“Heads, I kiss you. Tails, you kiss me. And either way it means something.”

"Im always thinking, Heiress." Jameson's green eyes stayed fixed on the sky. "That's what you love about me."

Grayson appeared in the doorway behind Alisa. "Tll teach you' Jameson stared at him. So did I.

Xander pressed a button and the wall slid to reveal a second workshop "voilà"

My eyes widened as I took in the contents of the workshop. "is that.."

"life sized recreations of the 3 most lovable droidsin the star wars universe" Xander grinned. "for Max,."

Picture yourself standing on a cliff overlooking the ocean. The wind is whipping your hair. The sun is setting. You long, body and soul, for one thing. One person. You hear footsteps behind you. You turn. Who's there? 
I remembered a voice. James on Winchester Hawthorne

Alisa walked to stand beside my bed. "that's the thing Very. He is." 

Gunfire. Panic. Shot thought my veins and the next thing I knew iw a son the ground. Where's the shooter? This was like blackwood. Just like blackwood. "Heiress"

I couldn't move. I couldn't breath. And the Jameson was on the floor with me. He brought his face level with mine and cupped my head in his hands. "fireworks " he told me "it's just fireworks for half time.

"Nash said there were miscarriages," I said quietly. “Before Rebecca." "That's what Bex thought she meant, too," Xander said quietly. “But it wasn't?" I stared at him, having no idea whatsoever where this was going. "She was talking about Emily," Grayson said, his voice pained. "Emily," Xander confirmed. “And Toby." I felt the world slow down around me. "What are you talking about?" "Toby was a Laughlin." Xander swallowed.

"How about an old Hawthorne standard?" he suggested wickedly. "Strip bowling."

I held up the coin. “It’s not the disk,” I said. “But sometimes you have to improvise.” My heart was racing. I was vibrating with the same energy I’d heard in his tone. And like Jameson, I loved it.

“Heads, you kiss me,” I said. “Tails, I kiss you. And this time…” My voice cracked. “It means something.”

Jameson shot me one of those devastating, crooked Jameson Winchester Hawthorne grins. “What are you saying, Heiress?”

The coin landed. “Tails,” I said. “I kiss you.” I wrapped my arms around his neck. I pressed my lips to his.

And this time, the joke was on me—because I wasn’t playing. This wasn’t nothing.

This was the beginning—and I was ready to be bold.

Three hours later, I found Jameson on the roof. He was holding a familiar knife in his hands. He faked like he was going to toss it to me, and my heart sped up. His eyes met mine, and it sped up more. “I have a lot to tell you.”

Jameson’s green eyes looked fathomless. “I’m intrigued, Heiress.”

Jameson’s lips ticked up at the edges. “This is Hawthorne House, Heiress. There will always be another mystery. Just when you think you’ve found the last hidden passage, the last tunnel, the last secret built into the walls—there will always be one more.”

There was an energy in his voice when he spoke about the House. “That’s why you love it.” I locked my eyes on his. “The House.”

He leaned forward. “That’s why I love the House.”

The entire time, his face was like stone. “You look like you want to hit something,” I told him.

He shook his head.

I made him look at me. “How about swinging a sword?”

in that moment, I was reminded of more.

Of the first day I’d met him. How arrogant he’d been, how sure of himself and his place in the world. I thought about the first time I’d caught him really looking at me, and the way he’d told me that I had an expressive face. I thought about bargains struck and promises made and stolen moments and words spoken in Latin.

But mostly I thought about the ways that the two of us were alike. “I had a dream,” I told him. “When I was in the coma. You and Jameson were fighting. About me.”

“Avery…” Grayson lowered his sword.

“In my dream,” I continued, “Jameson was angry that you didn’t run toward me. That I was lying there at death’s door, and you couldn’t move. But, Grayson?” I waited for him to look at me, with silver eyes and the weight of the world on his shoulders. “I’m not angry. I’ve spent my entire life not running toward anyone. I know what it’s like to just stand there—to not be able to do anything else. I know what it’s like to lose someone.” I thought about my mom, then Emily.

“I am an expert at not wanting to want things.” I held my sword up for a moment longer, then lowered it, the way he’d lowered his.

“But I’m starting to realize that the person I need to be, the person I’m becoming—she’s not that girl anymore.”

"In my heart,” he said quietly, “you were always mine.”

I swallowed. “But biologically, I’m not.”

“Biology isn’t everything.”

"You have a daughter now,” I told him, my voice low.

He looked at me, his expression never wavering. “I have two.”

In the span of a heartbeat, fury gave way to devastation. Tobias Hawthorne the Second wasn’t my father. He hadn’t raised me. I didn’t carry a single drop of his blood. But he’d just called me his daughter.

“I have to, Avery.” Toby was implacable. “For Eve. The spotlight, the media circus, the rumors, the stalkers, the threats—I can’t save you from that, Avery Kylie Grambs. I would if I could, but it’s too late. The old man did what he did. He pulled you onto the board. But if I stay in shadows, if I make this disappear, if I disappear—then we can save Eve.”

"Am I ever going to see you again?” I asked, my throat closing in on the words. He leaned forward, pressed a kiss to my forehead, and stepped back. “It would be a very risky gamble.”

“Upside, downside, inside, outside, left side, right side.” Jameson Hawthorne stood in the doorway. When I saw him, something clicked. It was the feeling of a wave crashing over me—at last. “What’s missing?” Jameson asked. He walked toward me, and I tracked every step. He repeated his riddle. “Upside, downside, inside, outside, left side, right side. What’s missing?” He stopped next to my bed, right next to it.

“Beside,” I whispered.

He stared at me—at my eyes, at the lines of my face, like he was drinking it in. “I have to say, Heiress, I’m not a big fan of comas.”

Jameson sounded just the same, wry and darkly tempting, but the expression on his face was one I’d never seen before. He wasn’t joking.

“I came to see you,” Jameson told me. “Every day. The least you could have done was wake up while I was here, tragically backlit, unspeakably handsome, and waiting.”

“Every single day, Heiress.” Jameson closed his eyes, just for an instant. “But if I’m not the one you want to see…”

“Of course I want to see you.” That was true. I could say it. “But you don’t have to—” Tell me I’m special. Tell me I matter.

“Yes,” Jameson cut in, “I do.” He sank down beside my bed, bringing his eyes level with mine. “You aren’t a prize to be won.”

I wasn’t hearing this. He wasn’t saying this. He couldn’t be. “You’re not a puzzle or a riddle or a clue.”

Jameson had laser focus. On me. All on me. “You aren’t a mystery to me, Avery, because deep down, we’re the same. You might not see that.”

He gave me a long, searing look. “You might not believe it—yet.” He held up his hands, his fingers curled into a loose fist. “But there’s no one besides the two of us who would have gone back in the wake of that bomb to look for this.”

He uncurled his fingers, and I saw a small metal disk in his palm. Every muscle in my body tightened. Everything in me wanted to reach out to him.

“How did you—”

Jameson shrugged, and that shrug, like his smile, was devastating. “How could I not?” He stared at me a moment longer, then pressed the disk into my hand. I felt his fingertips on my palm. He left them there for a moment, then trailed them along the inside of my wrist. I sucked in a breath and looked from Jameson’s face to the disk. Concentric circles ringed the metal on one side. The other was smooth. He was still trailing his fingers down my arm.

“Have you figured out what it is?” I asked, every nerve in my body alive.

“No.” Jameson smiled, that crooked, devastating Jameson Hawthorne smile. “I was waiting for you.”

Jameson wasn’t patient. He didn’t wait. He lived with his foot on the gas.

“You want to figure it out.” I stared at him, feeling his stare on me. “Together.”

“You don’t have to say anything.” Jameson stood. I could still feel the ghost of his touch on the inside of my arm. I could see the vein in my wrist and feel my heart pumping. “You don’t have to kiss me now. You don’t have to love me now, Heiress. But when you’re ready…” He brought his hand to the side of my face. I leaned into it. His breath went ragged, and then he pulled his hand back and nodded to the disk in my hand.

“When you’re ready, if you’re ever ready, if it’s going to be me—just flip that disk. Heads, I kiss you.” His voice broke slightly. “Tails, you kiss me. And either way, it means something.”

“You son of a bitch.” The words cut through the darkness in a way that nothing else had since I’d been here. The voice was Jameson’s again, but louder this time, sharper, like the edge of a knife. “She was dying, and you just stood there! And don’t tell me it was shock.” I tried to open my eyes. I tried—but I couldn’t.

“You would know, Jamie, about standing there and watching someone die.”

“Emily. It always comes back to Emily with you.” “You know what I think, Gray? I think the whole martyr act was a lie you told yourself. I don’t think you stepped back from Avery for my sake. I think you needed an excuse to draw a line so you could stay safe on the other side.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You can’t let go. You couldn’t when Emily was alive, no matter what she did, and you can’t now.”

“Are you done?” Grayson was yelling now.

“Avery was dying, and you couldn’t run toward her.”

“What do you want from me, Jamie?”

“You think I didn’t fight the same fight? I halfway convinced myself that as long as Avery was just a riddle or a puzzle, as long as I was just playing, I’d be fine. Well, joke’s on me, because somewhere along the way, I stopped playing.”

“What do you want from me?”

“Look at her, Gray. Look at her, damn it! Est unus ex nobis. Nos defendat eius.” She is one of us. We protect her.

Whatever Grayson said in response was lost

"Are you ready?” Grayson asked beside me, his voice low.

I nodded.

//

"Are you okay?” Grayson asked beside me

//

My hand shook, holding the last postcard, and Grayson’s hand made its way to mine.

My eyes found their way to Jameson’s. I waited for him to argue with Oren. Jameson Winchester Hawthorne had never sat out a race in his life. He wasn’t capable of it. So why wasn’t he attempting to negotiate with Oren now? Jameson noticed something about the way I was looking at him.

“What?”

“You’re not going to complain about this?” I stared at him.

“Why would I, Heiress?”

Because you play to win. Because Grayson’s already there. Because this was our game—yours and mine—before it was anyone else’s. I tried to stop myself there. Because your brother kissed me. Because when you and I kiss, you feel it, the same way I do.

Grayson turned the phone back around and those gray eyes locked on mine. “Avery, have I ever given you reason to believe that I’m particularly averse to danger?” Grayson Hawthorne was arrogant enough to consider himself bulletproof—and honorable enough to see a promise through to its end.

“You have to get out of there,” I said again, but the next thing I knew, Jameson was sticking his head over my shoulder, yelling to his brother. “You’re looking for a man named Jackson Currie. He’s a recluse, living near an abandoned lighthouse. Talk to him. See what he knows.”

Grayson smiled, and that smile cut into me, every bit as much as his kiss. “Got it.”