"The first scone is what I like to call the practice scone." Xander stuffs an entire scone in his mouth. "It is not until the third—nay, fourth—scone that you develop any kind of scone-eating expertise."
"Right," I say, smiling skeptically. "Expertise." We are sitting in some kitchen— I don't dare say the kitchen, because who knows how many kitchens they have here— and Xander is eating scones.
"Your nature is skeptical," Xander notes. "That will serve you well in these halls, but if there is one universal truth in the human experience, it is that a finely honed scone-eating palate does not just develop overnight."
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch sight of Oren and wonder how long he's been tailing us. "Why are we standing here talking about scones?" I ask Xander. At the very least, Xander should be trying to make my life miserable. "Aren't you supposed to hate me?" I continue. Not that I want him to. He's like a cute puppy that bites from time to time.
"I do hate you," Xander replies, happily devouring his third scone. "If you notice, I have kept the blueberry confections for myself and gave you"—he shuddered—"the lemon-flavored scones. Such is the depth of my loathing you personally and on principle."
"This isn't a joke." I feel like I've fallen into Wonderland— and then fallen again, rabbit hole after rabbit hole, in a vicious cycle.
Xander Hawthorne is vibrant. There is no other way to describe him. He is bursting with energy, and there is nothing to compensate it. I can practically feel his thoughts, his emotions. Uselessness. I could be doing so much, could be inventing, could be experimenting. Of course, I could be completely wrong. I don't know Xander. I do this a lot. I analyse people, I try to get in their heads, think the way they think. It's easy for me.
"Whatever game you're playing here, I will find the truth," I remember Grayson's words. If he figures it out, I hope he lets me know too.
"Why would I hate you, Camille?" Xander asked finally. There are layers of emotion in his tone that weren't there before. "You aren't the one who did this."
Tobias Hawthorne did.
"Maybe you're blameless." Xander shrugged. "Maybe you're the evil genius that Gray seems to think you are, but at the end of the day, even if you thought that you'd manipulated our grandfather into this, I guarantee that he'd be the one manipulating you."
I suddenly feel very, very sorry for him. I think of the letter that Tobias Hawthorne left me—two words, no explanation. I still have to ask Avery about her letter, I think.
"Your grandfather was a piece of work," I tell Xander.
He picks up a fourth scone. "I agree. In his honor, I eat this scone." He does just that and I smile at him. "Want me to show you to your rooms now?"
"That would be lovely, thank you."
He looks up from his scone and grins. "Do you have a British accent?"
"No?" I scoff, but just as with Nash, the thought has already settled in his brain and won't appear to leave anytime soon.
"Hawthorne House is the largest privately owned residential home in the state of Texas." Xander leads me up a staircase. "I could give you a number for square footage, but it would only be an estimate. The thing that truly separates Hawthorne House from other obscenely large, castle-like structures isn't so much its size as its nature. My grandfather added at least one new room or wing every year. Imagine, if you will, that an M. C. Escher drawing conceived a child with Leonardo da Vinci's most masterful designs...."
"Stop," I order. "New rule: You're no longer allowed to use any terminology for baby-making when describing this house or its occupants—including yourself."
Xander brings a hand melodramatically to his chest. "Harsh."
I shrug. "My house, my rules."
He gawks at me. I can't believe I said it, either, but there is something about Xander Hawthorne that makes me feel like I don't have to apologize for my own existence.
"Too soon?" I ask.
"I'm a Hawthorne." Xander gives me his most dignified look. "It's never too soon to start trash-talking."
I take that as I'm not even hurt, but do the trash-talking with Nash instead because I still miss my Grandpa.
Suddenly, we're standing in front of a portrait. Xander wants to keep going, but I can't look away. Tobias Hawthorne. He has silver-gray hair and a face more weather-worn than I realised. His eyes are Grayson's, almost exactly, his build Jameson's, his chin Nash's. If I didn't Xander in motion, I may not have recognized a resemblance between him and the old man at all, but it's there in the way Tobias Hawthorne's features pulled together—not the eyes or nose or mouth, but something about the shape in between.
"I never even met him." I tear my eyes from the portrait and look at Xander. "I'd remember if I had."
"Are you sure?" Xander asks me.
I find myself looking back at the portrait. Have I ever met the billionaire? Have our paths crossed, even for a moment? My mind is blank, except for one phrase, looping through over and over again.
My Camille, I'm sorry.
Later, Xander leaves me to explore my wing.
My wing. I feel ridiculous even thinking the words. In my mansion. The first four doors lead to suites, each of them sized to make a king bed look tiny. The closets could double as bedrooms.
Dazed, I make my way to the fifth and final door on my hall. Not a bedroom, I realise when I open it. An office. Enormous leather chairs—six of them—sat in a horseshoe shape, facing a balcony. Glass display shelves lined the walls. Evenly spaced on the shelves are items that look like they belong in a museum—geodes, antique weaponry, statues of onyx and stone.
Opposite the balcony, at the back of the room, is a desk. As I get closer, I see a large bronze compass built into its surface. I trail my fingers over the compass. It turns—northwest—and a compartment in the desk pops open. What the fuck?
This wing was where Tobias Hawthorne spent his last few months, I think. Who knows what he was hiding here?