The Inheritances Game (Jameson Hawthorne)

The Hawthorne Foundation

"Max it's five thirty in the morning." I said answering the phone.

"Three thirty my time. Where did you get that car?" Max didn't sound remotely sleepy.

"A room full of cars?" I replied apologetically, and then sleep cleared from my brain enough to process the implication of her question. "How did you know about the car?"

"Aerial photo," Max replied. "Taken from a helicopter, and what do you mean a room full of cars? Exactly how big is this room?"

"I don't know." I groaned and rolled over in bed. Of course, the paparazzi had caught me out with Jameson. I didn't even want to know what the gossip rags were saying.

"Equally important," Max continued, "are you having a torrid affair with Jameson Hawthorne and should I plan for a spring wedding?"

"No." I sat straight up. "It's not like that at all."

"Bull fox-faxing ship."

"I have to live with these people," I told Max. "For a year. They already have enough reasons to hate me." I wasn't thinking about Skye or Zara or Xander or Nash when I said that. I was thinking about Grayson. Silver-eyed, suit-wearing, threat-issuing Grayson.

"Getting involved with Jameson would just be throwing gasoline on the fire."

"And what a lovely fire it would be," Max murmured.

She was, without question, a bad influence. "I can't," I reiterated. "And besides. . . there was a girl."

"She died."

"Back the fax up there. What do you mean, she died? How?"

"I don't know."

"How can you not know?"

I pulled my comforter tight around me. "Her name was Emily. Do you know how many people named Emily there are in the world?"

"Is he still hung up on her?" Max asked. She was talking about Jameson, but my brain went back to thaat moment when I'd said Emily's name to Grayson. It had gutted him. Destroyed him.

"I don't think so but-"

"Then marry the man!"

"He likes someone else besides I don't want to date him much less marry him!"

"Is that girl dead?"

"No-" there was a rap at my door. "Max, I have to go."

✿We're going to skip school and go straight to the foundation since we all know what happens at school. If you don't know Avery meets Rebecca and if you don't know who that is you should read the book✿

"Avery." Oren spoke from the front seat. "We're here."

Here was the Hawthorne Foundation. It felt like an eternity since Zara had offered to show me the ropes. As Oren exited the car and opened my door, I registered the face that, for once, there wasn't a reporter or photographer in sight.

Maybe it's dying down, I thought as I stepped into the lobby of the Hawthorne Foundation. The walls were a light silvery-gray, and dozens of massive black-and-white photographs hung up on them, seemingly suspended midair. Hundreds of smaller prints surrounded the larger ones. People. From all over the world, captured in motion and moments, from all angles, all perspectives, diverse along every dimension imaginable - age and gender and race and culture. People. Laughing, crying, praying, playing, eating, dancing, sleeping, sweeping, embracing, - everything. I thought about Dr. Mac asking me why I wanted to travel. This. This is why.