Fuck no.
This is not happening.
Am I going insane?
I'm dreaming. I'm delusional.
"He left everything to her?" Skye's voice is shrill enough to break through my stupor. "Why?" Skye looks like she could kill someone.
Us.
Me.
"Who the hell is she?" Zara's voice is knife-edged and clear as a bell.
"There must be some mistake." Grayson speaks like a person used to dealing with mistakes. Bribe, threaten, buy out, I think cynically. This isn't the Grayson I was outside with. Any sympathy, any connection there might have been between us is gone. The look he gives me is cold as ice. What will the heir apparent do to me?
This is not happening. I feel that with every beat of my heart, every breath in, every breath out. This cannot be happening.
"He's right." My words come out roughly, my throat dry. "Grayson's right." Heads started turning in my direction. "There must be some mistake." My voice is hoarse.
I turn to Avery and I say the one thing that seems perfectly reasonable for me to say. "We're leaving. This has got to be some sick joke."
"You are not going anywhere," Alisa steps in. The glare I send her way makes clear what I think but she holds her head high. "There are certain rules that demand-"
"Camille." Libby nudges me in the ribs, clearly telegraphing that I should shut up and stop talking about mistakes. But there is no way. There has to have been some kind of mix-up. A man I've never met didn't just leave me a multi-billion-dollar fortune. Things like that don't happen. Not to people like me.
"You see?" Skye latches on to what I'd said.
"Even Camilla agrees this is ridiculous."
This time, I'm pretty sure she's gotten my name wrong on purpose. The remainder of my estate, including all properties, monetary assets, and worldly possessions not otherwise specified, I leave to Camille Ruth Diante. Skye Hawthorne knows my name now.
They all do.
"I assure you, there is no mistake." Mr. Ortega meets my gaze, then turns his attention to the others. "And I assure the rest of you, Tobias Hawthorne's last will and testament are utterly unbreakable. Since the majority of the remaining details concern only Camille, we'll cease with the dramatics. But let me make one thing very clear: Per the terms of the will, any heir who challenges Avery's or Camille's inheritance will forfeit their share of the estate entirely."
Camille's inheritance. I feel thrown out of the world, like I'm watching this all unfold from an outside perspective. It's like someone has snapped their fingers and rewritten the laws of physics, like the coefficient of gravity has changed, and my body is ill-suited to coping. The world is spinning off its axis.
"No will is that ironclad," Zara's husband says, his voice acidic. "Not when there's this kind of money at stake."
"Spoken," Nash Hawthorne interjects, "like someone who didn't really know the old man."
"Traps upon traps," Jameson murmurs. "And riddles upon riddles." He looks at Avery, and I feel like I'm missing something.
"I think you should leave," Grayson tells me. Not a request. An order. I tense. And even though I feel like I've been hit in the gut, I agree.
"Technically." Alisa Ortega sounds like she's just swallowed arsenic. "It's their house."
Well, not my house. Avery's house. Clearly, Alisa too really didn't know what was in the will. She's been kept in the dark, just like the family. How could Tobias Hawthorne blindside them like this? What kind of person does that to their own flesh and blood?
"I don't understand" I say out loud, because none of this makes any kind of sense. "How is this possible?"
"My daughter is correct." Mr. Ortega keeps his tone neutral. "You own it all, Ms. Diante. Not just the fortune, but all of Mr. Hawthorne's properties, excluding Hawthorne House, which belongs to your sister. Per the terms of your inheritance, which I will gladly go over with you, the current occupants have been granted tenancy unless and until they give either of you cause for removal, since Ms. Grambs is not yet legally an adult."
He lets those words hang in the air. "Under no circumstances," he continues gravely, his words rife with warning, "can those tenants attempt to remove you. The only person who can remove Ms. Diante from Hawthorne House is Ms. Grambs by her 18th birthday."
The room is suddenly silent and still. They're going to kill us. Someone in this room is actually going to kill us.
The man I'd pegged as former military strides to stand between me— just me— and Tobias Hawthorne's family. He says nothing, crossing his arms over his chest, keeping me behind him and the rest of them in his sight.
"Oren!" Zara sounds shocked. "You work for this family."
"I worked for Mr. Hawthorne." John Oren pauses and holds up a piece of paper. It takes me a moment to realize that it was his letter.
"It was his last request that I continue in the employment of Ms. Camille Ruth Diante." He glances at me. "Security. You'll need it."
"What about Avery?" I ask, my voice feeling unused.
"You are legally her guardian, which means that as long as Avery is not legally an adult, you make the decisions for her. That's why you need protection, not necessarily her."
I look at Avery, and some part of me hopes she isn't mad. Why would she be? But she just looks at me like she's glad I carry the responsibility.
"And not just to protect you from us!" Xander adds to my left. He had seemed so nice.
"Take a step back, please," Oren orders.
Xander holds his hands up. "Peace," he declares. "I make dire predictions in peace!"
"Xan's right." Jameson smiles, like this is all some game. "The entire world's going to want a piece of you two. This has story of the century written all over it."
Story of the century. My brain kicks back into gear because there is every indication that this isn't a joke. I'm not delusional. I'm not dreaming.
I'm an heiress.
And no matter what happens, I have to protect Avery.