Page 115 of The Grandest Game

“That day, when you called, I was hurting.” Grayson angled his eyes up toward hers. “For reasons that have nothing to do with you, I was coming undone, and Ido not do that. As a rule, when I can no longer deny that I am hurting, I push people away. I find a way to hurtmore.”

“To prove you can,” Lyra said, thinking of how many times she’d run until she hit and surpassed the point of pain. “To prove that no matter how much you hurt, you’ll survive.”

“Yes.”This was Grayson as he’d been then, before all that practice being wrong. “I regretted telling you to stop calling. Immensely. I kept waiting for you to call again anyway. The number of hours I spent with your father’s file, the number of ways I tried to find you—”

“You didn’t!” Lyra didn’t hold back this time. “You’re Grayson Hawthorne. You don’ttryto do anything. You incline your head half an inch, and it’sdone.” The words were coming faster now. “Theyfound me—your brothers and Avery. They found me for the Grandest Game, so don’t tell me you looked, Grayson. You’reGrayson Hawthorne. You could have—”

“I couldn’t.” Grayson took a step forward. “And my brothers and Avery—they didn’t.”

Lyra’s gaze snapped right back to his face.

“No one found you, Lyra. You came here,” Grayson said, his voice low, the emphasis unmistakable.You. Here.

“Because I was invited!” Lyra had almost said those words once before.

Grayson didn’t argue with her—not at first. He didn’t have to. He was Grayson Hawthorne. His eyes did it for him.

And she just couldn’t look away.

Finally, Grayson spoke, the intensity in his voice matched in every line of his stone-carved face. “I delivered Savannah’s ticket myself. I offered it to Gigi first, as I’d been instructed to do, but Gigi declined. She wanted to win her own ticket—one of the four wild cards. Savannah was next in line.”

“Savannah got a direct invitation to the game,” Lyra said. “So?” But even as she said the word, Lyra flashed back suddenly to Brady on the dock, after Odette had given him her watch, saying that he’d been given a spot in the Grandest Gametwice.

And Odette had also been one of Avery’s picks.

“Savannah. Brady. Odette.” Lyra swallowed. “Three players of Avery’s choosing.” She flashed back to the masquerade ball, to dancing with Grayson, to the moment when she’d been on the verge of sayingI’m here because I was invitedand ended up sayingbecause I deserve thisinstead.

She’d been given her ticket. It had come with a note.

“After I heard your voice for the first time, I confronted Avery and my brothers.” Grayson locked his eyes on hers. “I went to find out what the hell was going on, and the four of them made it very clear: You came to us.”

You. Us.

“A wild card,” Grayson said.

But Lyrahadn’tcome to them. Shehadn’tcompeted to win her ticket. Someone had sent it to her. Someone had written the wordsYOU DESERVE THISon paper that crumbled to dust. Lyra couldn’t call to mind an image of the handwriting, but she did remember one thing about it.

The ink was dark blue.

“The notes on the trees.” Lyra willed Grayson to understand, even though she hadn’t put her thoughts into words for him. “The ink was blue.”

“Lyra?” Grayson turned her name into a question.

Someone had wanted her here.

Someone knew her father’s names.

And Graysonhadlooked for her. A floodgate broke inside of Lyra.The right kind of disaster just waiting to happen. A Hawthorne and a girl who has every reason to stay away from Hawthornes.

Lyra reached for Grayson anyway. Her hand found its way to the back of his neck for once. “Someone sent me that ticket, Grayson. I thought it was Avery. But if it wasn’t…”

“Then who the hell was it?” Grayson finished, his hand going to her cheek.

Lyra didn’t pull back. He was a Hawthorne.ThatHawthorne.

Your Hawthorne, Odette had said.

Lyra thought about the danger of touch. She thought about all the reasons she had not to do this. But as Grayson lowered his lips, Lyra rose up on her toes, tilted her head backward, moving like a dancer, needing this—and him.