The Inheritance Games (The Inheritance Games #1)(21)

“I have to tell you something,” Libby said beside me.

That let me tear my eyes away from the pool—and the swimmer. “About Drake?” I asked.

“No. I heard something.” Libby swallowed. “When Oren introduced me to my security detail, I overheard Zara’s husband talking. They’re running a test—a DNA test. On you.”

I had no idea where Zara and her husband had gotten a sample of my DNA, but I wasn’t entirely surprised. I’d thought it myself: The simplest explanation for including a total stranger in your will was that she wasn’t a total stranger. The simplest explanation was that I was a Hawthorne.

I had no business watching Grayson at all.

“If Tobias Hawthorne was your father,” Libby managed, “then our dad—my dad—isn’t. And if we don’t share a dad, and we barely even saw each other growing up—”

“Don’t you dare say we’re not sisters,” I told her.

“Would you still want me here?” Libby asked me, her fingers rubbing at her choker. “If we’re not—”

“I want you here,” I promised. “No matter what.”





CHAPTER 19


That night, I took the longest shower of my life. The hot-water supply was endless. The glass doors on the shower held in the steam. It was like having my own personal sauna. After drying off with plush, oversized towels, I put on my ratty pajamas and flopped down on what I was pretty sure were Egyptian cotton sheets.

I wasn’t sure how long I’d been lying there when I heard it. A voice. “Pull the candlestick.”

I was on my feet in an instant, whirling to put my back to the wall. On instinct, I grabbed the keys I’d left on the nightstand, in case I needed a weapon. My eyes scanned the room for the person who’d spoken, and came up empty.

“Pull the candlestick on the fireplace, Heiress. Unless you want me stuck back here?”

Annoyance replaced my initial fight-or-flight response. I narrowed my eyes at the stone fireplace at the back of my room. Sure enough, there was a candelabra on the mantel.

“Pretty sure this qualifies as stalking,” I told the fireplace—or, more accurately, the boy on the other side of it. Still, I couldn’t not pull the candlestick. Who could resist something like that? I wrapped my hand around the base of the candelabra. I was met with resistance, and another suggestion came from behind the fireplace.

“Don’t just pull forward. Angle it down.”

I did as I was instructed. The candelabra rotated, and then I heard a click, and the back of the fireplace separated from its floor, just by an inch. A moment later, I saw fingertips in the gap, and I watched as the back of the fireplace was lifted up and disappeared behind the mantel. Now at the back of the fireplace there was an opening. Jameson Hawthorne stepped through. He straightened, then returned the candle to its upright position, and the entry he’d just used was slowly covered once more.

“Secret passage,” he explained unnecessarily. “The house is full of them.”

“Am I supposed to find that comforting?” I asked him. “Or terrifying?”

“You tell me, Mystery Girl. Are you comforted or terrified?” He let me sit with that for a moment. “Or is it possible that you’re intrigued?”

The first time I’d met Jameson Hawthorne, he was drunk. This time, I didn’t smell alcohol on his breath, but I wondered how much he’d slept since the reading of the will. His hair was behaving itself, but there was something wild in his glinting green eyes.

“You’re not asking about the keys.” Jameson offered me a crooked little smile. “I expected you to ask about the keys.”

I held them up. “This was your doing.”

Not a question—and he didn’t treat it like one. “It’s a little bit of a family tradition.”

“I’m not family.”

He tilted his head to one side. “Do you believe that?”

I thought about Tobias Hawthorne—about the DNA test that Zara’s husband was already running. “I don’t know.”

“It would be a shame,” Jameson commented, “if we were related.” He spared another smile for me, slow and sharp-edged. “Don’t you think?”

What was it with me and Hawthorne boys? Stop thinking about his smile. Stop looking at his lips. Just—stop.

“I think that you already have more family than you can deal with.” I crossed my arms. “I also think you’re a lot less smooth than you think are. You want something.”

I’d always been good at math. I’d always been logical. He was here, in my room, flirting for a reason.

“Everyone is going to want something from you soon, Heiress.” Jameson smiled. “The question is: How many of us want something you’re willing to give?”

Even just the sound of his voice, the way he phrased things—I could feel myself wanting to lean toward him. This was ridiculous.

“Stop calling me Heiress,” I shot back. “And if you turn answering my question into some kind of riddle, I’m calling security.”

“That’s the thing, Mystery Girl. I don’t think I’m turning anything into a riddle. I don’t think I have to. You are a riddle, a puzzle, a game—my grandfather’s last.”