Ian picked up his glass and raised it in toast.
“Because you love a challenge. You love to play. You love to win. And no matter what you win”—Ian Johnstone-Jameson lifted the glass to his lips, the unholy intensity in his eyes all too familiar—“you always need more.”
CHAPTER 8
JAMESON
Jameson said no. He left. But hours later, Ian’s words still haunted him. You love to play. You love to win. And no matter what you win, you always need more.
Jameson stared out into the night. There was something about rooftops. It wasn’t just being high up or the way it felt to go right up to the edge. It was seeing everything but being alone.
“I don’t own this entire building, you know.” Avery spoke from somewhere behind him. “Pretty sure the roof belongs to someone else. We could be arrested for trespassing.”
“Says the girl who always manages to slip away before the police arrive,” Jameson pointed out, turning his head to see her step out of shadow.
“I have survival instincts.” Avery came to stand beside him at the roof’s edge. “You never learned to want to stay out of trouble.”
He’d never had to. He’d grown up with the world as his playground—with Hawthorne looks and the Hawthorne name and a grandfather richer than kings.
Jameson took a breath: night air into the lungs, night air out. “I met my father today.”
“You what?” Avery wasn’t an easy person to take off guard. Surprising her always felt like a win, and though Jameson would have denied it, he needed a win right now.
“Ian Johnstone-Jameson.” He let the name roll off his tongue. “Professional poker player. Black sheep of what appears to be an extremely wealthy family.”
“Appears to be?” Avery repeated. “You haven’t searched the name?”
Jameson caught her gaze. “I don’t want you to, either, Heiress.” He let the rooftop go silent. And then, because it was her, he said the words he’d thought far too many times since Ian had asked for that favor. “Nothing matters unless you let it.”
“I remember that boy,” Avery said quietly. “Shirtless in the solarium, drunk on bourbon after we saw the Red Will, determined that nothing would hurt him.” She let that penetrate his shields, then continued: “You were angry because we had to ask Skye about your middle names. About your fathers.”
“In retrospect,” Jameson quipped, “I’m impressed Skye didn’t give away the game right then.” They’d asked about middle names—not first.
“Your father mattered to you then.” Avery didn’t pull her punches. Ever. “He matters now. That’s why you’re up here.”
Jameson swallowed. “I told myself after Gray met his asshole father that I never wanted to meet mine.”
He’d known his father’s last name was Jameson, but he hadn’t looked. He hadn’t even let himself wonder—until that card.
“How was it?” Avery asked.
Jameson looked up. Not a star in the sky. “He hasn’t had you kidnapped yet or killed anyone so that’s a plus.” Grayson’s father had set the bar low. Making light of that let Jameson really answer Avery’s question. “He wants something from me.”
“Screw him,” Avery said fiercely. “He doesn’t get to ask you for anything.”
“Exactly.”
“But…”
“What makes you think there’s a but?” Jameson retorted.
“This.” Avery let her fingertips brush his face just above his jawline. Her other hand went, feather-light, to his brow. “And this.”
Jameson swallowed. “I don’t owe him anything. And I don’t care what he thinks of me. But…” She was right. Of course she was. “I can’t stop thinking about what he said.”
Jameson stepped back from the edge of the roof, and when Avery did the same, he bent to murmur in her ear. “There’s an establishment in London whose name is never spoken.…”
Jameson told her everything, and the more he said, the faster the words came, the more his body buzzed with the rush of adrenaline pumping through his veins. Because Ian Johnstone-Jameson had been right.
He liked to play. He liked to win. And now, more than ever, he needed something.
“You want to say yes.” Avery read him like a book.
“I said no.”
“You didn’t mean it.”
This didn’t have to be about what Ian Johnstone-Jameson deserved. This didn’t have to be about him at all. “The Devil’s Mercy.” Jameson felt a thrill just saying the name. A centuries-old secret. An underground gambling house. Money and power and games with stakes.