“Then marry one of them anyway.”
“No.”
“Ben—”
“Henry.” My voice dropped, rough as gravel. “I would rather lose everything I own than stand in front of a judge and put a ring on someone I can’t even picture holding my hand.”
His gaze narrowed.
“This isn’t about holding hands.”
“Of course it is,” I bit out. “What the hell else do you think a marriage is? You think my father wrote that clause because he cared about legal technicalities? He wanted me to have what he had with my mother before she died, and Vivian sank her claws into him. He wanted… he wanted a family. Something real. Something he trusted me with.” My throat burned. “I am not spitting on that by turning it into a five-year business arrangement with a stranger.”
Henry’s shoulders dropped a fraction. Some of the push went out of him, replaced by quiet resignation.
“So what?” he asked. “You curl up here and watch her take everything away from you? Is that your plan?”
“My plan,” I said, “is to accept the consequences of the mess I made… whatever that means.”
He stared at me for a long, long moment.
And then, very softly, “What about the consequences to everyone else?”
Guilt hit like a sledgehammer blow to my gut.
The staff. The people who’d been here since I was a child, who’d watched me grow up, who’d held this place together while I was in a coma. Lucia and her meals that still somehow tasted like my mother’s cooking. Groundskeepers, housekeepers, mechanics. The foundation my father started. The scholarship fund. The D1 hockey program and team I wanted to build at Stonewood University that might never exist now.
All of it, dangling over Vivian’s waiting claws.
“For what it’s worth,” I said hoarsely, “before you walked in, I was seriously considering signing it all over to the staff as a collective. I would love to find a way to lock it up in a trust she can’t touch.”
His eyebrows shot up.
“You can’t do that without violating the clause. Your father’s lawyers will fight you from all sides.”
“I know.”
“So you’d blow up your legal position just to spite her.”
“If she gets everything,” I said, “she wins. If no one gets anything, she steps into smoke and ashes. Seems fair.”
“Seems childish,” he countered.
“It seems like the only power move I have left.”
“For fuck’s sake, Ben.” The veneer cracked. “You’re too smart to pretend that burning the house down with everyone inside it is a strategy.”
I went quiet. The fire popped behind him.
“You don’t understand,” I said finally, voice low. “I can’t marry anyone but her.”
“Can’t,” he repeated. “Or won’t?”
“Yes to both.”
He gave me a look. I dropped my head into my hands and dragged them over my face.
“I’d rather lose it all,” I said into my palms. “I’d rather hand every penny to Vivian. I’d rather die broke and alone in some shitty apartment than marry anyone but Chrissy Jones.”
