The Brothers Hawthorne

Book 4: The Inheritance Games

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Genres: YA Mysteries & Thrillers

Synopsis

Brought to you by Penguin.

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IMPOSSIBLE PUZZLES. SHOCKING TWISTS. IRRESISTIBLE ROMANCE.

Welcome to the explosive new Inheritance Games mystery that will keep you hooked until the very last page . . .

A FAMILY SECRET . . .

Grayson Hawthorne was raised as the heir apparent to his billionaire grandfather, taught from the cradle to put family first. So when Grayson's half-sisters find themselves in trouble, he's determined to care of the problem - efficiently, effectively, mercilessly. And without getting emotionally involved.

AN IMPOSSIBLE CHALLENGE . . .

Jameson Hawthorne is a risk-taker, a sensation-seeker, a player of games. So when his mysterious father appears and sets him a challenge, Jameson can't resist. Now he must infiltrate London's most exclusive underground gambling club, which caters to the rich and the powerful, and win an impossible game of the highest stakes. Luckily, Jameson Hawthorne lives for impossible.

HEARTS AND LIVES ARE AT STAKE . . .

Drawn into twisted games on opposite sides of the globe, Grayson and Jameson - with the help of their brothers and the girl who stole both their hearts - must dig deep to decide what each of them will sacrifice to win.


'IMPOSSIBLE TO PUT DOWN' Buzzfeed

'A MASTER OF PUZZLES AND PLOT TWISTS' E. Lockhart, author of We Were Liars

©2023 Jennifer Lynn (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Print pages: 400

Sample

Grayson and Jameson Hawthorne knew the rules. You couldn’t get around rules if you didn’t know them. On Christmas morning, you may not step foot outside your rooms before the clock strikes seven.

Beneath his blanket, Jameson lifted a military-grade walkie-talkie to his mouth. “You set the clocks forward?” He was seven to his brother’s eight—both plenty old enough to spot a loophole.

That was the trick. The challenge. The game.

“I did,” Grayson confirmed.

Jameson paused. “What if the old man set them back after we went to bed?”

“Then we’ll have to go to Plan B.”

Hawthornes always had a Plan B. But this time, it proved unnecessary. Hawthorne House had five grandfather clocks, and they all struck seven at the exact same time: 6:25.

Success! Jameson flung down his walkie-talkie, threw back the covers, and took off—out the door, down the hall, two lefts, a right, across the landing to the grand staircase. Jameson flew. But Grayson was a year older, a year taller—and he’d already made it from his wing halfway down the stairs.

Taking the steps two at a time, Jameson made it seventy percent of the way down, then launched himself over the banister. He hurtled toward the ground floor and landed on top of Grayson. They both went down, a mess of limbs and Christmas morning madness, then scrambled to their feet and raced neck and neck, arriving at the Great Room doors at the exact same time—only to find their five-year-old brother had beaten them there.

Xander was curled up on the floor like a puppy. Yawning, he opened his eyes and blinked up at them. “Is it Christmas?”

“What are you doing, Xan?” Grayson frowned. “Did you sleep down here? The rules say…”

“Can’t step a foot,” Xander replied, sitting up. “I didn’t. I rolled.” At his brothers’ unblinking stares, Xander demonstrated.

“You log-rolled all the way from your bedroom?” Jameson was impressed.

“No stepping.” Xander grinned. “I win!”

“Kid’s got us there.” Fourteen-year-old Nash sauntered over to join them and hoisted Xander up on his shoulders. “Ready?”

The fifteen-foot-tall doors to the Great Room were closed only once a year, from midnight on Christmas Eve until the boys descended on Christmas morning. Staring at the gold rings on the door, Jameson imagined the marvels that lay on the other side.

Christmas at Hawthorne House was magic.

“You get that door, Nash,” Grayson ordered. “Jamie, help me with this one.”

Grinning, Jameson locked his fingers around the ring, next to Grayson’s. “One, two, three… pull!”

The majestic doors parted, revealing… nothing.

“It’s gone.” Grayson went unnaturally still.

“What is?” Xander asked, craning his neck to see.

“Christmas,” Jameson whispered. No stockings. No presents. No marvels or surprises. Even the decorations were gone, all except the tree, and even that had been stripped of ornaments.

Grayson swallowed. “Maybe the old man didn’t want us to break the rules this time.”

That was the thing about games: Sometimes you lost.

“No Christmas?” Xander’s voice quivered. “But I rolled.”

Nash set Xander down. “I’ll fix this,” he swore in a low tone. “I promise.”

“No.” Jameson shook his head, his chest and eyes burning. “We’re missing something.” He forced himself to take in every detail of the room. “There!” he said, pointing to a spot near the top of the tree where a single ornament hung, hidden among the branches.

That wasn’t a coincidence. There were no coincidences in Hawthorne House.

Nash crossed the room and snagged the ornament, then held it out. A sphere made of clear plastic dangled from a red ribbon. The plastic had a visible seam.

There was something inside.

Grayson took the ornament and, with the precision of a neurosurgeon, broke it open. A single white puzzle piece fell out. Jameson pounced. He turned the piece over and saw his grandfather’s scrawl on the back. 1/6.

“One out of six,” he said out loud, and then his eyes widened. “The other trees!”

There were six Christmas trees in Hawthorne House. The one in the foyer stretched up twenty feet overhead, its boughs wrapped in sparkling lights. The dining room tree was strung with pearls, the one in the Tea Room bedecked in crystal. Cascading velvet ribbons danced through the branches of an enormous fir on the second-story landing; a white tree decorated solely in gold sat on the third.

Nash, Grayson, Jameson, and Xander scoured them all, obtaining five more ornaments, four with puzzle pieces inside. Opening those four ornaments allowed them to assemble the puzzle: a square. A blank square.

Jameson and Grayson reached for the final ornament at the same time. “I’m the one who found the first clue,” Jameson insisted fiercely. “I knew there was a game.”

After a long moment, Grayson let go. Jameson had the ornament open in a flash. Inside, he found a small metal key on a little flashlight keychain

“Try the light on the puzzle, Jamie.” Even Nash couldn’t resist the lure of this game.

Jameson turned the flashlight on and angled its beam toward the assembled puzzle. Words appeared. SOUTHWEST CORNER OF THE ESTATE.

“How long will it take us to walk there?” Xander asked dramatically. “Hours?”

The Hawthorne estate, like Hawthorne House, was sizable.

Nash knelt next to Xander. “Wrong question, little man.” He looked up at the other two. “Either of you wanna tell me the right one?”

Jameson’s gaze darted to the keychain, but Grayson beat him to speaking. “What exactly is that a key to?”

The answer was a golf cart. Nash drove. As the southwest corner of the estate came into view, an awed hush swept over the brothers as they gaped at the sight before them.

This present definitely wouldn’t have fit in the Great Room.

A quartet of ancient oak trees, all of them massive, now hosted the most elaborate tree house any of them—and possibly anyone in the world—had ever seen. The multi-level marvel looked like something out of a fairy tale, like it had been called from the oaks by magic, like it belonged there. Jameson counted nine walkways stretching between the trees. The house had two towers. Six spiraling slides. Ladders, ropes, steps that seemed to float midair.

This was the tree house to end all tree houses.

Their grandfather stood in front of it all, arms crossed, the barest hint of a smile on his face. “You know, boys,” the great Tobias Hawthorne called, as the golf cart came to a stop and the wind whistled through branches, “I thought you’d get here faster.”

Faster. Grayson Hawthorne was power and control. His form was flawless. He’d long ago perfected the art of visualizing his opponent, feeling each strike, channeling his body’s momentum into every block, every attack.

But you could always be faster.

After his tenth time through the sequence, Grayson stopped, sweat dripping down his bare chest. Keeping his breathing even and controlled, he knelt in front of what remained of their childhood tree house, unrolled his pack, and surveyed his choices: three daggers, two with ornate hilts and one understated and smooth. It was this last blade that Grayson picked up.

Knife in hand, Grayson straightened, his arms by his side. Mind, clear. Body, free of tension. Begin. There were many styles of knife fighting, and the year he was thirteen, Grayson had studied them all. Of course, billionaire Tobias Hawthorne’s grandsons had never merely studied anything. Once they’d chosen a focus, they were expected to live it, breathe it, master it.

And this was what Grayson had learned that year: Stance was everything. You didn’t move the blade. You moved, and the blade moved. Faster. Faster. It had to feel natural. It had to be natural. The moment your muscles tensed, the moment you stopped breathing, the moment you broke your stance instead of flowing from one to the next, you lost.

And Hawthornes didn’t lose.

“When I told you to get a hobby, this isn’t what I meant.”

Grayson ignored Xander’s presence for as long as it took to finish the sequence—and throw the dagger with exacting precision at a low-hanging branch six feet away. “Hawthornes don’t have hobbies,” he told his little brother, walking to retrieve the blade. “We have specialties. Expertise.”

“Anything worth doing is worth doing well,” Xander quoted, wiggling his eyebrows—one of which had only just started to grow back after an experiment gone wrong. “And anything done well can be done better.”

Why would a Hawthorne settle for better, a voice whispered in the back of Grayson’s mind, when they could be the best?

Grayson closed his hand around the dagger’s hilt and pulled. “I should be getting back to work.”

“You are a man obsessed,” Xander declared.

Grayson secured the dagger in its holder, then rolled the pack back up, tying it closed. “I have twenty-eight billion reasons to be obsessed.”

Avery had set an impossible task for herself—and for them. Five years to give away more than twenty-eight billion dollars. That was the majority of the Hawthorne fortune. They’d spent the past seven months just assembling the foundation’s board and advisory committee.

“We have five more months to nail down the first three billion in donations,” Grayson stated crisply, “and I promised Avery I would be there with her every step of the way.”

Promises mattered to Grayson Hawthorne—and so did Avery Kylie Grambs. The girl who had inherited their grandfather’s fortune. The stranger who had become one of them.

“Speaking as someone with friends, a girlfriend, and a small army of robots, I just think you could do with a little more balance in your life,” Xander opined. “An actual hobby? Down time?”

Grayson gave him a look. “You’ve filed at least three patents since school let out for the summer last month, Xan.”

Xander shrugged. “They’re recreational patents.”

Grayson snorted, then assessed his brother. “How is Isaiah?” he asked softly.

Growing up, none of the Hawthorne brothers had known their fathers’ identities—until Grayson had discovered that his was Sheffield Grayson. Nash’s was a man named Jake Nash. And Xander’s was Isaiah Alexander. Of the three men, only Isaiah actually deserved to be called a father. He and Xander had filed those “recreational patents” together.

“We’re supposed to be talking about you,” Xander said stubbornly.

“I should get back to work,” Grayson reiterated, adopting a tone that was very effective at putting everyone except his brothers in their place. “And despite what Avery and Jameson seem to believe, I don’t need a babysitter.”

“You don’t need a babysitter,” Xander agreed cheerfully, “and I am definitely not writing a book entitled The Care and Feeding of Your Broody Twenty-Year-Old Brother.”

Grayson’s eyes narrowed to slits.

“I can assure you,” Xander said with great solemnity, “it doesn’t have pictures.”

Before Grayson could summon an appropriate threat in response, his phone buzzed. Assuming it was the figures he’d requested, Grayson picked the phone up, only to discover a text from Nash. He looked back at Xander and knew instantly that his youngest brother had received the same message.

Grayson was the one who read the fateful missive out loud: “Nine-one-one.”

The roar of the falls. The mist in the air. The feel of the back of Avery’s body against the front of his. Jameson Winchester Hawthorne was hungry—for this, for her, for everything, all of it, more.

Iguazú Falls was the world’s largest waterfall system. The walkway they were standing on took them right up to the edge of an incredible drop-off. Staring out at the falls, Jameson felt the lure of more. He eyed the railing. “Do you dare me?” he murmured into the back of Avery’s head.

She reached back to touch his jaw. “Absolutely not.”

Jameson’s lips curved—a teasing smile, a wicked one. “You’re probably right, Heiress.”

She turned her head to the side and met his gaze. “Probably?”

Jameson looked back at the falls. Unstoppable. Off limits. Deadly. “Probably.”

They were staying in a villa built on stilts and surrounded by jungle, no one around for miles but the two of them, Avery’s security team, and the jaguars roaring in the distance.

Jameson felt Avery’s approach before he heard it.

“Heads or tails?” She leaned against the railing, brandishing a bronze-and-silver coin. Her brown hair was falling out of its ponytail, her long-sleeved shirt still damp from the falls.

Jameson brought his hand to her hair tie, then worked it slowly and gently down—and off. Heads or tails was an invitation. A challenge. You kiss me, or I kiss you. “Dealer’s choice, Heiress.”

“If I’m the dealer…” Avery placed a palm flat on his chest, her eyes daring him to do something about that wet shirt of hers. “We’re going to need cards.”

The things we could do, Jameson thought, with a deck of cards. But before he could voice some of the more tantalizing possibilities, the satellite phone buzzed. Only five people had the number: his brothers, her sister, and her lawyer. Jameson groaned.

The text was from Nash. Nine seconds later, when the satellite phone rang, Jameson answered. “Delightful timing, as always, Gray.”

“I take it you received Nash’s message?”

“We’ve been summoned,” Jameson intoned. “You planning to play hooky again?”

Each Hawthorne brother got a single nine-one-one a year. The code didn’t mean emergency so much as I want you all here, but if one brother texted, the others came, no questions asked. Ignoring a nine-one-one led to… consequences.

“If you say one word about leather pants,” Grayson bit out. “I will—”

“Did you say leather pants?” Jameson was enjoying this way too much. “You’re breaking up, Gray. Are you asking me to send you a picture of the incredibly tight leather pants you had to wear the one time you ignored a nine-one-one?”

“Do not send me a picture—”

“A video?” Jameson asked loudly. “You want a video of yourself singing karaoke in the leather pants?”

Avery plucked the phone from his hands. She knew as well as Jameson did that there would be no ignoring Nash’s summons, and she had a bad habit of not tormenting his brothers.

“It’s me, Grayson.” Avery examined Nash’s text herself. “We’ll see you in London.”

On a private jet in the dead of night, Jameson looked out the window. Avery was asleep on his chest. Near the front of the plane, Oren and the rest of the security team were quiet.

Quiet always got to Jameson, the same way stillness did. Skye had told them once that she wasn’t made for inertness, and as much as Jameson hated to see any similarity between himself and his spoiled, sometimes homicidal mother, he knew what she meant.

It had been getting worse these past weeks. Since Prague. Jameson pushed down the unwanted reminder, but at night, with nothing to distract him, he could barely resist the urge to remember, to think, to give in to the siren call of risk and a mystery that needed to be solved.

“You’ve got that look on your face.”

Jameson ran a hand over Avery’s hair. Her head was still on his chest, but her eyes were open. “What look?” he asked softly.

“Our look.”

Avery’s brain was just as wired for puzzles as his was. That was exactly why Jameson couldn’t risk letting the silence and stillness close in, why he had to keep himself occupied. Because if he let himself really think about Prague, he’d want to tell her, and if he told her, it would be real. And once it was real, he feared no amount of distraction would be capable of holding him back, no matter how reckless or dangerous pursuing this might be.

Jameson trusted Avery with all that he had and all that he was, but he couldn’t always trust himself to do the right thing. The smart thing. The safe thing.

Don’t tell her. Jameson forced his mind down a different path, banishing all thoughts of Prague. “You got me, Heiress.” The only way for him to hide anything from Avery was to show her something else. Something true. Misdirection. “My gap year is almost over.”

“You’re restless.” Avery pulled back from his chest. “You have been for months. It wasn’t as noticeable on this trip, but on all the others, when I’m working…”

“I want…” Jameson closed his eyes, picturing himself back at the falls, hearing the roar—and eyeing the railing. “I don’t know what I want. Something.” He looked back out the window, into blackness. “To do great things.”

That was a Hawthorne’s charge, always—and not great as in very good. Great as in vast and lasting and incredible. Great like the falls.

“We are doing great things,” Avery told him. Giving away his grandfather’s billions was it for her. She was going to change the world. And I’m right here with her. I can hear the roar. I can feel the spray. But Jameson couldn’t shake the gnawing sense that he was standing behind the ropes.

He wasn’t doing great things. Not in the way she was. Not even in the way Gray was.

“This will be our first time back in Europe,” Avery said quietly, leaning forward to look out into the black, same as him, “since Prague.”

Very perceptive, Avery Kylie Grambs.

There was an art to the careless smile. “I’ve told you, Heiress, you don’t need to worry about Prague.”

“I’m not worried, Hawthorne. I’m curious. Why won’t you tell me what happened that night?” Avery knew how to use silence to her advantage, wielding each pause to command his full attention, to make him feel her silence like breath on his skin. “You came home at dawn. You smelled like fire and ash. And you had a cut”—she brought her hand to the place where his collarbone dipped, right at the base of his neck—“here.”

If Avery had wanted to force him to tell her, she could have. One little word—Tahiti—and his secrets would have been hers. But she wouldn’t force this, and Jameson knew that, and it killed him. Everything about her killed him in the best possible way.

Don’t tell her. Don’t think about it. Resist.

Jameson brought his lips within a centimeter of hers. “If you want, Mystery Girl,” he murmured, heat rising between them, the name a remnant of another time, “you can start calling me Mystery Boy.”

It had been years since Grayson had stepped foot in London, but the flat looked just the same: same historical facade, same modern interior, same twin terraces, same exquisite view.

Same four brothers taking in that view.

Beside Grayson, Jameson cocked an eyebrow at Nash. “What’s the situation, cowboy?” Grayson had been wondering the same thing. Nash almost never used his yearly nine-one-one.

“This.” Their oldest brother plunked a velvet box down on the glass-top table. A ring box. Grayson found himself suddenly unable to blink as Nash flipped it open to reveal a remarkable piece: a black opal wrapped in intricate diamond leaves and set in platinum. The flecks of color in the gemstone were electric, the workmanship without peer. “Nan gave it to me,” Nash said. “It was our grandmother’s.”

Nash was the only one of them with memories of Alice Hawthorne, who’d died before the rest of the Hawthorne brothers were even born.

“It wasn’t her wedding or engagement ring,” Nash drawled. “But Nan thought it would suit Lib.” Nash bowed his head slightly. “For that purpose.”

Lib as in Libby Grambs, Nash’s partner, Avery’s sister. Grayson felt a breath catch in his throat.

“Our great-grandmother gave you a family ring for Libby,” Xander summarized, “and that’s a problem?”

“It is,” Nash confirmed.

Grayson expelled the breath. “Because you’re not ready.”

Nash looked up and cracked a slow and devious grin. “Because I already bought her one myself.” He plunked a second ring box down on the table. One by one, the muscles over Grayson’s rib cage tightened, and he wasn’t even sure why.

Jameson, who’d gone unnaturally still the moment he’d seen the first ring, snapped out of it and flicked open the second box. It was empty.

Nash already proposed. He and Libby are already engaged. The realization hit Grayson with startling force. Everything is changing. That was a useless thought, obvious and overdue. Their grandfather was dead. They’d all been disinherited. Everything had already changed. Nash was already with Libby. Jameson was with Avery. Even Xander had Max.

“Nash Westbrook Hawthorne,” Xander boomed. “Prepare yourself for a bracing, celebratory hug of manly joy!”

Xander did not, in fact, give Nash time to prepare before crashing into him—hugging, grappling, wrestling, attempting to hoist Nash into the air, it was all the same. Jameson joined the melee, and Grayson forced everything else to fade away as he clapped a hand on Nash’s shoulder—then pulled him backward.

Three on one. Nash didn’t stand a chance.

“Impromptu bachelor party!” Jameson declared when the four of them finally broke apart. “Give me an hour.”

“Stop.” Nash held up a hand, then followed his first who’s-the-oldest-brother-here order with a second. “Turn.” Jameson obliged, and Nash fixed him with a look. “You planning on breaking any laws, Jamie? Because you’ve been on quite a kick lately.”

To Grayson’s knowledge, there had been an incident in Monaco, another in Belize…

Jameson gave a little shrug. “You know what they say, Nash. No charges filed, no harm done.”

“Is that what they say?” Nash replied, his tone deceptively mild. And then, inexplicably, Grayson found himself on the end of Nash’s look.

What did I do? Grayson’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t bring us here for your own sake.”

Nash leaned back. “You accusin’ me of a being a mother hen, Gray?”

“Them’s fighting words,” Xander said happily, altogether too pleased at the prospect.

Nash cast one last look at Grayson, then turned back to Jameson. “Impromptu bachelor party,” he agreed. “But Gray and Xan will help you plan—and tree house rules.”

What happened in the tree house stayed in the tree house.

Their night ended at three in the morning. “Ice-climbing, skywalk, speedboat, mopeds…” To Grayson’s ears, Jameson sounded very satisfied with himself. “Not to mention clubbing.”

“I thought the medieval crypt was a nice touch,” Xander added.

Grayson arched a brow. “I suspect Nash could have gone without being duct-taped.”

The man of the hour took off his cowboy hat and leaned against the wall. “What happens in the tree house stays in the tree house,” he reiterated, his quiet tone reminding Grayson that Avery and Libby were asleep upstairs.

A lump rose in Grayson’s throat. “Congratulations,” he told his brother. He meant it. Life was change. People were supposed to move forward, even if he could not.

Jameson and Xander stumbled to bed, but Nash held Grayson back. When it was just the two of them, he placed something in Grayson’s hand. The ring box. The one with their grandmother’s black opal ring.

“Why don’t you hold on to this?” Nash said.

Grayson swallowed, the muscles in his throat tight. “Why me?” Jameson would have been the obvious choice, for obvious reasons.

“Why not you, Gray?” Nash leaned forward, putting his gaze level with Grayson’s. “Someday, with someone—why not you?”

The ring was still in its box on his nightstand when Grayson woke up hours later. Why not you?

Grayson pushed himself out of bed and briskly tucked the box into a hidden compartment in his luggage. If Nash wanted the heirloom ring kept safe, he’d keep it safe. Protecting things that mattered was what Grayson Hawthorne did, even when he couldn’t afford to let them matter too much.

Out on the terrace, Avery was already up, helping herself to an impressive breakfast spread. “I hear last night was the stuff of legends.” She handed him a cup of coffee—black, hot, and filled to almost overflowing.

“Jamie has a big mouth,” Grayson replied. The mug warmed his hand.

“Trust me,” Avery murmured, “Jameson knows how to keep secrets just fine.”

Grayson studied her, the way he wouldn’t have allowed himself to months earlier. It didn’t hurt quite the way it would have then. “Is he spiraling?”

“No.” Avery shook her head, and her hair fell into her face. “He’s just looking for something—or trying not to look for something. Or both.” She paused. “What about you, Gray?”

“I’m fine.” The response was automatic, rote, and brooked no argument. But he could never quite seem to stop there with her. “And for the record, if Xander shows you a ‘book’ he’s been writing, you will destroy it, or there will be consequences.”

“Consequences!” Xander jackrabbited onto the terrace, wriggled between them, and snagged a chocolate croissant. “My favorite!”

“Who among us doesn’t love the taste of consequences in the morning?” Jameson ambled out, helped himself to a croissant, and waved it in Grayson’s general direction. “Avery tell you about her new meeting schedule? London officially knows the Hawthorne heiress is in town.”

“Meetings?” Grayson picked up his phone. “What time?” A call came in before Avery could reply. When Grayson saw who was calling, he abruptly stood. “I need to take this.” He strode back inside, closed the door, and made sure he hadn’t been followed before he answered.

“I assume we have a situation.”

Fascinating.” Jameson stared in the direction Grayson had gone. “Was that a hint of genuine human emotion on his face?”

Avery gave him a look. “Worried?” she asked. “Or curious?”

“About Grayson?” Jameson replied. Both. “Neither. It’s probably his tailor calling to make fun of him for being a twenty-year-old who has a tailor.”

Xander grinned. “Should I creep inside and eavesdrop on that phone call?”

“Are you implying that you’re even remotely capable of stealth?” Jameson retorted.

“I can be stealthy!” Xander insisted. “Clearly, you’re just still bitter at the extent to which my legendary dance moves blew everyone’s mind at the club last night.”

Refusing to take the bait, Jameson glanced at Oren, who’d joined them on the terrace. “Speaking of our little celebration,” Jameson said, “how bad is the paparazzi situation this morning?”

“British tabloids.” Oren’s eyes narrowed to slits. Avery’s head of security was former military and frighteningly capable. That he’d narrowed his eyes at all told Jameson that the paparazzi situation wasn’t good. “I’ve got two of my men patrolling out front.”

“And I have meetings,” Avery replied firmly. Clearly, she wasn’t planning to change her plans because of the paparazzi. Oren was too smart to ask her to.

“I could distract them,” Jameson offered devilishly. Trouble was a specialty of his.

“I appreciate the offer,” Avery murmured, stopping on her way inside to brush her lips lightly and teasingly against his. “But no.”

The kiss was brief. Too brief. Jameson watched her go. Oren followed. Eventually, Xander went to take a shower. Jameson stayed on the terrace, taking in the view, letting a decadent, buttery croissant melt on his tongue, bit by bit, as he tried not to think about how quiet it was, how still.

And then Grayson reappeared, a suitcase in hand. “I have to go.”

“Go where?” Jameson said immediately. Being challenged was good for Grayson’s god complex, and challenging him was rarely boring. “And why?”

“I have some personal business to attend to.”

“Since when do you have personal business?” Jameson was officially intrigued.

Grayson didn’t dignify that question with a response. He just turned and began to walk back through the flat. Jameson went to follow, but then his phone buzzed—Oren.

He’s with Avery. Jameson came to an immediate standstill and answered. “Problem?” he asked the bodyguard.

“Not on my end. Avery’s fine. But one of my men just intercepted the porter.” As Oren made his report, Grayson’s retreating form disappeared from Jameson’s view. “It appears the porter has a delivery. For you.”

In the hall, the porter held out a silver tray. On the tray sat a single card.

Jameson cocked his head to the side. “What is this?”

The porter’s eyes were bright. “It appears to be a card, sir. A calling card.”

His curiosity piqued, Jameson reached for the card, grabbing it between his middle and index fingers—a magician’s hold, like he might make it disappear. The moment his gaze landed on the words embossed on the card, the rest of the world faded away.

The front of the card bore a name and an address. Ian Johnstone-Jameson. 9 King’s Gate Terrace. Jameson flipped the card over. In handwritten scrawl, he found no instructions, only a time. 2 PM.

Hours later, Jameson ducked out of the flat, with Nash, Xander, and the security team none the wiser. As for the British paparazzi, they weren’t used to tracking Hawthornes. Jameson arrived at 9 King’s Gate Terrace fashionably late and alone.

If you want to play, Ian Johnstone-Jameson, I’ll play. Not because he needed or wanted or longed for a father, the way he had as a kid, but because these days, doing something to keep his mind occupied always felt less dangerous than doing nothing.

The building was white and vast, stretching up five storie