CHAPTER 101 GIGI
GIGI
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…”
Gigi wound her fingers through Slate’s. She hadn’t been able to talk him into sitting in the front of the church.
It had been hard enough to get him into the back pew.
Eve’s funeral was a real society affair.
The tragic, headline-grabbing death of an heiress worth hundreds of millions had brought no shortage of hypocrites out to mourn—and that included Eve’s mother, to whom her body had been released.
According to Slate, Eve’s mother had never been a mother to her at all, but the woman was clearly slavering over the idea of a payday now.
The only reason Slate had agreed to attend the funeral at all was because he wanted to believe that Rohan was right, that the body that had been preserved and released to Eve’s awful family wasn’t Eve’s.
One could hardly bury a long-dead woman—unless that woman happened to be a dead-ringer for someone else.
No pun intended.
“Therefore,” the minister was saying from the pulpit, his voice echoing, “encourage each other with these words…”
Gigi squeezed Slate’s hand, trying to broadcast her own silent encouragement to him: Eve’s out there. She’s alive.
Helena Thorp had told Gigi that she would have died for her Vega in the Crucible, the same way that Rohan had seen Eve willingly pick up a chalice of poison to save Avery.
But on the footage Rohan had seen, the footage that Zella had gone out of her way to show Rohan, Alice Hawthorne’s throat had been slashed after she’d drunk from the same chalice as Eve.
And why would that have been necessary if the woman was already dead?
Gigi had taken Rohan’s theory to Avery and Jameson, and that was when Avery had told them that in the Crucible, Eve’s name had been Phoenix. And Alice Hawthorne, she’d told Jameson that sometimes a phoenix had to burn.
To be reborn…
“And now,” the minister said at the front of the church, “I’d like to welcome family friend Avery Grambs, who will be saying a few words in remembrance of our dear Eve.”
The moment Avery stepped up to the microphone, at least a half-dozen mourners slipped out their phones, unable to help themselves. The world’s most famous heiress eulogizing yet another beautifully tragic heiress, gone too soon?
With any luck, Avery’s eulogy would be going viral within the hour.
“Eve’s father and my mother had an epic, star-crossed kind of love when they were young.
” Avery’s face was tearstained, and Gigi knew those tear tracks were real.
Even if Eve was out there, Toby wasn’t. “The kind of love,” Avery continued, her words labored, “that echoes long after either person is gone, long after they both are.” Avery drew in a ragged breath.
“In a different world, Eve and I might have been raised as sisters. In this world, in some ways, that’s what we were in the end. ”
Sisters forged, Gigi thought. Sisters, once upon a time.
Avery’s eyes cut through the crowd, all the way to the back row, to Slate.
“I didn’t know Eve the way that some of you did, but I know that she wanted to matter, and I know that she did.
I know Eve was stronger than most people gave her credit for being and brave and stubborn and that even when she tried desperately to put herself first, she didn’t always succeed.
“And wherever Eve is now…” Avery did an A-plus job of making it sound like she was talking about the afterlife, about heaven or something like it. “I hope she knows that she will be remembered, that there is a place where she will always belong, where we will remember her.”
Slate’s hand squeezed Gigi’s.
“If Eve were here right now,” Avery continued, “I would tell her that she was truly her father’s daughter, and that the last thing he ever did was shelter her body with his own.
” Avery took another shaky breath, but she kept going.
“Eve’s father and my mother are together now.
I believe that. I really do. Toby didn’t want a funeral, but someday soon, I’ll scatter his ashes.
I think I know where he’d want me to spread them, but Eve, wherever you are, I want you to know that it won’t feel right to do that without you. ”
Avery’s voice broke, and even knowing Rohan’s theory, even believing and hoping and recognizing Avery’s words for what they were, Gigi sobbed.
“Rest in peace, Eve,” Avery finished. “Wherever you are.”
The funeral wrapped up, and as soon as the crowd began to disperse, Slate stood and went to slip out, but a woman in a business suit stopped him. “Mattias Slater?”
Gigi felt Slate switch to high alert. “Who’s asking?”
“The attorney responsible for executing the will of Evelyn Blake.”
Suddenly, Gigi thought about Eve’s parting gift to Slate. All five seals.
“She didn’t,” Slate said flatly.
“You, Mr. Slater, are her sole heir and have been for some time.” The woman handed him her card. “Call my office when you’re ready. We’ll deal with the family in the meantime, though I assure you it’s all airtight. My condolences for your loss.”
Slate sat heavily back down in the pew. Gigi took up position beside him again. Neither of them said a word until they were alone in the church. For almost an hour, they just sat there.
“Even if we’re right,” Slate said finally, once it was just the two of them, “even if she survived—she’s never coming back.”
That just now seemed to be sinking in for him.
Gigi laid her head on his shoulder. “You taught her to shoot,” she said simply. “And she taught you how to braid.”
Slate closed his eyes and shook his head. “When my mother was dying, Eve visited her sometimes, in the hospital. She barely knew me, but she braided my mom’s hair for her and taught me how to do the same.”
The idea of Mattias Slater braiding his dying mother’s hair almost undid Gigi.
“If I ever see Eve again,” Slate said calmly, “I’m going to kill her.”
“For faking her death or leaving you all that money?” Gigi asked.
“Both,” Slate replied. He looked down at his hands, and Gigi realized: He was holding one of the seals that Eve had given him. Without a word, he laid it in Gigi’s palm. “I don’t know how to do this,” he told her.
Gigi stared at the seal in her hand. “Take control of a massive fortune or develop functional interpersonal relationships, including one with me?”
“Both.”
Gigi smiled, and the next thing she knew, Mattias Slater was touching her face, so Gigi tentatively touched his.
“Would you listen,” Slate said, “if I told you that this is a very bad idea? That I am?”
“I’d listen,” Gigi assured him, “and then I’d bring my lips very close to yours…” She did exactly that. “And I’d say, All right, Mimosas. Let’s play a game.”