Page 144 of The Brothers Hawthorne

She put her hand on the tower wall behind him—almost, but not quite pinning him in. “About the Game.”

Jameson knew her—and the look in her eyes. “Itwasfun, wasn’t it?”

“It was,” Avery agreed. “It always is when we play.” His gaze was drawn to her mouth, the slight curve of her smile. “You told me once,” she continued, “that your grandfather’s games weren’t designed to make you extraordinary—”

“But to show us,” Jameson murmured, “that we already were.”

“Do you believe it now?” Avery asked him. “That you areextraordinary?” The way she said the word made him feel like he was, like he always had been.

Like winning might never be enough, buthewas. Together, they were.

“I do,” Jameson told her.

Avery brought her fingertips to the edge of his mouth, then traced it lightly over the edge of his jaw. “Ask me again what I’ve been thinking about.”

Jameson narrowed his eyes. “What exactly have you been thinking about, Heiress?”

“It doesn’t seem fair, does it?” Avery said with a quirk of her lips. “That only the rich and powerful get the chance to play the Game?”

Jameson’s own lips turned upward. “Not fair at all.”

“What if there was another game?” Avery asked.

“Not hidden,” Jameson murmured. “Not secret. Not just for the rich or powerful.”

“And what if we designed it?” Avery said, her voice electric. “Every year.”

Jameson loved playing—butdesigninga game? Making the puzzles? Showing other people what they were capable of?

“Cash prize,” Avery told him. “A big one.”

“The game would have to be complicated,” he told Avery. “Intricate. Perfectly designed.”

She grinned. “I’m going to be pretty busy with the foundation,” she told him. “But everyone needs a hobby.”

He knew that she knew—this wasn’t going to be just a hobby for him. “The Grandest Game,” he murmured. “That’s what you should call it.”

“Whatwewill call it,” Avery replied.

And in that moment, staring at her, imagining this future with her, Jameson knew: He was going to tell her everything. If he’d learned one thing from the Game he’d played—and won—it was that hecouldtrust himself to tell her. He was more than hunger, more than want, more than drive, more than what Tobias Hawthorne had raised him to be.

And he wanted to bemorewith her.

“I went out that night,” he said, his voice hushed and liquid, “and I came back at dawn, smelling of ash and fire.” The memories were right there—as vivid as they’d always been. Jameson reached forward to take Avery’s hand in his. He pressed her fingers to the place where his collarbone dipped, right at the base of his neck. “I had a cuthere.”

Avery’s fingers curled slightly, stroking skin that hadn’t scarred. “I remember.”

He wondered if she could feel the pounding of his pulse. Was he imagining that he could feel her heartbeat? Feelher?

There are some things, he thought,that shouldn’t be said out loud.

On the floor of the tower, there was a box—a game one of them must have left up here way back when.Scrabble.Jameson knelt and took out the board.

“Are you sure?” Avery murmured.

He was—achingly sure, so sure that he could taste it. This wasn’t a mystery that either of them could risk trying to solve. They’d make their own mysteries instead, their own Game. But he didn’t want a damn thing standing between the two of them in the meantime.

Trusting her. Trusting himself. It was all the same.