chairs.
“Sav, this is ‘Grayson.’ He’s helping me look for Dad.” The air quotes Gigi put around his name did not go unnoticed, but Grayson was more focused on Savannah’s response.
“Is he?” Savannah returned. Her eyes locked on Grayson’s, and though her expression was perfectly pleasant, it was the kind of pleasant that called to mind his aunt Zara: a sharply feminine smile that said I could kill you with a strand of pearls. Having taken Grayson’s measure and found him wanting, Savannah turned back to her twin. “I told you, Gigi. Dad left.”
Gigi blew at a piece of hair that had settled over her eyes. “He wouldn’t just leave,” she said mutinously.
“Yes. He would.”
Undaunted, Gigi shot her sister the same round-eyed look she’d used to obtain all that coffee from the cops. “How much do you love me?”
“That question never bodes well,” Savannah replied.
“Grayson and I are throwing a party, but the thing is… we kind of need Duncan’s help.”
“And Duncan would be…,” Grayson prompted.
“Savannah’s boyfriend,” Gigi explained. “Duncan Trowbridge.”
Suddenly, Gigi’s insistence that a party was the obvious next step made more sense. If she could talk the Trowbridge boy into hosting at his house…
Savannah laid her left hand on her knee and her right on her left wrist. Poise. Elegance. “Sure, Gigi. I left my phone in my room if you want to grab it.”
Gigi beamed at her sister then jackrabbited off, leaving Grayson with her twin. Savannah sat in her chair like a queen on her throne, letting the silence stretch out between them.
It was almost endearing, the way she thought she could intimidate him.
“You’ll be gone by the time she gets back,” Savannah decreed.
“That doesn’t sound like a request,” Grayson noted.
Savannah turned her gaze toward the pool. A slight wind caught her hair, but not a strand ended up in her face. “Do I look like the kind of girl who makes requests?”
Grayson thought back to watching her sink shot after shot. Something twisted inside of him, and he felt an inexplicable desire to save her from herself. If you never give, Savannah, someday you’ll break.
“My twin is a people person who’s never met a bad idea she didn’t immediately embrace like a long-lost friend. Restraint is not her strong suit.”
“So you protect her.” Grayson kept his own voice even by sheer force of will.
Savannah stood and took a step toward him, her heels audibly striking the tile. “I know who you are, Grayson Hawthorne.”
Somehow, that didn’t surprise him. He had a feeling Savannah Grayson knew far more than most people gave her credit for.
“Do you understand me?” Savannah’s crystal-clear voice went low, her silvery eyes locked on to his. “I know.”
Grayson felt comprehension wash over him. She didn’t just know who he was. She knew who he was to her. And even though Grayson could have stood in a glass elevator in the middle of an earthquake without ever letting his heart rate speed up, he couldn’t shrug that off. He didn’t allow his expression to shift. He didn’t allow a single crack in his iron-clad control—on the surface. But he felt the sting of her words.
Savannah knew, and she clearly didn’t consider him… anything.
“Your sister was arrested,” Grayson told her. Not an ounce of emotion showed in his tone. He made sure of that. “She spent the night before last in jail. I’m the one who got her out.”
“It is not your job to take care of my sister.”
It wasn’t news to him that nothing here was his. “She seems hell-bent on making trouble for herself.” Grayson said that like an observation, nothing more. “She believes your father didn’t just leave.”
“She believes,” Savannah countered, her chin held high, “that our father would never cheat on our mother. But here you are.” She looked him up and down and gave a single, regal shake of her head. “Like I said, you’ll be gone by the time she gets back.”
That can’t happen, Savannah. Grayson had no intention of leaving until the situation with Gigi had been dealt with.
“I am not going to tell you again,” Savannah said slowly. “Get out.”
“Never announce what you’re not going to tell someone,” Grayson advised. “That keeps the focus on you and a bluff you may or may not be able to carry through. Focus on the other person.”
“You don’t want to make me repeat myself.”
Grayson inclined his head. “Better.”
“You are not wanted here.” Savannah sold that statement, wholly and completely. And all Grayson could think was that she had his eyes.
“That’s enough.”
Savannah’s head whipped toward the now-open glass doors to the kitchen and the woman who stood there. “Mom.” Cracks appeared in Savannah’s icy facade: a slight widening of her eyes, a subtle down-turning of her lips. “What did you hear?”
“Nothing I didn’t already know, baby.” Acacia Grayson turned calmly toward her husband’s son. “Why don’t you go check on your sister, Savannah, and give our visitor and me a moment alone?”