“Chrissy...”
“Yeah, it’s me.” My voice cracked. “Don’t move. Some of your stitches are busted.”
He tried to sit up anyway, wincing as his hand found the towel.
“Alice — she —”
“I know. I walked in on whatever the hell that was.” I helped him lean against the couch, my free hand cupping his jaw to check the temple cut. Blood smeared my fingers, warm and sticky. “Hold still. Keep this towel on your stab wound while I go get the first aid kit.”
I darted to the bathroom, roses brushing my legs like insistent whispers that he was sorry. The kit was filled with bandages, antiseptic, everything mocking me with memories of Henry patching him up before. On my way through the kitchen, I tugged open my junk drawer and pulled out a bottle of super glue, too. Henry had told me you could use super glue to close a wound in a pinch while he worked on Ben after Brett had stabbed him.
Back in the living room, I knelt again, cleaning the cut on his temple first. He hissed but didn’t pull away, blue eyes locking onto mine with that intensity that always unraveled me.
“Why are you here?” I asked, voice tight as I dabbed antiseptic. “And don’t say ‘delivery’. I read the note while you and Alice were arguing.”
His good hand caught my wrist gently, thumb stroking once.
“I did this to show you how much I love you and how sorry I am. The roses... they’re from the lodge garden. Thorns and all. Like me.”
I swallowed hard, the gesture hitting deeper than I wanted.
“It’s beautiful. Overwhelming. But Alice?—”
“She’s wrong,” he rasped. “About everything. You’re not standoffish. You’re strong. And I... I fucked up, Chrissy. But I’m done hiding from my mistakes.”
The towel was soaked, but the blood flow had slowed enough for me to super-glue the wound shut, and reinforce it with butterfly bandages. I covered the area with gauze, taping it tight. Tension hummed between us, his pain, my worry, and the unspoken weight of his gesture.
“Lucia’s really safe?”
“Yes. Henry’s with her. Her husband’s... handled.”
I nodded, relief mingling with the chaos. But his eyes held more, something vulnerable cracking through. “Chrissy, listen. The clause in my father’s trust is ironclad. Vivian wins if I don’t marry by midnight on the twenty-fourth. I could lose everything. Ashgrove. The lodge. All of it.”
My heart stuttered.
“Ben—”
“But I’d let her take it all,” he said fiercely. “If that’s what you want. And the barn... what happened with Brett and Hayden? What I did to protect you? I’d turn myself in and tell the police everything. I’ll face it all and take the consequences if you ask me to. No more secrets. No more lies. No more running.”
The words hung, a sacrifice so raw it stole my breath. He was offering to damn himself for me. He was giving me proof he’d changed, or at least was trying really damn hard to. Tears burned my eyes.
“You’d... why?”
“Because I love you,” he whispered. “Enough to lose it all: my estate, my money, my freedom… even you, if that’s how you think it needs to be.”
The room spun, petals blurring. What the hell was I supposed to say to that?
My throat was so tight I couldn’t say a word, so I just gently tipped his head so I could get a better angle on the cut on his temple.
He complied with my touch, wincing.
“The roses... did you see them before Alice shoved me and it all got wrecked?”
“Yeah, I saw.” I cut him off, dabbing at the temple gash with antiseptic. He hissed, but held still. “They’re beautiful. Overwhelming. But what the hell, Ben? You disappear for days, let me worry myself sick about you, Lucia, and Henry, and then you show up like this? Your staff at Ashgrove turned me away twice, like I was some random nobody off the street. The stuffed-shirt asswipe who answered the door told me he was ‘not at liberty to discuss Mr. Stonewood’s schedule or whereabouts with members of the public’. Do you have any idea how that felt?”
His jaw tightened, eyes darkening.
“He did what now?”
