Page 89 of Came the Closest
“Not today, but my original offer still stands.” The smooth, neatly accented voice of Grayson Adair slices through stale air. “You haven’t been waiting long, have you?”
I exchange a brief look with Graham as we turn from the windows, my hands resting on Milo’s slender shoulders.
Graham accepts Grayson’s handshake. “Only a few minutes. We were under the impression we were meeting with Chris…?”
“You will be,” Grayson says, shaking my hand next. “He’s not finished with his meeting yet. I was asked to give you a tour of the docks.”
Outwardly, Grayson Adair is polished and professional. Accomplished too, considering he’s only twenty-two. But I’m starting to think he’s linked to my sister somehow, and I can’t figure out how. It can’t be harmful, considering he holds my eye contact unwaveringly before he kneels to shake Milo’s hand too, but I’m missing something.
“Can we?” Milo asks me, eyes wide. “I wanna see the boats!”
I glance at my brother.
“We have time,” Graham says.
When Grayson tells Graham and Milo to go on down to the dock—but please refrain from boarding the boats—I know he wants to talk to me alone. We stand on the shaded patio outside, the cement beneath my dress shoes imprinted with a nautical pattern. Flower baskets hang from the eaves, and a robin’s nest is tucked onto a sconce light.
“What do you know about Vincent Pierre?”
The question throws me. I look at the younger man, trying to read him. His feet are braced shoulders width apart, his hands tucked in the pockets of his light blue slacks, and his dark hair tousles lightly in the breeze. But his expression is impassive.
What I wouldn’t give to have that poker face.
“Something tells me not enough,” I say evenly.
A short laugh puffs through his lips. “A non-answer. I wish that didn’t make me like you more.”
I narrow my eyes. “What are you talking about?”
He says nothing. Considering his outwardly calm persona, it’s for my benefit more than his own. I hate to admit that I need it, but I do. Hearing Milo’s father’s name—my mother’s husband—makes my skin crawl. The Google searches I’ve run don’t cause alarm; other than his disarming net worth or the number of houses he owns, maybe. But I’m missing something. Something Pierre wants me to miss.
Something Grayson Adair seems to know.
I face the docks. Milo tilts his head all the way back to ask Graham something, and my brother points at a billowing mainsail. My voice is low when I say, “What do I need to know about Vincent Pierre, Adair?”
“Between you and me…” he begins. I nod without turning. “Vincent Pierre has a little habit of doing business that’s not all completely above board, so to speak. Likes to throw around the power he inherited when his dad died of a heart attack at age forty-six. Has friends in high places, and money in higher places.”
“Friends meaning sources,” I clarify.
Grayson shrugs. “Business, money, family.” He lets the words hang for a moment before continuing. “When a man has that much power, it’s hard not to become a little morally corrupt.”
Business, money, family.
I should know how to connect the dots he’s drawing, but I can’t. Not without seeing them on paper and tracing a pencil from Point A to Point B.
“Sort of ironic, coming from someone with his own substantial amount of power,” I say. “Don’t you think?”
“Trust me,” he says in a low voice, blue eyes serious. “The only power I have is the power to break your sister’s heart.”
The warning in his voice demands my full attention. I meet Grayson’s gaze directly and neither of us flinches away. “How do you know my sister, Grayson?”
His voice quiets to a chilling whisper. “You don’t have to know someone to save their life, Del Ray.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sufficiently Sun-Drenched
Cheyenne