Chapter 20
TWENTY
GRAYSON
DONNY: Pickleball tomorrow?
GRAYSON: Can’t. Sorry. I’m in New York.
DONNY: You OK? Need a wingman?
GRAYSON: Thanks. I got one.
I’m fucked.
My father knows I’m working with Flic, and when my mother sent a message on the plane about family dinner, she made it clear Flic was invited. Which meant my father was curious. And Charles Ashborne’s curiosity is a dangerous thing.
The entire point of bringing Flic with me tonight is simple.
I want my father to see her and immediately dismiss her as irrelevant.
Someone I work with. Maybe—at a stretch—a friend.
I wanted him to see that Flic has no leverage and no angle, and nothing he can twist or use.
But I can’t stop looking at her. Which is a problem.
Flic is beautiful in black jeans and a Stormhawks jersey or those cute vests she wears at the bar.
I clocked that the first day I met her. But tonight she keeps stealing the breath clean out of my lungs.
She sits beside me, legs crossed, the slit revealing a glimpse of smooth thigh I’m suddenly desperate to run my hand up.
I wonder if she’d break my fingers or if she’d beg for more.
The want is low and insistent, chipping away at the resolve I’ve clung to for five years. The promise I made to myself after Ana. No relationships. No risks that end with someone’s life destroyed because they got too close to me.
Anger burns beneath my skin. My father has trapped me in this life. I’m stuck on the board of a company that destroys livelihoods and people just so I can keep him in check. I’m stuck playing a game I don’t want to play. Because if I don’t, people get hurt.
I hate him. I hate him for making me be someone who schemes and manipulates just to stay one step ahead of him.
I hate the pain he’s caused to the people I love.
If he sees the way my attention is locked on Flic.
If he sees how I want Flic in a way that makes me feel alive and reckless, he’ll use it like a pressure point.
And the thought of that does something ugly to me.
Because if he tries to manipulate her, there will be no more careful control.
If he even looks at her in a way I don’t like, I will set the world on fire.
“Grayson.” Helena singsongs my name. I look up to see an amused smile on my sister’s face. “You look like you’re plotting to kill someone.”
“I was,” I mutter.
“Happy families, remember.” I don’t miss the strain in Helena’s voice. Whatever it’s costing me to play our father’s game, it’s costing Helena more.
The memory rises uninvited in my thoughts. I remember the broken jaw. The three cracked ribs. And more bruises than I could count. All from that bastard ex-husband of hers.
It’s not your fault, Grayson.
I’d walked out of that hospital with a rage burning through me like nothing I’d felt before. It wasn’t even the heat of anger, but something darker and quieter that sat in my chest and told me exactly how far I was willing to go to make this right.
I would have torn through every bar in New York looking for that man if I hadn’t known already that the moment my jet touched down at LaGuardia, he’d made sure to disappear.
Phone off. Apartment cleared of anything that mattered to him.
A coward’s exit. So, I went to her apartment and packed up her life with my own hands.
Folded clothes. Boxed books. Threw out the things that would remind her of him.
I could’ve paid a team to do it. But I needed to stay busy.
Because if I’d stopped moving, I would’ve done something I couldn’t walk back from.
Then I swallowed the fury and turned it into restraint because it was too late to save Helena.
Unleashing my rage or walking away for good from Ashborne Holdings would only have left her alone and more exposed.
The car pulls up outside my family’s brownstone on the Upper East Side. The house my parents use when they’re “in town.”
“Flic,” I say. “We all play a part in this family. It’s important I play mine.
My father thinks I’m as ruthless as he is.
He thinks I block his deals out of spite and to my own company’s advantage.
He thinks my community projects are PR stunts to make my company look good while I pilfer and take just like he does. None of that is true, but—”
“You need it to look that way,” she says. “Got it.”
“It means when we step inside that house, I’ll be…” My voice trails off. How can I explain it?
“A pain in my ass? A ruthless billionaire with no morals? I’ve got it, Grayson.”
I make a face. “I don’t want you to think I’m like him.” The word I don’t say seems to land between us anyway. Again.
Her voice softens. “I won’t.”
The driver opens the door for us. Helena steps out first, but before I can move Flic rests a warm hand on mine. A spark shoots down my arm and my gaze moves to hers.
“You think my customers would respect me and behave in my bar if they knew I watch Disney movies with Madison and sing along to all the songs? They see me as a badass, and that’s who I have to be when I’m behind the bar. So, you be who you need to be. You don’t have to worry about me.”
The tightness in my body eases. Beneath the steel wall I’ve hauled into place for this dinner, I feel the warmth of gratitude that she’s here.
It steadies me more than it should, which is exactly why guilt pinches low in my gut.
Because there are things I haven’t told her.
Pieces of my past I keep buried. And I know, with certainty, that if she knew the full truth—if she saw all of it laid bare—she wouldn’t be sitting here offering me her support and her trust. She deserves better from me. And she’s going to get it, I decide.
Tonight, after this dinner is over and we’re back at my apartment, I’ll tell her everything.
Not just because she deserves my honesty after giving me her trust—but because I want to.
Because I need to. The truth I can’t let my father see is that Flic, with her prickly replies and eye rolls and takes-no-shit attitude—and her kindness and her strength—has started to matter to me in a way that goes deeper than just plain want.
I don’t know how much longer I can keep pretending otherwise, or how much more my resolve can take.
I step onto the cold street where Helena is waiting. She brushes my suit shoulder like she’s sweeping away a piece of lint. “Not your usual type, but I like her.”
My sister turns toward the steps without waiting for a reply. Her head is high, expression cool and unyielding. Anyone watching would think she’s unshakable. But when this is over, she’ll go out and drink and dance with strangers just to remind herself she’s still alive. That she survived.
I follow her gaze to the black front door.
I always preferred this house to Ashborne Park, the estate an hour north of the city where my parents retreat when they want distance from the world.
We bounced between the two growing up. School days in the city while we attended St. Augustine’s.
Weekends at Ashborne Park. Despite the acres of land and manicured gardens, the high brick walls made me feel trapped.
Here, at least I could step outside and be on a street.
Among people. Normal people. It was easier to breathe here.
Flic slides out of the car and follows Helena up the steps, still smiling, telling me she’s fine. Reminding me she’s here. And I find myself wondering if a part of me wanted Flic to meet my father so she could see, once and for all, that I am nothing like him.
The tension from the board meeting earlier still weighs on me.
There are only so many deals I can block.
Sometimes it feels like trying to patch a dam with Band-Aids.
The pressure is relentless. If I ran Ashborne Holdings, I could change the legacy.
Show the world that profit doesn’t mean others have to suffer.
But my father shows no sign of stepping aside.
No slowing down. No remorse. So, Helena and I, and the other board members who feel the same, quietly do what we can.
And I spend my money to undo his worst instincts wherever possible.
Flic throws a glance at me over her shoulder. “Get your head out of your ass, Grayson. Game face on.”
I give a quiet laugh. “Yes, coach.”
Then I steel myself and offer her my arm and lead her through the open front door, wishing it didn’t feel quite so much like I’m guiding her straight into danger.
The entrance hall has a 1920s opulence to it. Marble floors stretch out beneath a crystal chandelier, its light bouncing off polished wood paneling. A gold-framed portrait of my grandfather’s steely glare looms over us all.
“Subtle,” Flic murmurs under her breath, and I hide a smile before the front door is closed and I’m dragged into a warm hug from Olive, the housekeeper who’s lived here as long as we have.
I embrace the woman warmly. She’s stick thin, no-nonsense, wearing a mask like everyone else in this house, but while it’s just us in this hall, she returns my smile and my hug. “You’re looking tired, Grayson.”
“I’ve missed your cookies,” I tell her honestly.
“I’ve packed some for you to take home later,” she says in my ear before stepping back.
“Olive, this is my friend Flic. Flic, this is Olive.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Ashborne.” Flic smiles shyly.
“I’m the housekeeper, sweetheart,” Olive replies before I get the chance.
“Oh.” Flic’s cheeks turn a cute shade of pink. But before I have a chance to reassure her, my mother appears from the top of the staircase, gliding toward us in black silk and diamonds. She’s always been one to make an entrance.
“Grayson,” she says reaching the bottom of the stairs and air-kissing my cheeks. “You look well.”
She steps back, her gaze sliding over Flic like she’s assessing a dress on a rack.
“And you must be Grayson’s new friend.” She pauses, then smiles politely. “How lovely.”