The Inheritance Games, #2
The Hawthorne Legacy
by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Contents
CHAPTER 23
Overview
Avery and Jameson confront Skye at a hotel Avery owns, forcing Skye to confirm that Sheffield Grayson is Grayson's biological father. The admission reframes Grayson's parentage and deepens Jameson's pain, because Skye suggests all her sons' biological fathers may have known and stayed away. The chapter ends with a new threat and shock: Skye claims Avery's father is her new friend.
Summary
Avery and Jameson go to the luxury hotel where Skye Hawthorne is staying, and Avery notes that the hotel now belongs to her. Avery is angry that Skye's apparent consequence for trying to have Avery killed is a penthouse stay, but Jameson warns Avery that they need Skye to talk.
Skye greets Jameson with performative warmth, and Jameson answers with charm while making clear he knows Skye tried to harm Avery. Avery and Jameson confront Skye with Sheffield Grayson's name and the connection between Sheffield's nephew Colin, the Hawthorne Island fire, and Toby. Skye initially denies knowing anything, but Avery threatens to remove her from the hotel, prompting Skye to invite them inside.
Oren and Eli enter with Avery, revealing that Avery is under closer guard than Avery realized. Skye tries to bargain for the right to remain in the penthouse indefinitely, but Jameson counters by threatening to tell Xander what Skye did. Skye relents enough to answer questions.
Jameson asks whether Sheffield Grayson is Grayson's father, and Skye confirms that Sheffield is technically Grayson's biological father, though Skye dismisses biology as unimportant. Skye admits she never told Sheffield, frames the situation as a test of whether Sheffield would pursue her, and suggests that all the men who fathered her sons likely knew because the Hawthorne family is so prominent.
The conversation wounds Jameson because Skye implies his own father may also have known about him and chosen not to come. Avery tries to end the encounter and get Jameson away, but Skye stops them with one more revelation: her new friend, apparently present in the room, is Avery's father.
Who Appears
- Avery GrambsConfronts Skye, threatens to remove her, and tries to protect Jameson from emotional harm.
- Jameson HawthorneQuestions Skye about Grayson's father and is hurt by Skye's comments about absent fathers.
- Skye HawthorneConfirms Sheffield is Grayson's biological father and reveals Avery's father is her new friend.
- OrenAccompanies Avery into Skye's hotel room as part of her close security detail.
- EliJoins Oren in guarding Avery during the confrontation with Skye.
- Avery's fatherUnseen presence whom Skye identifies as her new friend at the chapter's end.