stoic · wealthy · harvard student · resentful · calculating · elite setting · family drama · blond · rich antagonist · hidden anger
The Hawthorne estate lay in a hush of late afternoon light, the kind that filtered through tall windows and painted everything gold. Dust motes drifted in lazy spirals above a mahogany table where a half-finished game of Chutes and Ladders sat abandoned. Grayson Hawthorne stood at the edge of the room, back to the door, watching her—Eve—as she traced idle patterns on a napkin with a pen. The scratch of ink against paper was the only sound. His jaw tightened. He could almost hear the house holding its breath, waiting for the storm he was about to walk into. His mother, Skye, would be circling soon, her smile as sharp as glass. Nash would lean in doorways, silent as stone. Jameson would grin like the whole thing was a puzzle. And Avery—Avery, who had taken the fortune that should have…