Her body fit perfectly against his, hard in places, soft in others. He wanted her the way he’d always wanted her, the way that fire wants to burn. This time, the kiss came laden with memories—the way their bodies knew each other, the way they knew each other, the many, many times when the only thing in his life that felt right was this.
Jameson forced his lips away from hers—but barely. “You got yourself disqualified for me, Heiress.”
“This was your game, Jameson. Not mine.”
“You burned my secret.” He looked at her eyes. There were rings of colors there, more shades of brown and gold and green than plain “hazel” eyes had a right to. “You didn’t read what I wrote. You could have, but you didn’t.”
“It was your secret,” she said simply. “Not mine.”
Jameson closed his eyes. Before, he hadn’t trusted himself to tell her. But now? “Say the word, Heiress.” Tahiti. “Say it and—”
“I don’t need to know.” Avery’s voice was steady. “If what you need is for me not to know, then I don’t need to.”
Jameson brought his lips to hers again and murmured a single word. “Liar.”
Beside them, Oren cleared his throat. Loudly. “Cell signal’s back,” he announced. “I have your phone, Jameson, courtesy of Rohan.”
“He was blocking calls before,” Avery clarified. Jameson heard what she didn’t say: I’m not lying about not needing to know. I’m pretending. There’s a difference. And if what you need is for me to keep pretending, Hawthorne—I will.
Jameson felt a lump rising in his throat, a single sentence burned in his mind still. An H, the word is, the letters v and e.
Not today, Jameson told himself. Today, he was going to savor his win, savor her. But soon.
“I know you’ve transferred most of the foreign properties over to the foundation,” he murmured, “but what are your thoughts on Scottish castles?”
Vantage was his—and based on Avery’s expression, he had a feeling he was going to like her thoughts on Scottish castles very much.
But before she could make good on the promise in her eyes, Jameson’s phone buzzed, as voicemails, texts, and missed calls came through on a delay. He stared at the most recent, a text. From Grayson, he realized.
911.
CHAPTER 90
GRAYSON
When Grayson arrived at the gates of Hawthorne House, he got out of his hired car and sent the driver on his way. It was a long walk to the House—and an even longer one to the tree house.
Or what was left of it, anyway.
Grayson stared up at the havoc he and Jameson had wreaked after Emily died. Slipping off his suit jacket and laying it over a low-hanging branch, he began to climb. Most of the walkways between the trees had been destroyed. Only one of the soaring towers remained intact. The main body of the house had angry, gaping holes.
Grayson made his way from a series of branches to one of the slides and climbed in through a window.
“Peek-a-boo!” Xander jumped down from the rafters. “And welcome home. Your nine-one-one was bare on details, so I took the liberty of extrapolating a bit.”
Grayson eyed his brother, then scanned the tree house. Xander “extrapolating” was rarely a good thing. “I don’t want to talk about it,” Grayson said. The reason for that nine-one-one. What happened after you and Nash left Phoenix.
“So don’t talk,” Nash called from down below. Without another word to Grayson, he hauled a series of brown paper grocery bags up into the tree house, handing them off to Xander.
“You heard from Jamie yet?” Nash asked.
Xander raised a hand. “I have. He and Avery are on their way back. ETA tomorrow morning.”
Nash swiveled his gaze back to Grayson. “Guess that means we’re having ourselves a little slumber party out here first.”
Jameson made it back just as they were waking up the next morning. Like Nash, he, too, had come prepared. Unlike Nash, Jameson didn’t make the rest of them wait to find out what was in his bag.
The first thing he took out was a massive water bottle. A massive, empty water bottle. The next three things out of the bag were ketchup, a gallon of milk, and a liter of root beer.
Grayson saw where this was going almost immediately—and so did Xander, who gleefully adopted an announcer’s voice. “It’s time,” he boomed, “for that standby Hawthorne classic… Drink or Dare!”
Ten minutes later, the empty water bottle was very full—and a disturbing shade of milky brown.