Page 28 of The Final Gambit
“Really,” I said. “Take whatever you want.”
She reached for a pale green shirt but froze when she felt the fabric. I wasn’t a fashion person, but the incredible softness of expensive clothes, thefeelof them—that was what still got me, too.
“Toby didn’t want me to be a part of this.” Eve just kept looking at that shirt. “The mansion. The food. The clothes.” She took a breath, the sharp intake of air audible. “He hated this place.Hatedit. And when I asked why, all he would say was that the Hawthorne family wasn’t what they appeared to be, that this family had secrets.” She finally pulled the green shirt off the hanger. “Dark secrets. Maybe even dangerous ones.”
I thought about all the Hawthorne secrets I’d learned since coming here—not just the truth about Toby’s adoption or his role in the fire on Hawthorne Island, but everything else, too.
Nan killed her husband. Zara cheated on both of hers. Skye named her sons after their fathers, and at least one of them was a dangerous man. Tobias Hawthorne bribed Nash’s dad to stay away. Jameson watched Emily Laughlin die.
And that wasn’t even taking into account the secrets I’d had a hand in creating since I got here. I’d allowed Grayson to cover up his mother’s involvement in an attempt on my life and pin all the blame on Libby’s abusive ex. I’d looked the other way when Toby and Oren had decided that Sheffield Grayson’s body needed to disappear.
Across from me, Eve was still waiting for me to say something.
“I’ll let you get dressed,” I told her.
Back in my bedroom, I found myself wondering what other Hawthorne secrets I still didn’t know. I went back to the photo of Toby, and this time, I let myself look directly at his eyes.Is this about you or me or this family? How many enemies do we have?
A knock broke into my thoughts. I opened my door to find Mr. Laughlin standing there—and Oren, along with Eve’s guard, positioned down the hall.
“Pardon the interruption, Avery. I’ve got something for you.” The old groundskeeper had a cart with him, filled with long rolls of paper.
Another special delivery?My heart rate ticked up. “Did these come by courier service?”
“I dug these out for you myself.” As gruff as Mr. Laughlin’s manner was, there was something almost gentle in his moss-colored eyes. “You just had a birthday. Each year followinghisbirthday, Mr. Hawthorne had plans drawn up for the next expansion on the House.”
Tobias Hawthorne had never finished Hawthorne House. He’d added on every year.
“These are the blueprints.” Mr. Laughlin nodded to the cart as he wheeled it into the room. “One set for each year since we broke ground on the House. Thought you might want to see them if you’re planning an addition of your own.”
“Me?” I said. “Add on to Hawthorne House?”
Eve stepped into the room, wearing the green silk shirt, and for a moment she stared at the blueprints the way she’d stared at the clothes in my closet. Then a figure appeared in the doorway.
Jameson.His face and body were drenched in mud. His shirt was torn, his shoulder bleeding.
Mr. Laughlin put an arm around Eve’s shoulder. “Come on, missy. We should go.”
CHAPTER 22
You’re bleeding,” I told Jameson.
He showed his teeth in a wicked smile. “I’m also dangerously close to getting mud on… everything.”
There was mud on his face, in his hair. His clothes were drenched in it, his shirt clinging to his abdomen, letting me see every line of the muscles underneath.
“Before you ask,” Jameson murmured. “I’m fine, and so is Gray.”
I wondered if Grayson Hawthorne had even a fleck of mud on him.
“Oren said things got Hawthorne ugly.” I gave Jameson a look.
He shrugged. “Skye has a way of messing with our heads.” Jameson did not elaborate on the mud, the blood, or what exactly he and Grayson had gotten up to. “At the end of the day, we all learned what we needed to know. Skye’s not involved in the kidnapping.”
I’d learned a lot more than that since. The words tumbling out, I told Jameson everything: the picture of Toby, the message the kidnapper had hidden in it, Eve’s comment about dark and dangerous secrets, what Oren had told me about the attempts to hire my security team away.
The more I talked, the closer Jameson moved toward me, the closer I needed to be to him.
“No matter what I do,” I said, our bodies brushing, “I don’t feel like I’m getting anywhere.”
