The Brothers Hawthorne (The Inheritance Games Book 4)
The Brothers Hawthorne: Chapter 23

Twelve hours after Jameson and Avery signed the NDA, another black envelope showed up at the flat. This one featured only a single thread of shining platinum, encircling a black wax seal. The design imprinted on the wax was familiar. A triangle inside a circle inside a square. Jameson ran his thumb over the contours, his brain rotating the shapes, disassembling them, reassembling them. He broke the seal and opened the envelope to replace an invitation—also black, with silver script. Affixed to the bottom of the card, there was a small but ornate key.

Jameson skimmed the instructions and plucked the gold key from the card, then turned to Avery, an electric smile spreading over his face. “It appears we’re headed to the opera.”

“Zip me up?” Avery’s gown was black with gold embroidery, a delicate, complicated pattern that swirled down her torso, her hips, all the way to the floor. The sight of her in that dress, open in the back, brought Jameson right back to the edge of the falls, hungering for more.

“My pleasure.” He gave himself a moment first, tracing his hand from her bare neck to the small of her back, then splaying his fingers outward, the warmth of her skin soft and scalding against his palm.

Avery’s back arched. When she spoke, her voice was low and rough. “Tahiti.” When one of them said that code word—their code word—the other had to let their guard down entirely.

Jameson was surprised it had taken her this long. He leaned forward, his lips brushing her ear. “You want me to strip?” He brought his thumb to a spot just below her jawbone where he could see her pulse.

“I want you to admit that this matters to you,” Avery said, leaning into his touch.

Jameson wound his free arm around her, pulling her body back against his. “Winning always matters.” Being with her like this—it felt like winning every damn time. “An impossible challenge,” he murmured directly into her skin. “A hidden world. A secret game. It’s all very me.”

“And that’s it? This is just a diversion?” Avery turned her head, and Jameson began slowly tracing her jawline. Tahiti meant being honest—with himself, with her. He let his hand drop from her jaw.

N-O. He drew the letters with his thumb on her back.

“No,” Avery murmured. “This isn’t just a challenge or a game or a diversion to you.” She paused. “Is it Ian?”

The question cut into him, but beneath his touch, she was soft and warm and there. Five more letters etched onto her back, and he could barely breathe. M-A-Y-B-E.

“Maybe?” Avery asked softly.

“I know he’s using us,” Jameson told her, his voice catching in his throat. “Using me.” She’d called Tahiti. He couldn’t stop there. A deal was a deal. “Maybe, on some level, I want to prove Ian made a mistake staying away all these years. Maybe a small part of me wants to impress him. Maybe I want to make him want me, so that I can be the one who walks away.”

Avery turned then, her dress still undone in the back, her hand coming up to his face. “You,” she said, her voice as raw as he felt, “are a blazing fire.” When she said it, he could believe it. “You’re a force of nature who makes the impossible possible without batting an eye. You’re brilliant and devious and kind.”

It was the last description that he had the hardest time believing, the last one that undid him. “I’m also very handsome,” he quipped, but the words came out thick.

“You,” Avery told him, her voice reverberating through every bone in his body, “are everything.”

She was. This was. “Is that all?” he murmured, with a crooked little smile.

She matched his smile like a poker player matching a bet. “Isn’t that enough?”

Jameson leaned forward, reaching behind her to pull the zipper on her dress slowly, tortuously upward. “I’m a Hawthorne, Heiress. Nothing is ever enough.”