The Brothers Hawthorne (The Inheritance Games, #4)

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

“I remember about a week after Savannah and Gigi came home from the hospital, I had a dream that I was still pregnant and that my babies—the ones I’d held and fed and loved—they were just a dream. And I panicked, because I didn’t want any other babies. I wanted my girls. And when I woke up, I stood over their cribs, and I just cried, because they were real.” She looked back up at Grayson. “So there is no what if I’d chosen a different life or fallen in love with someone truly capable of loving me back. There is no what if I knew then what I know now. No regret. There can’t be. Because as much as I want a different life right now, I want to be their mom more.” Breathing shouldn’t be so difficult, Grayson thought, but it was, because he had never in his life been that for anyone, least of all Skye. And suddenly, he wanted to play what-if himself, because having that—it would have changed everything. It would have meant everything.

There were slabs of granite softer than Grayson’s jaw at that moment.

“Brother,” Grayson finished. “The word you’re looking for is brother.” Now, he looked back. “No one hurts my family.”

Trusting her. Trusting himself. It was all the same.