Branford didn’t so much as flick his eyes toward Jameson. “In rashness, if nothing else.”
Jameson chose not to take that personally. All his focus remained on the Proprietor.
“You’re bold, young man.” The Proprietor stood and caught his cane between his thumb and forefinger and swung it lightly back and forth, like a metronome or a needle on a scale. “If I’d encountered you when you were younger, if your last name wasn’t Hawthorne…,” the Proprietor told Jameson, “you could have had an interesting future at the Mercy indeed.”
Jameson thought about the young boy who tended the boats, about the bartender, the house fighters, the dealers. About Rohan.
“But here you are,” the Proprietor mused. “Not a member of the Mercy and not in my employ.” He nodded toward the desk. “Do you know what this book is?”
“Am I supposed to?” Jameson replied, the barest hint of challenge in his tone.
“Oh, most assuredly not.” There was something dark and serpentine buried in the Proprietor’s tone as he studied Jameson’s face. And then he smiled. “Your grandfather trained you well, Mr. Hawthorne. Your face gives away very little.”
Jameson shrugged. “I’m also fairly skilled at motocross.”
“And fighting,” the Proprietor added. He went silent for a moment longer than was comfortable for anyone in the room. “I respect a fighter. Tell me…” The cane was still going back and forth in his hands, though the older man gave no sign of moving it at all. “What makes you think that I am dying?”
So that was the move—or one of them, anyway—that had paid off.
The Proprietor’s fingers tightened suddenly around the cane. “This?” he said, nodding toward it.
“No,” Jameson replied. He debated withholding an explanation but decided that might register as one insult too many. “You remind me of my grandfather.” The words came out quieter than he meant them to. “Before.”
There had been weeks when the old man was ill, when he’d been planning his final hurrah, and none of them but Xander had known.
“The way you tested Rohan,” Jameson continued. “In the ring.”
“I was testing you,” the Proprietor countered.
Jameson shrugged. “Three birds with one stone.”
“And the third would be…?”
“I don’t know,” Jameson replied honestly. “I just know that there is one, just like I know that you have a presumptive heir.” He paused. “Just like my brothers and I now know to never presume.” Jameson met the Proprietor’s gaze. “And there was a tremor—a very slight one—when Avery took your arm last night.”
“She told you that?” the Proprietor demanded.
“She didn’t have to,” Jameson said. At the time, he hadn’t even noticed, but he’d long ago trained himself to be able to play a scene over and over again in his mind.
“Why,” the Proprietor said, after a long and pointed silence, “did you place a bet on the price of wheat?”
Jameson’s mouth felt suddenly dry, but he had no intention of letting the old man across from him see that. “Because I’m not a fan of corn or oats.”
Another lengthy silence, and then the Proprietor dropped his cane flat on the desk with an audible clunk. “You are interesting, Jameson Hawthorne. I’ll give you that.” The Proprietor walked around the desk—without the cane. “And I think it would be somewhat entertaining to watch you lose the Game.” He turned toward Jameson’s uncle. “It would feel a bit poetic, don’t you think, Branford? Ian’s son?”
He called him Branford this time, Jameson registered. Not Simon. Because this time, the Viscount Branford was not the one that the Proprietor was attempting to put in his place.
“But there is a balance to these things,” the man continued, his lips curving, eyes just beginning to narrow. “Weights on the scales.”
Nothing worthwhile, Jameson could hear his grandfather saying, comes without a cost.
“I’ll pay the levy,” Jameson said.
“In a fashion.” The Proprietor walked closer to him still. “I want a secret, Jameson Hawthorne,” he said, his voice low and silky. “The kind men would kill and die for. The kind that shakes the ground beneath our feet, the kind that must never be spoken, the kind you wouldn’t dare share even with the lovely Avery Grambs.” The Proprietor reached out, grabbing Jameson’s chin, turning his head to get a good look at every cut and every bruise. “Do you have a secret like that?”
Jameson didn’t pull back. Again, his mind went to Prague. Resist. Jameson didn’t. “I do.”
CHAPTER 46
GRAYSON
Gigi drove. It did not take Grayson long to ascertain that Gigi should not drive.
“You’re over the line,” he said mildly.
“So the car keeps informing me!” Gigi swerved to correct the problem. “But let’s talk about you. Do you know what Savannah said after the party last night?”
“I can only imagine.”
“Nothing,” Gigi replied. She turned to give Grayson a look. “That’s weird, right?”
“Eyes on the road.”
Gigi obligingly looked back at the road but wasn’t deterred from making her point. “And you just disappeared. Also weird. And the way the two of you reacted to my thinking-on-ye-old-feet subterfuge when Duncan asked what we were doing in his dad’s office?”
Gigi paused, and Grayson gathered that he was supposed to reply. “Weird?” he suggested dryly.
“Extremely!” Gigi came to a stop at a light and turned to look at him once more. “You two have a history, don’t you? That’s why Savannah has been in cat-with-an-arching-back mode since you got here. That’s why you’re here.” Gigi’s voice grew almost tender. “You still love her.”
“What?” Grayson squeaked. He had never squeaked in his life, but some things could not be helped. “No,” he told Gigi emphatically. “I told you—”
“You have a girlfriend,” Gigi said with a roll of her eyes. The light turned green, and she accelerated. “Fine, then. What is this imaginary girlfriend like?”
“Smart,” Grayson said, and there was still a part of him—a fainter part now, like an echo or a memory or a shadow—that had to fight to keep from seeing Avery’s face when he said it. “Not in a predictable kind of way.” He paused. “Maybe that’s a good word for her. Unpredictable. Unexpected.”
“In what way?” Gigi asked.
Echoes faded. Shadows receded in light. And some memories were meant to stay in the past. So this time, Grayson didn’t think about Avery. Instead, he thought about the black opal ring, about Nash holding his gaze and saying, Why not you?
“I am not a person who’s easily surprised or easily defeated,” Grayson said, his voice coming out thicker than it should have. “My partner…” That make-believe impossibility of a girl. “She can do both. She does both, frequently. She’s not perfect.” He swallowed. “And when I’m with her, I don’t have to be, either.”
“How did you meet?”
I am making her up as I speak. “Grocery store. She was buying limes.” Limes? Grayson cursed himself.
“Was it love at first sight?” Gigi asked with a little sigh.
“I don’t believe in love at first sight. Neither does she.” Grayson swallowed. “We just… fit.”
Gigi held up a hand, which was mildly terrifying since she was turning left at the same time. “Okay, you’ve sold me on the existence of the mythical girlfriend. But can you at least admit that you’ve been playing pretend since I met you?”
Grayson felt a twinge in his stomach. What exactly does she know? He didn’t have time to consider that question. “Brake,” he told Gigi. “Brake!”
She braked, and a moment later, pulled into the parking lot of the bank. Screeching to a stop and parking the car, she turned to look at him. “You’re pretending to be Mr. Stoic, but I see straight through you.” She grinned. “You like me. Not that way, obviously—which, same, buddy—but in a friendly kind of way. I’m growing on you. Admit it, we’re friends.”
She opened the door and jumped out of the jeep without waiting for a response. Grayson steeled himself. We’re not friends, Gigi. He got out of the vehicle and walked around to the front, his mind on what had to be done next.