The Hawthorne Legacy (The Inheritance Games, #2)

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

“You turn on the charm when you want something.” “Heiress, you wound me.” Jameson looked better smirking than anyone had a right to look.

Why kill two birds with one stone, he always said, when you could kill twelve?”

“Heiress.” I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. And then Jameson was on the floor with me. He brought his face level with mine and cupped my head in his hands. “Fireworks,” he told me. “It’s just fireworks, Heiress, for halftime.”

ITS JUST FIREWORKS, HEIRESS

Guilty as sin.

taylor swift reference

Because his son is my father.

GASP

“Don’t mind me. This is what I look like when I’m preparing to be painfully bored and predictably annoyed. If we want the rundown on the charities on this list, there’s an efficient way of getting it. Prepare yourself for a lecture, Heiress.”

jameson saying grayson is boring always makes me laugh

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.

“I know, Gray, and if you let this be a game, it doesn’t have to hurt.” I was overcome with the feeling that I shouldn’t be there, that I wasn’t supposed to see the two of them like this. “Nothing has to matter,” Grayson replied tightly, “unless you let it.”

crying

“If I weren’t so confident in our brotherly affection for each other,” Jameson replied languidly, “I would find that comment a bit pointed.” “Pointed?” Xander repeated in faux horror. “Gray? Never.”

“Gray excels at distraction,” Jameson said loftily. “I attribute it to his uncanny ability to be boring and long-winded on cue.”

LOL

Eli started to follow us inside, and Jameson took that as his cue to run a hand down my back and bring his lips to the spot where my neck met my jawline. I arched my neck, and Eli went bright red and stepped out of the room.

“How many times do I have to tell you?” the youngest Hawthorne demanded. “This is my game. No one is solving this without me.” He plucked the marker from Jameson’s hand and stood. “That was a friendly tackle,” he assured me. “Mostly.”

My lips should never have touched yours, but for the rest of my life, Hannah, O Hannah—I will feel every kiss. Feel your touch when I was halfway dead and wholly rotten and you loved me despite myself.

A MAN WHO YEARNS

“It doesn’t look like it’s worth much,” Jameson commented. “But in this family, that means nothing.” The sound of his voice did something to me—something it shouldn’t have done. Something it wouldn’t have done before I’d read my mother’s postcards.

But each time, as the darkness beckoned, I heard a voice: Jameson Winchester Hawthorne.

“You think I didn’t fight the same fight? I halfway convinced myself that as long as Avery was just a riddle or a puzzle, as long as I was just playing, I’d be fine. Well, joke’s on me, because somewhere along the way, I stopped playing.”

“I came to see you,” Jameson told me. “Every day. The least you could have done was wake up while I was here, tragically backlit, unspeakably handsome, and waiting.”

Picture yourself standing on a cliff overlooking the ocean. The wind is whipping in your hair. The sun is setting. You long, body and soul, for one thing. One person. You hear footsteps behind you. You turn. Who’s there? “Every day?” I asked, my voice foreign in my throat. I remembered standing at the edge of the ocean. I remembered a voice. 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 …” He brought his hand to the side of my face. I leaned into it. His breath went ragged, and then he pulled his hand back and nodded to the disk in my

hand. “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.”

Toby reached out and brushed the hair off of my forehead. “In my heart,” he said quietly, “you were always mine.”

sobbing

The coin landed. “Tails,” I said. “I kiss you.” I wrapped my arms around his neck. I pressed my lips to his. And this time, the joke was on me—because I wasn’t playing. This wasn’t nothing. This was the beginning—and I was ready to be bold.