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June 18 - June 24, 2025
The last girl who spent hour after hour in that house? She died.”
Shall we discuss your little tête-à-tête with Jameson last night instead?” He knew that his brother had been to my room.
“He didn’t have a middle name.” “What?” I said. “My grandfather was born Tobias Hawthorne,” Xander told me. “No middle name.”
Very good, Heiress.
An invitation—and a challenge. I had no intention of being a little wrong—not with him.
“This could take hours,” I said. Jameson smiled—with teeth this time. “Don’t be ridiculous, Heiress. It could take days.”
“Thea said there was a girl and that she died.” I
“Her name was Emily.”
Holy shit!!!
Emily mattered to him. She still matters to him. “I’m sorry,” I said
“Don’t hate me,” he said softly. Why would I hate you? I felt my pulse jump in my throat.
She wanted to matter. A girl like that, a rich old man…” He trailed off. “Let’s just say that there were definite daddy issues.”
Bitch what?!
but genes don’t lie. Whatever else this girl may be, she is not a Hawthorne.”
the distribution of his estate would then be governed by his prior will, and that will left the Hawthorne family even less than this one.”
Disinheriting his family was.
He was never the same after Toby died.
“Between the fire and a storm that night,” Alisa said, once she’d recovered, “Toby’s remains were never definitively found.”
Maybe he knew my mother. Maybe he knew she died. Maybe he was sorry.
This is a bad idea, I told myself, my heart thumping. Jameson Winchester Hawthorne is a very bad idea. I hadn’t
oi Honey, the full name?
“Can’t an older brother spend time with his younger brother and an interloper of dubious intentions without getting the third degree?”
“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.”
“What do you know about makeovers?” I grumbled. “If I were a guy, there’d be two racks of clothing in this room, max.” “And if I were White,” Xander returned loftily, “people wouldn’t look at me like I’m half a Hawthorne. Scone?”
And i oop.
“You’re young enough,” Zara said, her voice almost wistful, “to believe that money solves all ills.” Spoken like a person so rich she can’t imagine the weight of problems money can solve.
Oren took up position beside me. The women will come after you in the courtroom, he’d told me. But now Zara knew that she couldn’t come after me legally. And my head of security didn’t want me in this room with her alone.
“We aren’t normal. This place isn’t normal, and you’re not a player, kid. You’re the glass ballerina—or the knife.”
“Grayson is everything Toby wasn’t, and Jameson is just like him.” “There’s no one like Jameson.” In no way had I meant to utter those words out loud. “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.”
Absolutely not. That was what I would have told Max if she were on the phone. What was wrong with me? Grayson had spent most of our acquaintance threatening me. Hating me.
I could see exactly how his mind worked—and it was disturbingly like my own.
Everyone had things they found inexplicably attractive. Apparently, for me it was suit-wearing, silver-eyed guys using the word empirically and taking for granted that I knew what it meant.
This was real. This was power. One hundred million dollars a year.
What right did I even have to be the one making them?
“What did Nash want?” “It’s about your sister.”
“Then why is he at the gates of Hawthorne House right now?”
“I’m the only one who does. I know the truth.” I sold that lie for all I was worth.
if you run a word about that pathetic excuse for a human being behind me—any of you—I will make it my mission in life to ensure that you never, ever find out.”
When he’d shown up here, I’d felt like I’d summoned him by searching for Emily’s name, but now I saw this midnight visit for exactly what it was. Jameson Hawthorne was here, in my bedroom, at night. I was wearing my pajamas, and his body was listing toward mine.
Never lose your heart to a Hawthorne. “Don’t touch me,” I said, but even as I stepped back, I could feel something—the same something I’d felt when I brushed up against Grayson back at the foundation. A thing I had no business feeling—for either of them.
“Emily just wanted to have fun. She had a heart condition, congenital.
“There is nothing that Emily and I didn’t do.”
“Grayson happened to her.”
“Fact the third,” Jameson said, standing statue-still for the span of a heartbeat. “I watched Emily Laughlin die.”
being dangled off a bridge by a boy who’d just confessed to watching his last girlfriend die—wasn’t exactly on the to-do list. If she was with you, why did you say that Grayson happened to her?
Nash Hawthorne’s long legs were stretched out on the ottoman, his boots still on. A cowboy hat covered his face. He was sleeping. In my sister’s room. Nash Hawthorne was sleeping in my sister’s room.
“What do you want, Grayson?” “If you were smart,” he warned softly, “you’d stay away from Jameson. From the game.” He looked down. “From me.”
“This family—we destroy everything we touch.”
“Thea holds a grudge, and when she and Xander broke up, it was ugly.”
“Thea is practically your cousin.” “Constantine is Zara’s second husband. The marriage is recent, and Xander’s always been a fan of loopholes.”
TOBIAS HAWTHORNE II
“Tobias Hawthorne the Second.” Toby,
I’m bleeding. Pain. Jameson grabbed me and pulled me toward the ground. The next thing I knew, his body was over mine and the sound of a second gunshot rang out. Gun. Someone’s shooting at
Is it because she told them she knew why????
I’m bleeding. Pain. Jameson grabbed me and pulled me toward the ground. The next thing I knew, his body was over mine and the sound of a second gunshot rang out. Gun. Someone’s shooting at
What the fuck?!
