Page 78 of The Brothers Hawthorne

“Savannah,” Acacia said sharply.

Gigi ignored both her mother and her twin. Her beseeching, teary eyes focused only on Grayson. “Then why did my dad have all these pictures?”

That was the question, the unavoidable black hole of a question threatening to suck him in when the answer didn’t even matter. Couldn’t matter.

“Why are you even here, Grayson? Why are you helping me look for him?” Gigi’s breath hitched. “You must hate him. And us.”

“No.” Grayson spoke with the full force of the authority he’d been raised to assume in every interaction. The authority that had never worked on her. “Juliet,no.”

I don’t hate you. I could never hate you.Grayson remembered too late that Gigi had said their father was the only one who ever used her full first name.

“Why?” Gigi repeated brokenly.

“I’m here,” Grayson said, “because he isn’t. My grandfather had a saying: family first.”

“We are not family,” Savannah replied, her voice low and almost guttural. For the first time, Grayson registered thatshehadn’t looked away from the photographs. Not once.

“He’s our brother,” Gigi replied.

The wordbrothermeant something to Grayson. It had always meant something to him, always been a foundational part of who he was.

“No.” Savannah finally ripped her gaze away from the box. “He’s not. Dad didn’t want him to be.”

He didn’t want me. He despised me.Grayson should have been able to cut the thought off there. He should have had the discipline to leave it there.But the pictures. My whole life, he…

“I thought he was a good dad.” Gigi looked up at the ceiling, then squeezed her eyes closed. “Not perfect, but…” She trailed off and pressed her lips together. “I thought he was a good husband.” Her voice was gaining steam again. “That’s why I’ve been looking for him! Because I didn’t believe he would cheat on Mom and abandon us, but I guess the whole cheating and abandoning thing is just par for the course for him.”

Gigi was practically vibrating with intensity now. Grayson wanted to reach for her, but something in him wouldn’t let him.

“You should have told me.” Gigi took a step back, then another and another. “You all should have told me.” Hitting the wall, she shot each of them a final, furious look, then bolted from the room.

“Gigi!” Savannah started to go after her, but Acacia reached out a gentle hand to stop her.

“Let her go.” Acacia closed her eyes for a long moment, then opened them again. “Is there anything else?” she said. “In the box?”

Grayson removed and stacked the photographs, refusing to look too closely at any of them.My whole life, Sheffield Grayson knew about me. My whole life, he kept an eye on me.

At the bottom of the box, near the back, Grayson found a bank envelope. It was thick. Full. He pulled it out and opened it, expecting to find a fortune in large bills, but all he saw was slips of paper. Dozens of them.

“Deposit slips?” Acacia asked, and Grayson knew what she was thinking.The investigation. The embezzling. Her drained accounts.

He examined the papers. “Withdrawal slips, actually,” Grayson said, removing a handful of them, skimming each one with brutal efficiency. “Petty cash. This one’s for two hundred and seventeen dollars. Another for five hundred and six dollars. Three hundred and twenty-one dollars.” He turned one of the slips over. “There’s a notation on the back.KM.” He glanced up toward his father’s wife. “Do you know anyone with those initials?”

Savannah blew out a long, controlled breath. “Probably another side piece.”

“Savannah, I do not appreciate you talking about another woman that way.”

“I think you meantheother woman.” Savannah went for the jugular, like she’d utterly lost the ability to do anything else. “Or other women, plural, I guess,” she continued icily. “Not that you care.”

“Enough.”Grayson hadn’t meant to use that tone, but he didn’t regret it, either. He thought about Acacia telling him that she couldn’t eventhinkabout a life without her daughters. He thought about children’s paintings displayed like fine art and handprints captured in cement.

Grayson fixed Savannah with alookand spoke with an emphasis capable of sending chills down spines. “Your mother doesn’t deserve that from you.”

“Mymother,” Savannah shot back. Her expression was a study in ice-cold fury, ruined only by the tears on her white-blonde lashes. “And as for my dad…” She titled her chin up. “I always knew he wanted a boy.”

That statement affected Acacia more than Savannah’s earlier barbs. She folded her daughter into her arms. To Grayson’s surprise, Savannah didn’t fight it. They both stood there for the longest time, their arms around each other, holding on for dear life and leaving Grayson with a feeling he barely recognized.

Hawthornes weren’t supposed to long for things they could not have.