The Brothers Hawthorne (The Inheritance Games, #4)(55)

Jameson shrugged. “I’m also fairly skilled at motocross.”

“And fighting,” the Proprietor added. He went silent for a moment longer than was comfortable for anyone in the room. “I respect a fighter. Tell me…” The cane was still going back and forth in his hands, though the older man gave no sign of moving it at all. “What makes you think that I am dying?”

So that was the move—or one of them, anyway—that had paid off.

The Proprietor’s fingers tightened suddenly around the cane. “This?” he said, nodding toward it.

“No,” Jameson replied. He debated withholding an explanation but decided that might register as one insult too many. “You remind me of my grandfather.” The words came out quieter than he meant them to. “Before.”

There had been weeks when the old man was ill, when he’d been planning his final hurrah, and none of them but Xander had known.

“The way you tested Rohan,” Jameson continued. “In the ring.”

“I was testing you,” the Proprietor countered.

Jameson shrugged. “Three birds with one stone.”

“And the third would be…?”

“I don’t know,” Jameson replied honestly. “I just know that there is one, just like I know that you have a presumptive heir.” He paused. “Just like my brothers and I now know to never presume.” Jameson met the Proprietor’s gaze. “And there was a tremor—a very slight one—when Avery took your arm last night.”

“She told you that?” the Proprietor demanded.

“She didn’t have to,” Jameson said. At the time, he hadn’t even noticed, but he’d long ago trained himself to be able to play a scene over and over again in his mind.

“Why,” the Proprietor said, after a long and pointed silence, “did you place a bet on the price of wheat?”

Jameson’s mouth felt suddenly dry, but he had no intention of letting the old man across from him see that. “Because I’m not a fan of corn or oats.”

Another lengthy silence, and then the Proprietor dropped his cane flat on the desk with an audible clunk. “You are interesting, Jameson Hawthorne. I’ll give you that.” The Proprietor walked around the desk—without the cane. “And I think it would be somewhat entertaining to watch you lose the Game.” He turned toward Jameson’s uncle. “It would feel a bit poetic, don’t you think, Branford? Ian’s son?”

He called him Branford this time, Jameson registered. Not Simon. Because this time, the Viscount Branford was not the one that the Proprietor was attempting to put in his place.

“But there is a balance to these things,” the man continued, his lips curving, eyes just beginning to narrow. “Weights on the scales.”

Nothing worthwhile, Jameson could hear his grandfather saying, comes without a cost.

“I’ll pay the levy,” Jameson said.

“In a fashion.” The Proprietor walked closer to him still. “I want a secret, Jameson Hawthorne,” he said, his voice low and silky. “The kind men would kill and die for. The kind that shakes the ground beneath our feet, the kind that must never be spoken, the kind you wouldn’t dare share even with the lovely Avery Grambs.” The Proprietor reached out, grabbing Jameson’s chin, turning his head to get a good look at every cut and every bruise. “Do you have a secret like that?”

Jameson didn’t pull back. Again, his mind went to Prague. Resist. Jameson didn’t. “I do.”





CHAPTER 46





GRAYSON


Gigi drove. It did not take Grayson long to ascertain that Gigi should not drive.

“You’re over the line,” he said mildly.

“So the car keeps informing me!” Gigi swerved to correct the problem. “But let’s talk about you. Do you know what Savannah said after the party last night?”

“I can only imagine.”

“Nothing,” Gigi replied. She turned to give Grayson a look. “That’s weird, right?”

“Eyes on the road.”

Gigi obligingly looked back at the road but wasn’t deterred from making her point. “And you just disappeared. Also weird. And the way the two of you reacted to my thinking-on-ye-old-feet subterfuge when Duncan asked what we were doing in his dad’s office?”

Gigi paused, and Grayson gathered that he was supposed to reply. “Weird?” he suggested dryly.

“Extremely!” Gigi came to a stop at a light and turned to look at him once more. “You two have a history, don’t you? That’s why Savannah has been in cat-with-an-arching-back mode since you got here. That’s why you’re here.” Gigi’s voice grew almost tender. “You still love her.”

“What?” Grayson squeaked. He had never squeaked in his life, but some things could not be helped. “No,” he told Gigi emphatically. “I told you—”

“You have a girlfriend,” Gigi said with a roll of her eyes. The light turned green, and she accelerated. “Fine, then. What is this imaginary girlfriend like?”

“Smart,” Grayson said, and there was still a part of him—a fainter part now, like an echo or a memory or a shadow—that had to fight to keep from seeing Avery’s face when he said it. “Not in a predictable kind of way.” He paused. “Maybe that’s a good word for her. Unpredictable. Unexpected.”