Valeria

“I don’t believe in destiny or fate—I believe in choice.
Love wasn’t just a choice—it was dozens, hundreds, thousands of choices.
Every day was a choice.”
― Jennifer Lynn Barnes, The Final Gambit

“What if he hates me?"

"No one could possibly hate you, Xander," I told him, my heart twisting.

"Avery, people have hated me my whole life." There was something in his tone that made me think that very few people understood what it was like to be Xander Hawthorne.

"Not anyone who knows you," I said fiercely.

Xander smiled, and something about it made me want to cry. "Do you think it's okay," he said, sounding younger than I'd ever heard him, "that I loved playing those Saturday morning games? Loved growing up here? Loved the great and terrible Tobias Hawthorne?”
― Jennifer Lynn Barnes, The Final Gambit

“Someone told me once that fortunes like this one–at a certain point, it's not about the money, because you couldn't spend billions if you tried It's about the power." I looked down. "And I just don't think anyone should have power like that, certainly not me.”
― Jennifer Lynn Barnes, The Final Gambit

“Hawthornes aren’t supposed to break, his voice whispered in my memory. Especially me.”
― Jennifer Lynn Barnes, The Final Gambit