“Eighteen.”
“Legally, adults.”
Grayson’s pale eyes narrowed farther. “I do not like the sound of this. Where are they?”
“Calla Thorp’s hometown.” Alisa didn’t bother sugarcoating that. “I hired Knox Landry to keep an eye on Gigi. What the man lacks in manners, he makes up in a brutal tendency to trust no one, impressive fighting skills, and a fondness for money. I’m paying him well, and even if I wasn’t, Gigi has wormed her way into his heart somehow. Knox will protect her. As for Savannah, our British friend appears to be sticking very close to her. I’m tracking all of them.”
“Rohan,” Grayson said testily, “is not anyone’sfriend.”
“He ain’t gonna let a damn thing happen to Savannah,” Nash drawled. “He gave her the game.”
“I do not care about the Grandest Game.” Grayson’s voice was far too calm. “What are they doing in the Watcher’s hometown? What are they up to—my sisters, Rohan, thebrutalandimpressiveMr. Landry?”
“The whole lot of them went after Brady Daniels,” Nash reported. “Seems the gentleman was hiding out in the bayou.”
“I don’t like this.” Grayson’s displeasure was palpable. “I’m assuming you gave my sisters new phones, Alisa, and that’s how you’re tracking them. Send me their numbers. Now.”
Alisa obliged. “Done,” she told Grayson. “But before you make those calls, you’ll want tosmile.”
Smile?Lyra blinked as Alisa rolled down the windows—Lyra’s and Grayson’s both—just as the SUV rolled to a stop in front of an elaborate wrought iron gate. Immediately, a trio of photographers with very expensive cameras closed in.
Smile, Lyra realized,for the paparazzi.
Chapter 28
LYRA
Alisa Ortega clearly had a death wish.
“What,” Grayson said, once they’d pulled past the gates and onto the Hawthorne estate, “wasthat?”
Lyra’s heart thudded in her chest as she took in the massive mansion in the distance.
“That,” Alisa said, rolling the windows back up, “was us controlling the story.”
As Hawthorne House drew closer and closer, Lyra tried to process the obvious: The paparazzi had gotten their shot.Of Grayson. And me. Of Grayson Hawthorne and me.But that thought was drowned out by the physical reality of the House, capitalH, by the dawning realization that Grayson’s home was no mere mansion.
How many turrets could one manor have?Castle, Lyra realized. The proper word wascastle, a reminder for Lyra that Grayson and his brothers and Avery were nothing less than American royalty.
“The press knows this year’s Grandest Game was underway,” Alisa continued remorselessly. “The paparazzi have been camped out at the gates for days. We’ve been avoiding giving them anything until now, butsooner or later, people are going to start asking questions, and we need for those questions to be about something other than where Avery is. If we try to announce a winner without her, the press will have a field day with that, so our best and only option is to present the tabloids and social media sleuths of the world with a very tantalizing distraction. Something else to speculate about.Someone.”
“Me,” Lyra realized, as Nash pulled the SUV around the side of the House. “You gave themme.” Eve’s words rang in Lyra’s mind:I give it a matter of days before the press discovers that Grayson Hawthorne has a girlfriend.
“The press loves a mystery girl,” Alisa told Lyra. “And Grayson is widely considered the most eligible Hawthorne. With a little luck, the two of you should keep them busy long enough to buy us—and Avery—some time.”
Grayson wasnot pleased. “You could have asked.”
“We would have said yes,” Lyra pointed out, as the SUV came to a stop in what was very clearlynotan ordinary garage. For Avery, Grayson would have said yes to almost anything, and Lyra wasn’t one to back down from a challenge.
Screw the paparazzi.
As she stepped out of the SUV onto a sparkling, epoxy-coated floor, Lyra resisted the urge to count the cars. It would have taken more than two hands to do so, and most of them looked like they belonged on a racetrack—or in a museum.
Grayson closed his car door, spared one last glare at Alisa, then made use of one of the phone numbers she’d given him, then the other.
Clearly, neither of his sisters picked up.
Lyra watched as Nash strolled over to a silver box on the wall. There seemed to be some kind of puzzle-based locking mechanism on that box, and Nash worked it like he’d been born working puzzles, earning himself the right to return the car key in his hand to a peg he’d just revealed.