The Hawthorne Legacy (The Inheritance Games, #2)

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

That was why he’d started looking at me like I was a mystery again, a puzzle that he, and only he, could solve.

“Heiress, you wound me.”

will always protect you, he’d told me. But this… us… It can’t happen, Avery.

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

As Jameson would say, Game on.

“What sledgehammers were put on God’s green earth to do,” Xander replied solemnly.

“That’s what I love about you, Heiress.”

“Fancy meeting you here, Heiress.” “You,” I told him, “are the most annoying person on the face of the planet.”

me—“sometimes it feels good to smack the hell out of something.”

“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.” “I’m not going anywhere,” I insisted. “Jameson, this is ridiculous.” “Not my call, Heiress.” “Grayson!” I said. He turned to look at me. “I really would

prefer you wait outside.”

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,” I replied, but I took the helmet from his outstretched hand, and when he climbed onto the motorcycle, I climbed on behind him.

“Let’s get out of here, Heiress.”

Jameson crooked his head to look at me. He excelled at making scenes.

Some teenagers got grounded. I got sentenced to black-tie galas.

i would die

From the way he’d phrased that, you would have thought I was fearless.

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.”

“That’s not the point. The point is, Jameson Hawthorne is in the hot tub.”

“I’m always thinking, Heiress.” Jameson’s green eyes stayed fixed on the sky. “That’s what you love about me.”

“Tell me what you need.” Jameson wasn’t flirting. He wasn’t being cryptic. He wasn’t using me, in any way that I could tell. I let out a long, effortful breath. “I need to

take this damn wall down.” Jameson nodded. He looked past me to Oren. “We’re going to need a sledgehammer.”

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.

Sometimes all a girl really needed was a very bad idea.

“If yes is no,” he said, his eyes on mine, “and once is never, then how many sides does a triangle have?”

“You Hawthornes,” I whispered hoarsely, “and your invisible ink.”

“Everyone out.” The realization that it was Jameson

who had spoken those words, Jameson who was willingly stepping back from the puzzle—for me—rocked me to my core.

it was me and the Hawthornes against the world.

Jameson Winchester Hawthorne.

“You don’t have to kiss me now. You don’t have to love me now, Heiress. But when you’re ready…”

“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.”