I killed him.” Mellie sounded dazed. “I… He was holding a gun. And he was going to… And I…”
“Easy,” Toby murmured. He stepped forward and removed the gun from her hand. Mellie let him.
What just happened here? Trying not to look at the body on the ground—at Grayson’s father—I made my way out of the unit. “I don’t understand.” That was probably the biggest understatement of my life. “You sold me out, Mellie. You left. Why would you—”
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” Mellie shook her head, and for a few seconds, it seemed like she couldn’t stop shaking it. “And we didn’t sell you out. This was never about the money.”
We? I thought dizzily.
“Who’s we?” Toby asked.
In answer, Mellie swallowed and reached a finger up to her eye. I wasn’t sure what she was doing at first, but then she removed a contact lens. I walked toward her, and she blinked up at me. The contact she’d removed was colored. Her left eye was still brown, but her right eye was a vibrant blue, with an amber circle around the center. Just like Eli’s.
“My brother and I agreed that I should be the one to wear contacts,” Mellie said, her voice still a little shaky.
“Eli’s your brother.” My mind raced. “He engineered a threat against me so he could stay close, then he leaked information about Toby to the press. And then you—”
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Mellie repeated. “We were just trying to flush Toby out of hiding. We just wanted to talk. When Mr. Grayson offered his assistance—”
“You kidnapped me for him.”
“No!” Mellie’s response was instantaneous. “I mean… kind of.” She shook her head again. “After Grayson and Jameson went to see him in Arizona, Sheffield Grayson sent a man to follow them to True North. To watch them.” I thought about the professional in the woods. Oren had pulled me out of the tub—and sent one of his men after the interloper. “Eli caught the guy,” Mellie continued. “He tackled him, and then… they talked.”
“About me?” I paused. “About Toby?”
Mellie didn’t answer either question. “We didn’t know who the man was working for,” she said instead. “Not at first. But we all wanted the same thing.”
Toby. “So Eli leaked those pictures,” I said, my throat constricting. “And then a few days later, someone blew up my plane.”
“That wasn’t us! Eli and I never wanted to hurt you. We never wanted to hurt anyone!” Mellie’s eyes drifted toward Toby’s. “We just needed to talk.”
“Why?” I demanded, but Mellie didn’t answer me. Now that she’d looked over at Toby, she couldn’t stop staring at him.
“Do I know you?” he asked her, his brow furrowing.
Mellie looked down. “You knew my mother.”
The world shifted under my feet—suddenly, abruptly. Sheffield Grayson said he had a DNA test linking me to Toby. I sucked in a breath. But Toby’s not my father. It wasn’t my DNA.
“This is my mom.” Mellie pulled out her phone and showed Toby a picture. “I don’t expect you to remember her. Pretty sure she was just another wild night for you that summer.”
The summer he “died,” I thought. Across from me, Toby looked at the photo, and I remembered Zara saying that Tobias Hawthorne’s investigators had talked to at least one of the women that Toby had slept with that summer. Mellie’s mother?
Across from me, I could see Toby working his way through it, too.
“Sheffield Grayson said you gave him a DNA sample to test,” I said, staring at Mellie. “He was certain I was Toby’s daughter.” I glanced toward Toby, and the muscles in my stomach twisted. “But I’m not. Am I?”
“Not by blood.” Toby held my gaze a moment longer, then turned back to Mellie. “You’re right. I don’t remember your mother.”
“I was five,” Mellie told him. “Eli was six. Our parents were in a bad place, and suddenly, Mom was pregnant. She didn’t know your name. She didn’t know the kind of money you came from.”
“But you figured it out?” I said. I couldn’t stop staring at Mellie. Alisa had told me once that she was one of the ones that Nash had “saved” from unfortunate circumstances. I had no idea what those circumstances were, but it couldn’t be coincidence that both she and her brother had ended up in the Hawthornes’ employ.
How long had they been planning this?
“You said your mother was pregnant,” Toby said quietly. “Did she have the child?”
The child, I thought, my stomach sinking. His child. The DNA that Mellie had given Sheffield Grayson, the DNA that had come up as a match for Toby’s—it wasn’t mine.
“My sister,” Mellie replied. “Her name is Evelyn. She goes by Eve.”
I saw something—just a hint of emotion—in Toby’s eyes. “A palindrome.”
“She chose it herself,” Mellie replied quietly, “when she was three years old, for that reason. She’s nineteen now.” Mellie turned to me. “And everything you have should be hers.”
For the first time, I heard surety burning in Mellie’s tone, and I understood that while she hadn’t meant for me to be hurt, it was a risk she’d been willing to take, because Toby Hawthorne did have a daughter.
It just wasn’t me.
Did the old man know? Did Mellie ever try to tell him?
“What do you want from me?” Toby asked.
“I want Eve taken care of,” Mellie said fiercely. “She’s a Hawthorne.”
My gaze cut to Toby’s. “And a Laughlin,” I said quietly. I wasn’t Mrs. Laughlin’s great-granddaughter. I wasn’t Rebecca’s niece, Emily’s niece. Eve was.
She was the one who belonged here.
I swallowed. “Bring her to Hawthorne House.” The words chafed against my throat, but I wasn’t going to give in to that hurt. “There’s plenty of room.”
“No.” Toby’s voice was blade-sharp.
Mellie scrolled furiously through her phone and shoved another picture in his face. “Look at her,” she demanded. “She’s your daughter, and you have no idea what her life has been like.”
Toby looked at the photo. Without meaning to, I stepped forward. I looked, too, and the second I saw Mellie’s sister’s face, I stopped breathing.
Eve was a dead ringer for Emily Laughlin. Strawberry-blonde hair, like sunlight through amber. Emerald eyes, too big for her face. Heart-shaped lips, a scattering of freckles.
“My daughter isn’t coming to Hawthorne House,” Toby told Mellie. “If you bring me to her, I will see that she’s taken care of. Discreetly.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, finally recovering my voice. Toby was talking about leaving. Like he was just going to walk away. After everything I’d been through, everything that Jameson, Xander, Grayson, and I had done to look for him.
“Do you promise?” Mellie stared at Toby like I wasn’t even in the room.
“I promise.” Toby’s eyes traveled to mine. “But first,” he continued softly, “Avery and I need to have a conversation alone.”