The Inheritance Games (The Inheritance Games, #1)

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Alisa gave me a knowing look. “Take it from someone who’s both been there and done that—never lose your heart to a Hawthorne.”

“It would be a shame,” Jameson commented, “if we were related.” He spared another smile for me, slow and sharp-edged. “Don’t you think?”

“Everything’s a game, Avery Grambs. The only thing we get to decide in this life is if we play to win.” He reached up to brush the hair from my face, and I jerked back.

Jameson leaned toward me as I passed. “Don’t hate me,” he said softly.

“Avery doesn’t bite.” For once, Jameson referred to me by my actual name. “Frankly, now that the issue of relatedness has been settled in the negative, I’d be game if she did.”

“I need you.” Jameson knew exactly what he was doing—the way he was looking at me, the tilt of his lips. “I don’t know why yet, but I do.”

“You see?” Skye gave me a knowing look—the same one Alisa had given me my first day at Hawthorne House. “You’re already his.”

I closed my eyes. He’d been there with me in the forest. I could feel his body over mine. Protecting me. I needed this. I needed something.

He pulled back from the kiss, his lips only an inch away from mine. “I always knew you were special.”

“That’s the thing, Heiress. If Emily taught me anything, it’s that everything is a game. Even this. Especially this.”

I’d learned my lesson with Jameson, but this felt different. Like Grayson wanted to be the one to save me. Like he needed to be the one.

“Speaking of Jameson,” Thea changed tactics. “He is oh so clearly miserable, and I can only assume that I owe that to you.” He’s miserable? I felt something flicker in my chest—a what-if—but quelled it.

Im kinda team grayson idk why i feel like i might get tamlined tho

“I don’t care that you’re wearing Emily’s braid.” Jameson knew exactly what to say to make me stop. “I don’t care,” he repeated, “because I don’t care about Emily.”

“Come with me to the Black Wood,” Jameson pleaded. He was right. He had laser focus. “You don’t have to kiss me. You don’t even have to like me, Heiress, but please don’t make me do this alone.”

Xander had said that where I went, both of them would follow.

Tobias Hawthorne X. X. VIII

“How do you know that I won’t lie about my number if you get it right?” Grayson was quiet for a few seconds, then spoke. “I trust you.”

Grayson let out a ragged breath, and then I felt him gently turning my face back toward his. “Avery.” He almost never used my given name. He gently traced the line of my jaw. “I won’t let anyone hurt you ever again. You have my word.” He thought he could protect me. He wanted to.

Strong hands grabbed me from beneath—Grayson.

A man eating in the booth behind me glances back. He asks me how old I am. “Six,” I say. “I have some grandsons at home who are just about your age,” he says. “Tell me, Avery, can you spell your name? Your full name, like your mom said a minute ago?” I can, and I do.

If I were choosing between you and any one of them, he’d told me, I would choose them, always and every time. But he hadn’t.

And at the end of the day, he’d chosen me. Over family. Over his mother.

For a single second, he let me touch him, and then he turned his head away. “I will always protect you,” he told me,

I’ll teach you what you need to know to take to this life like you were born to it. But this… us…” He swallowed. “It can’t happen, Avery. I’ve seen the way Jameson looks at you.”