“Welcome to… my lair!” Xander sounded overjoyed to be saying those words.
I stepped into his “lair” and saw… a machine?Contraptionprobably would have been the more accurate term. There were dozens of gears, pulleys, and chains, a complicated series of connected ramps, several buckets, two conveyor belts, a slingshot, a birdcage, four pinwheels, and at least four balloons.
“Is that an anvil?” I asked, frowning and leaning forward for a better look.
“That,” Xander said proudly, “is a Rube Goldberg machine. As it so happens, I am a three-time world champion at building machines that do simple things in overly complicated ways.” He handed me a marble. “Place this in the pinwheel.”
I did. The pinwheel spun, blowing a balloon, that tipped a bucket…
As I watched each mechanism set off the next, I glanced at the youngest Hawthorne brother out of the corner of my eye. “What does this have to do with Thea moving in?”
He’d told me that I needed to be prepared, then brought me here. Was this supposed to be some kind of metaphor? A warning that Zara’s actions might appear complicated, even when the goal was simple? An insight into Thea’s charge?
Xander cast a sideways look at me and grinned. “Who said this had anything to do with Thea?”
CHAPTER 51
That night, in honor of Thea’s visit, Mrs. Laughlin made a melt-in-your-mouth roast beef. Orgasmic garlic mashed potatoes. Roasted asparagus, broccoli florets, and three different kinds of crème brûlée.
I couldn’t help feeling like it was pretty revealing that Mrs. Laughlin had pulled out all the stops for Thea—but not for me.
Trying not to seem petty, I sat down to a formal dinner in the “dining room,” which probably should have been called a banquet hall instead. The massive table was set for eleven. I cataloged the participants in this little family dinner: four Hawthorne brothers. Skye. Zara and Constantine. Thea. Libby. Nan. And me.
“Thea,” Zara said, her voice almost too pleasant, “how is field hockey?”
“We’re undefeated this season.” Thea turned toward me. “Have you decided which sport you’ll be playing, Avery?”
I managed to resist the urge to snort, but barely. “I don’t do sports.”
“Everyone at Country Day does a sport,” Xander informed me, before stuffing his mouth with roast beef. His eyes rolled upward with pleasure as he chewed. “It is an actual, real requirement and not a figment of Thea’s delightfully vindictive imagination.”
“Xander,” Nash said in warning.
“I said she wasdelightfullyvindictive,” Xander replied innocently.
“If I were a boy,” Thea told him with a Southern belle smile, “people would just call me driven.”
“Thea.” Constantine frowned at her.
“Right.” Thea dabbed at her lips with her napkin. “No feminism at the dinner table.”
This time, I couldn’t bite back the snort.Point, Thea.
“A toast,” Skye declared out of nowhere, holding up her wineglass and slurring the words enough that it was clear she’d already been imbibing.
“Skye, dear,” Nan said firmly, “have you considered sleeping it off?”
“A toast,” Skye reiterated, glass still held high. “To Avery.”
For once, she’d gotten my name right. I waited for the guillotine to drop, but Skye said nothing else. Zara raised her glass. One by one, every other glass went up.
Every person in this room had probably gotten the message: No good could come of challenging the will. I might have been the enemy—but I was also the one with the money.
Is that why Zara brought Thea here? To get close to me? Is that why she left me alone at the foundation with Grayson?
“To you, Heiress,” Jameson murmured to my left. I turned to look at him. I hadn’t seen him since the night before. I was fairly certain he’d skipped school. I wondered if he’d spent the day in the Black Wood, looking for the next clue.Without me.
“To Emily,” Thea added suddenly, her glass still raised, her eyes on Jameson. “May she rest in peace.”
