“We have a problem.” Oren didn’t sound overly bothered, but Alisa immediately put down her phone. Oren nodded to our suite’s balcony. Alisa stepped outside, looked down, and swore.
I pushed past Oren and went out on the balcony to see what was going on. Down below, outside the hotel’s entrance, hotel security guards were struggling with what appeared to be a mob. It wasn’t until a flash went off that I realized what that mob was.
Paparazzi.
And just like that, every camera was pointed up at the balcony. At me.
CHAPTER 14
Ithought you said your firm had this locked down.” Oren gave Alisa a look. She scowled back at him, made three phone calls in quick succession—two of them in Spanish—and then turned back to my head of security. “The leak didn’t come from us.” Her eyes darted toward Libby. “It came from your boyfriend.”
Libby’s answer was barely more than a whisper. “My ex.”
“I’m sorry.” Libby had apologized at least a dozen times. She’d told Drake everything—about the will, the conditions on my inheritance, where we were staying.Everything.I knew her well enough to know why. He would have been angry that she’d taken off. She would have tried to pacify him. And the moment she’d told him about the money, he would have demanded to tag along. He would have started making plans to spend the Hawthorne money. And Libby, God bless her, would have told him that it wasn’t theirs to spend, that it wasn’this.
He hit her. She left him. He went to the press.And now they were here. A horde descended on us as Oren led me out a side door.
“There she is!” a voice yelled.
“Avery!”
“Avery, over here!”
“Avery, how does it feel to be the richest teenager in America?”
“How does it feel to be the world’s youngest billionaire?”
“How did you know Tobias Hawthorne?”
“Is it true that you’re Tobias Hawthorne’s illegitimate daughter?”
I was shuffled into an SUV. The door closed, dulling the roar of the reporters’ questions. Exactly halfway through our drive, I got a text—not from Max. From an unknown number.
I opened it and saw a screenshot of a news headline.Avery Grambs: Who Is the Hawthorne Heiress?
A short message accompanied the picture.
Hey, Mystery Girl. You’re officially famous.
There were more paparazzi outside the gates of Hawthorne House, but once we pulled past them, the rest of the world faded away. There was no welcome party. No Jameson. No Grayson. No Hawthornes of any kind. I reached for the massive front door—locked. Alisa disappeared around the back of the house. When she finally reappeared, there was a pained expression on her face. She handed me a large envelope.
“Legally,” she said, “the Hawthorne family is required to provide you with keys. Practically speaking…” She narrowed her eyes. “The Hawthorne family is a pain in the ass.”
“That a legal term?” Oren asked dryly.
I ripped open the envelope and found that the Hawthorne family had indeed provided me with keys—somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred of them.
“Any idea which one of these goes to the front door?” I asked. They weren’t normal keys. They were oversized and ornately made. They all looked like antiques, and each key was distinct—different designs, different metals, different lengths and sizes.
“You’ll figure it out,” someone said.
My gaze jerked upward, and I found myself staring at an intercom.
“Cut the games, Jameson,” Alisa ordered. “This isn’t nearly as cute as you all think it is.”
No reply.
“Jameson?” Alisa tried again.
