The Inheritance Games (The Inheritance Games #1)(51)

“I saw your press conference.” Jameson had that expression on his face again, the one that made me feel like we were playing chess and he’d just made a move designed to be seen as a challenge.

“It wasn’t so much a press conference as a very bad idea,” I admitted wryly.

“Have I ever told you,” Jameson murmured, staring at me in a way that had to be intentional, “that I’m a sucker for bad ideas?”

When he’d shown up here, I’d felt like I’d summoned him by searching for Emily’s name, but now I saw this midnight visit for exactly what it was. Jameson Hawthorne was here, in my bedroom, at night. I was wearing my pajamas, and his body was listing toward mine.

None of this was an accident.

You’re not a player, kid. You’re the glass ballerina—or the knife.

“What do you want, Jameson?” My body wanted to lean toward him. The rational part of me wanted to step back.

“You lied to the press.” Jameson didn’t look away. He didn’t blink, and neither did I. “What you told them… it was a lie, wasn’t it?”

“Of course it was.” If I’d known why Tobias Hawthorne left me his fortune, I wouldn’t have been working side by side with Jameson to figure it out.

I wouldn’t have lost my breath when I’d seen that map at the foundation.

“It’s hard to tell with you sometimes,” Jameson commented. “You’re not exactly an open book.” He fixed his gaze somewhere in the vicinity of my lips. His face inched toward mine.

Never lose your heart to a Hawthorne.

“Don’t touch me,” I said, but even as I stepped back, I could feel something—the same something I’d felt when I brushed up against Grayson back at the foundation.

A thing I had no business feeling—for either of them.

“Our thrill ride last night paid off,” Jameson told me. “Getting out of my own head let me look at the puzzle with new eyes. Ask me what I figured out about our middle names.”

“I don’t have to,” I told him. “I solved it, too. Blackwood. Westbrook. Davenport. Winchester. They’re not just names. They’re places—or at least, the first two are. The Black Wood. The West Brook.” I let myself focus on the puzzle and not the fact that this room was lit only by lamplight and we were standing too close. “I’m not sure about the other two yet, but…”

“But…” Jameson’s lips curved upward, his teeth flashing. “You’ll figure it out.” He brought his lips near my ear. “We will, Heiress.”

There is no we. Not really. I’m a means to an end for you. I believed that. I did, but somehow what I found myself saying was “Feel like a walk?”





CHAPTER 46


This wasn’t just a walk, and we both knew it.

“The Black Wood is enormous. Finding anything there will be impossible if we don’t know what we’re looking for.” Jameson matched his stride, slow and steady, to mine. “The brook is easier. It runs most of the length of the property, but if I know my grandfather, we’re not looking for something in the water. We’re looking for something on—or under—the bridge.”

“What bridge?” I asked. I caught sight of movement out of the corner of my eye. Oren. He stayed in the shadows, but he was there.

“The bridge,” Jameson replied, “where my grandfather proposed to my grandmother. It’s near Wayback Cottage. Back in the day, that was all my grandfather owned. As his empire grew, he bought up the surrounding land. He built the House but always kept up the cottage.”

“The Laughlins live there now,” I said, picturing the cottage on the map. “Emily’s grandparents.” I felt guilty even saying her name, but that didn’t stop me from watching his response. Did you love her? How did she die? Why does Thea blame your family?

Jameson’s mouth twisted. “Xander said you’d had a little chat with Rebecca,” he said finally.

“No one at school talks to her,” I murmured.

“Correction,” Jameson replied. “Rebecca doesn’t talk to anyone at school. She hasn’t for months.” He was quiet for a moment, the sound of our footsteps drowning out all else. “Rebecca was always the shy one. The responsible one. The one their parents expected to make good decisions.”

“Not Emily.” I filled in the blank.

“Emily…” Jameson sounded different when he said her name. “Emily just wanted to have fun. She had a heart condition, congenital. Her parents were ridiculously overprotective. They never let her do anything as a kid. She got a transplant when she was thirteen, and after that, she just wanted to live.”

Not survive. Not just make it through. Live. I thought of the way she’d laughed into the camera, wild and free and a little too canny, like she’d known when that picture was taken that we’d all be looking at it later. At her.

I thought about the way that Skye had described Jameson. Hungry.

“Did you take her driving?” I asked. If I could have taken the question back, I would have, but it hung in the air between us.

“There is nothing that Emily and I didn’t do.” Jameson spoke like the words had been ripped out of him. “We were the same,” he told me, and then he corrected himself. “I thought that we were the same.”