The Hawthorne Legacy (The Inheritance Games, #2)

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

The trick to being abandoned was to never let yourself long for anyone who left.

I stepped into the secret passageway to find Jameson waiting for me. “Fancy meeting you here, Heiress.” “You,” I told him, “are the most annoying person on the face of the planet.”

I remembered Skye telling me that the word to describe Jameson was hungry.

“It’s a wonderful day for looking at legal documents,”

Jameson called after her, amused. “Would you close the door if I promised very sincerely not to ravish your client?”

“If he says the phrase effective altruism,” Xander warned me with mock solemnity, “run.”

“You two aren’t actually going to fight, are you?” I asked warily. I turned to Xander. “They’re not actually going to fight, are they?” “Who can say?” Xander replied merrily. “But perhaps you and I should wait outside in case this gets ugly.”

Est unus ex nobis. Nos defendat eius. As I’d suspected, it was Latin. An online translator told me that it meant It is one of us. We protect it. Jameson’s response, Scio, meant I know. It only took me one more search to realize that the same translation would hold if it was replaced with she. She is one of us. We protect her.

“Do you trust me, Heiress?” Jameson had donned a leather jacket. He looked like trouble. The good kind. “Not even a little,”

He gave himself that middle name as a signal that he intended to leave them all in tatters.

Grayson is the physical manifestation of your avoidant attachment style. He won’t let himself want you. You don’t want to want to be wanted. Everybody stays at arm’s length. Nobody gets hurt, and nobody gets any.”

This was what it meant to be a Hawthorne. This should probably be in a museum, but my brothers and I like to hit things with it instead.

“Dear Hannah,” I read, “the same backward as forward.”

“When you’re ready, if you’re ever ready, if it’s going to be me—just flip that disk. Heads, I kiss you.” His voice broke slightly. “Tails, you kiss me. And either way, it means something.”