The Final Gambit (The Inheritance Games, #3)

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

“Remind me again,” Nash told me, bending to capture my gaze with his. “What’s our rule about fightin’ dirty?” He wasn’t nearly as subtle as he thought he was when it came to Alisa Ortega, but I still answered the question. “There’s no such thing as fighting dirty,” I told Nash, “if you win.”

Jameson caught me, our bodies colliding. “Happy birthday, Heiress.” Some kisses were soft and gentle—and some were like fire.

“Sometimes, Heiress, all you can do is recognize which way the wind is blowing and plot a course.”

Grayson tried very hard not to look at her. Jameson looked at me.

“Tahiti,” I said. That was a code word I didn’t use lightly. If Jameson or I called Tahiti, the other one had to metaphorically strip.

That night, the only thing that kept me from nightmares was Jameson’s body next to mine.

“How does that classic proverb go?” Jameson mused. “You’re not the boss of me? It’s something like that. No, wait, I remember! It’s You’re not the boss of me, wanker.”

“I strongly advise against any kind of confrontation with Skye Hawthorne.” “I’ve found duct tape more effective than advice, myself,” Nash told Oren conversationally.

I’m not the one who abandoned you.” Nash raised an eyebrow. “Debatable, don’t you think?”

“I can take care of myself.” “Say that again,” Jameson encouraged, “but try to sound even more like an automaton this time.” I gave Jameson a look. Grayson was hurting. They both were. “You’re right, Heiress,” Jameson said, holding up his hands in defeat. “I’m being horribly unfair to automatons.”

“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.”

crying

He waited, as he always did, for my nod, then obliterated the space between us.

please

“You have to be.” There was an urgency to Jameson’s words, a need. “Because I’m terrible at hurting, Heiress. And if what we have now—if everything we have now—starts to feel like another competition between Grayson and me, like a game? I don’t trust

myself not to play.”

“Do you know what Xander did when I had my first college test?” Max was rambling now. “Before things even got romantic? He sent me a book bouquet.”

HE SENT HER A BOOK BOUQET

“Everything hurts.” Only Grayson Hawthorne could say that and still sound utterly bulletproof. “It hurts all the time, Avery, but I know the man I was raised to be.”

Xander raised his hand. “Anyone else wondering if we have a secret uncle out there no one knows about? Because at this point, secret uncle just kind of feels like it belongs on the Hawthorne bingo card.”

“Wealthy family, politically connected, charming.” Wealth, Alisa had said. Power. Connections.

“Did your son-in-law have any family of his own?” I asked. “Parents?” “As opposed to what, girl? Springing forth fully formed from the head of Zeus?” Nan snorted.

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

Nash, I’ve cued up the Taylor Swift for you. Jameson, get ready to break out those dance moves because this stage is calling your name, and we all know that your hips are utterly incapable of falsehood.

i wanna know what nash’s favourite taylor swift song is

“If I’d known we were having a party,” Jameson half sang, “I would have ordered food.” “A party?” I asked. “A pity party.” Jameson smirked. “I see you dressed for the occasion, Gray.”

“You’re the one playing the piano now, girl. Men like Vincent Blake—they’ll break every one of those fingers of yours if you let them.”

“Just this once,” he said, an aching tone in his voice, “let me be the one who protects you, Avery.”

“The only person I trust with all that I am and all that could be,

Heiress, is you.”

“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.”

“That’s enough,” Grayson told me sharply. “It really, really isn’t,” Jameson replied, blazing by my side.

“Nash came to me,” he said haltingly. “He asked me for help, and that boy wouldn’t even let you help tie his shoes as a toddler.”

There was no feeling in the world like being seen by Jameson Hawthorne.

Nash didn’t care that I was eighteen, that I owned the House, that I wasn’t actually his sister, or that I would put up one hell of a fight if he tried to stop me.

Nash was cursing up a storm behind us. Xander began serenading him with a brotherly limerick.

lol

“The knight returns with the damsel in distress,” Jameson declared as I made my way toward him. He glanced toward Grayson. “You’re the damsel.”

And that, even more than the moment I’d defeated Blake, was when I knew.

has me crying wtf bro

“Remember,” she told me, her eyes dancing, “there’s no such thing as fighting dirty if you win.”

“I’m glad,” Grayson told me, the words slow and deliberate, “that it was you.” He took a step back, clearing the way for Jameson to slide in next to me.

Libby poked him in the chest. “There’s a cowboy hat in the refrigerator, isn’t there?” She looked down at her wrists, then stalked over to the refrigerator and pulled out a pink soda and a black velvet cowboy hat. “I’ll wear this hat,” she told Nash, “if you paint your nails black.” Nash gave her what could only be described as a cowboy smile. “Fingers or toes?”