“Nope,” Nash replied.
“I told you she was special,” Jameson murmured as Grayson continued closing in on him.
“And I told you to stay away from her.” Grayson stopped, just out of Jameson’s reach.
“So I see that you two are talking again!” Xander commented jollily. “Excellent.”
Not excellent, I thought, unable to draw my eyes away from the storm brewing just feet away. Jameson was taller, Grayson broader through the shoulders. The smirk on the former’s face was matched by steel on the latter’s.
“Welcome to Hawthorne House, Mystery Girl.” Jameson’s welcome seemed to be more for Grayson’s benefit than for mine. Whatever this fight was about, it wasn’t just a difference of opinion on recent events.
It wasn’t just about me.
“Stop calling me Mystery Girl.” I’d barely spoken since the moment the library door had swung inward, but I was getting sick of playing spectator. “My name is Avery.”
“I’d also be willing to call you Heiress,” Jameson offered. He stepped forward into a beam of light shining down from a skylight above. He was toe-to-toe with Grayson now. “What do you think, Gray? Got a nickname preference for our new landlord?”
Landlord.Jameson was rubbing it in, like he could handle being disinherited if it meant that the heir apparent had lost everything, too.
“I’m trying to protect you,” Grayson said lowly.
“I think we both know,” Jameson replied, “that the only person you’ve ever protected is yourself.”
Grayson went completely, deathly still.
“Xander.” Nash stood, pulling the youngest brother to his feet. “Why don’t you show Avery to her wing?”
That was either Nash’s attempt to prevent a line from being crossed or an indication that one already had been.
“Come on.” Xander bumped his shoulder lightly against mine. “We’ll stop for cookies on the way.”
If that statement was meant to dissipate the tension in the room, it didn’t work, but it did draw Grayson’s attention away from Jameson—for the moment.
“No cookies.” Grayson’s voice was strangled, like his throat was closing down around the words—like Jameson’s last shot had cut off his air completely.
“Fine,” Xander replied cheerily. “You drive a hard bargain, Grayson Hawthorne. No cookies.” Xander winked at me. “We’ll stop for scones.”
CHAPTER 17
The first scone is what I like to call thepracticescone.” Xander stuffed an entire scone in his mouth, handed one to me, then swallowed and continued lecturing. “It is not until the third—nay,fourth—scone that you develop any kind of scone-eating expertise.”
“Scone-eating expertise,” I repeated in a deadpan.
“Your nature is skeptical,” Xander noted. “That will serve you well in these halls, but if there is one universal truth in the human experience, it is that a finely honed scone-eating palate does not just develop overnight.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of Oren and wondered how long he had been tailing us. “Why are we standing here talking about scones?” I asked Xander. Oren had insisted that the Hawthorne brothers weren’t a physical threat, but still! At the very least, Xander should have been trying to make my life miserable. “Aren’t you supposed to hate me?” I asked.
“I do hate you,” Xander replied, happily devouring his third scone. “If you notice, I have kept the blueberry confections for myself and gave you”—he shuddered—“thelemon-flavored scones. Such is the depth of my loathing for you personally and on principle.”
“This isn’t a joke.” I felt like I’d fallen into Wonderland—and then fallen again, rabbit hole after rabbit hole, in a vicious cycle.
Traps upon traps, I could hear Jameson saying.And riddles upon riddles.
“Why would I hate you, Avery?” Xander asked finally. There were layers of emotion in his tone that hadn’t been there before. “You aren’t the one who did this.”
Tobias Hawthorne had.
“Maybe you’re blameless.” Xander shrugged. “Maybe you’re the evil genius that Gray seems to think you are, but at the end of the day, even if youthoughtthat you’d manipulated our grandfather into this, I guarantee that he’d be the one manipulating you.”
