The Final Gambit (The Inheritance Games #3)

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

“So if I’d told you that Toby had a daughter out there who looked exactly like Emily Laughlin, you wouldn’t have told Rebecca?” I said, referring to Emily’s sister and Xander’s oldest friend. “I definitely, one hundred percent, entirely… would have told Rebecca,” Xander admitted. “In retrospect, good on you for not telling me. Excellent call, shows solid judgment.”

“If you had a baby…,” I said. “When I have a baby,” came the deep, heart-shattering reply, “she’ll be my whole world.” “She?” I repeated. Nash settled back into his seat. “I can picture Lib with a little girl.”

“But mostly, I can’t hate him, Avery Kylie Grambs, because he brought me you.”

“I’m not Grayson,” he told me, ravaged by the words. “I don’t want you to be,” I said, pleading—for what, I wasn’t even sure. “Yes, you do,” Jameson insisted quietly. “And it doesn’t even matter because I’m not putting on a show here, Heiress. I’m not playing at being overprotective or pretending that, for once in my life, I want to do the right thing.” He brought his hands to the side of my face, then the back of my neck, and I felt his touch through every square inch of my body. “I love you. I would die to protect you. I would make you hate me to keep you safe because damn it, Avery—some things are too precious to gamble.”

What is wrong with you?” Grayson exploded as soon as we were outside. “Did you hear a word I said in there?” I asked, my heart breaking like cracking glass, bit by jagged bit. “Did you hear what she said? She’s going to put herself first, Grayson. She hates your grandfather. We aren’t her family. Blake is.” Grayson stopped walking toward the SUV. He went stiff, attending to the cuffs of his dress shirt and brushing an imaginary speck off the lapel of his suit. “Clearly,” he said, his tone almost regal, “I was wrong about you.” I felt like he’d just thrown ice-cold water in my face. Like he’d hit me. And then I watched Grayson Hawthorne walk away. A guy who thinks he knows everything, I could hear myself saying what felt like a lifetime ago. A girl with a razor-sharp tongue. I could hear Grayson telling me that I had an expressive face, telling Jameson that I was one of them, in Latin, so I wouldn’t understand it. I could feel Grayson correcting my grip on a longsword, see him catching my Hawthorne pin before it could hit the ground. I saw him sliding a hand-bound journal across the dining room table to

omg.

“You know that this isn’t about Grayson and me,” I said, forcing the image of Grayson walking away out of my mind. “Tell me you know that, Jameson.” “I know,” he replied, “that I love you, and despite all odds, you love me.”

“I also know that Gray’s the better man. He always has been. The better son, the better grandson, the better Hawthorne. I think that’s why I wanted so badly for Emily to choose me. For once, I wanted to be the one. But it was always him, Heiress. I was a game to her. She loved him.” “No.” I shook my head. “She didn’t. You don’t treat people you love like that.” “You don’t,” Jameson replied. “You’re honorable, Avery Kylie Grambs. Once you were with me, you were with me. You love me, scars and all. I know that, Heiress. I do.”

“It was always going to be you,” I told Jameson. He needed to hear it. I needed to say it, even though always painted over so much. In response, Jameson gave me another crooked smile. “It’s times like this, Heiress, that I wish I’d fallen in love with a girl who wasn’t quite so good at bluffing.”

AHHH IM GONNA SOB