"Grayson Hawthorne," Issac replied. I stared at the door, and Issac elaborated. "If my men considered him a threat, he never would have made it to our floor. I trust Grayson. But if you don't want to see him..."

"No," I said. What am I doing? It was late, and I doubted American royalty took kindly to being dethroned. But there was something about the way Grayson had looked at me, from the first time we'd met....

"Open the door," I told Issac. He did, and then he stepped back.

"Aren't you going to invite me in?" Grayson wasn't the heir anymore, but you wouldn't have known it from his tone.

"That cocky are we? You shouldn't be here," I told him, pulling my robe tighter around me.

"I've spent the past hour telling myself much the same thing, and yet, here I am." His eyes were pools of gray, his hair unkempt, like I wasn't the only one who hadn't been able to sleep. He'd lost everything today.

"Grayson—" I said.

"I don't know how you did this." He cut me off, his voice dangerous and soft.

"I don't know what hold you had over my grandfather, or what kind of con you're running here."

"I'm not—"

"I'm talking right now, Ms. Grambs." He placed his hand flat on the door. I'd been wrong about his eyes. They weren't pools. They were ice. "I haven't a clue how you pulled this off, but I will find out. I see you now. I know what you are and what you're capable of, and there is nothing I wouldn't do to protect my family. Whatever game you're playing here, no matter how long this con—I will find the truth, and God help you when I do."

Issac stepped into my peripheral vision, but I didn't wait for him to act. I pushed the door forward, hard enough to send Grayson back, then slammed it closed. Heart pounding, I waited for him to knock again, to shout through the door. Nothing. Slowly, my head bowed, my eyes drawn like magnet to metal by the envelope in my hands.

With one last glance at Issac, who was about to enter the room when I shut the door. I retreated to my bedroom. 

Then my breathing slowed, I felt giddiness take me over. I felt darkness engulf me as I fell to the floor. 

Then I blacked out.

When I came too I realised I was in bed. It was morning and the sun crept through the curtains of the room.

I saw Oren and Issac standing over me.

Oren spoke. 

"Miss Grambs, I've already spoken with your sister about her security detail but since there are two of you my colleague will be taking care of you." He said nodding toward Issac.

"Issac will be your head of security, I'll manage your sister. You'll be residing in the rooms of Hawthorne House, Issac will be stationed by your door every night and he'll be with you wherever you are."

I nodded in understanding. Oren walked out and Isaac turned to leave but then turned back to me.

"Ms. Grambs, whenever your up to it we'll talk about your security measures."

I nodded. "Thank you."

He turned around.

"Oh and Isaac,"

"Yes"

"Call me Kayla."

On the way back to the house Isaac followed me and drove me around.

Isaac was briefing me on security protocols when he mentioned Libby flying out somewhere.

"Where's my sister going?"

"To collect your things."

Silence for a bit.

"The thing about you inheriting this money, you're going to be everywhere. Newspapers, magazines you name it." Isaac added.

Jameson's words played back in my mind.

Story of the century.

"Your going to be at risk for kidnapping, assassination, stalking, death threats and assault. All I need you to do is stay vigilant."

"The normal teenage girl stuff." I said.

Finally we got back to the house.

I heard Issac curse under his breath and I looked outside. Paparazzi.

How the fuck did they get here?

"Follow me and don't say a word." He ordered.

I nodded and he extended his hand to help me out of the car which I accepted.

"Kayla"

"Kayla look over here!"

"Big smile now!"

I breathed in heavily. I think Isaac felt my nervousness somehow because he gripped my hand tighter.

I was wearing a skirt with tights and a white shit with a black corset.

Even with my arms covered. I couldn't remember feeling so exposed ever.

We finally got into the house and Isaac let go of my hand and shut the door quickly.

I heaved a sigh and Isaac looked at me reassuringly.

I suddenly heard a muffled sob.

I turned to see Libby standing there. 

Just then Alisa entered.

Libby swallowed but didn't avert her eyes. "If you say 'I told you so,' I will make butterscotch cupcakes and guilt you into eating them every day."

"Is there a problem I should know about?" Alisa asked Libby, her voice deceptively calm as she eyed the bruise.

"Avery hates butterscotch," Libby said, like that was the problem.

Suddenly I realised that Avery was in the room. 

So they were ignoring me.

"Alisa," I gritted out, "does your law firm have a hit man on retainer?"

"No." Alisa kept her tone strictly professional. "But I'm very resourceful. I could make some inquiries."

"I legitimately cannot tell if you are joking," Libby said, and then she turned to Avery. "I don't want to talk about it. And I'm fine."

"But—" Avery began

"I'm fine."

Oh I was going to kill Drake.

"We have a problem." Oren didn't sound overly bothered, but Alisa immediately put down her phone. Oren nodded to the balcony. Alisa stepped outside, looked down, and swore.

I pushed past Oren and went out on the balcony to see what was going on.

Down below, outside the hotel's entrance, hotel security guards were struggling with what appeared to be a mob. It wasn't until a flash went off that I realized what that mob was.

Paparazzi.

And just like that, every camera was pointed up at the balcony. At me.

I thought you said your firm had this locked down." Isaac gave Alisa a look.

She scowled back at him, made three phone calls in quick succession—two of them in Spanish{which mostly consisted of swearing, however I decided not to tell Alisa I spoke Spanish}—and then turned back to my head of security. 

"The leak didn't come from us." Her eyes darted toward Libby. "It came from your boyfriend."

Libby's answer was barely more than a whisper. "My ex."

"I'm sorry." Libby had apologized at least a dozen times. She'd told Drake everything—about the will, the conditions on my inheritance, where we were staying. Everything. I knew her well enough to know why. He would have been angry that she'd taken off. She would have tried to pacify him. And the moment she'd told him about the money, he would have demanded to tag along. He would have started making plans to spend the Hawthorne money. And Libby, God bless her, would have told him that it wasn't theirs to spend, that it wasn't his.

He hit her. She left him. He went to the press. And now they were here. A horde descended on us as Isaac led me out a side door.

We decided I needed to get out of the house and fast.

"There she is!" a voice yelled.

"Kayla!"

"Kayla, over here!"

"Kayla, how does it feel to be the richest teenager in America?"

"How does it feel to be the world's youngest billionaire?"

"How did you know Tobias Hawthorne?"

"Is it true that you're Tobias Hawthorne's illegitimate daughter?"

I was shuffled into an SUV. The door closed, dulling the roar of the reporters' questions. Exactly halfway through our drive, I got a text—not from Avery. From an unknown number.

I opened it and saw a screenshot of a news headline. Kayla Grambs: Who Is the Hawthorne Heiress?

A short message accompanied the picture.

Hey, mystery girl. You're officially famous.

After a drive around town we made it back to the house where the press had finally left.

There was no welcome party.

No Jameson. No Grayson. No Hawthornes of any kind. I reached for the massive front door—locked. Alisa disappeared around the back of the house. When she finally reappeared, there was a pained expression on her face. She handed me a large envelope.

"Legally," she said, "the Hawthorne family is required to provide you with keys. Practically speaking..." She narrowed her eyes. "The Hawthorne family is a pain in the ass."

"That a legal term?" Isaac asked dryly.

I ripped open the envelope and found that the Hawthorne family had indeed provided me with keys—somewhere in the neighbourhood of a hundred of them.

"Any idea which one of these goes to the front door?" I asked. They weren't normal keys. They were oversized and ornately made. They all looked like antiques, and each key was distinct—different designs, different metals, different lengths and sizes.

"You'll figure it out," someone said.

My gaze jerked upward, and I found myself staring at an intercom.

"Cut the games, Jameson," Alisa ordered. "This isn't nearly as cute as you all think it is."

No reply.

"Jameson?" Alisa tried again.

"Jameson?" Alisa tried again.

Silence, and then: "I have faith in you, M.G."

The intercom cut off, and Alisa blew out a long, frustrated breath. "God save me from Hawthornes."

"M.G.?" Libby asked, bewildered.

"Mystery Girl," I clarified. "From what I've gathered, that's Jameson Hawthorne's idea of a nickname." I turned my attention to the ring of keys in my hand. The obvious solution was to try them all. Assuming one of these keys opened the front door, I'd get lucky eventually. But luck didn't feel like enough.

I was already the luckiest girl in the world.

Some part of me wanted to deserve it.

I flipped through the keys, inspecting the designs on the handles. An apple. A snake. A pattern of swirls reminiscent of water. There were keys for each letter of the alphabet, in fancy, old-fashioned script. There were keys with numbers and keys with shapes, one with a mermaid and four different keys featuring eyes.

"Well?" Alisa said abruptly. "Do you want me to make a phone call?"

"No." I turned my attention from the keys to the door. The design was simple, geometric—not a match for anything on any of the keys I'd looked at so far. That would be too easy, I thought. Too simple. A second later, a parallel thought followed. Not simple enough. Look past the details. Past the complications. I shifted my focus from the handles of the keys to the part that actually went into the lock. Though the keys differed in size overall, the lock end was sized similarly from key to key.

Not just sized similarly, I realized, looking at two of the keys side by side. The pattern—the mechanism that actually turned the lock—was identical between the two. I moved on to a third key. The same. I began working my way through the ring, comparing each key to the next, one by one. Same. Same. Same.

There weren't a hundred keys on this ring. The faster I flipped through them, the surer I was. There were two—dozens of copies of the wrong key, dressed up to look different from each other, and then...

"This one." I finally hit a key with a different pattern from the others. The intercom crackled, but if Jameson was still on the other side, he didn't say a word. I moved to put the key in the lock, and adrenaline jolted through my veins when it turned.

Eureka.

"How did you know which key to use?" Libby asked me.

The answer came from the intercom. "Sometimes," Jameson Hawthorne said, sounding strangely contemplative, "things that appear very different on the surface are actually exactly the same at their core."

Hey I was no Avery Kylie Grambs. But I sure as hell was someone else.

I was Kayla Diana Grambs.

WC: 1917