That would pay every hospice bill, wipe out my debt, and give my grandmother comfort for whatever time she had left.
Freedom wasn’t free. Mine sure as hell wasn’t.
I closed my eyes and exhaled, steadying the trembling inside me.
“If winning means she gets to stay where she’s cared for…” I whispered to the empty room, “then it’s worth it.”
Even if the cost was my freedom.
I was stepping into the unknown, and shocked to discover that I wanted it.
God help me… I wanted it.
I wanted the silence. The hunger. The touch of someone who didn’t know my past or need my résumé. I wanted to give in without having to explain myself.
And whatever I had to do to win Stonewood’s Game? So be it.
As I went to shut down the laptop, there was the soft ding of an incoming email. I almost ignored it, but then I remembered that the website had said a contract would be emailed to me. I opened the email app, and stared at the email sitting there for a long minute before I clicked to open it. The attachment took a few seconds to open, and yes, it was a contract.
I hated legal documents… I spent far too much time looking at them at work, so the sight of it made me flinch. But I made myself at least skim through it. There were a bunch of rules, the sort that grated a bit, and some that made no sense – no kissing? – which felt like a really weird rule to impose on grown ass men and women, but whatever. And… ‘must work with your assigned partner when directed, or both fail’, plus ‘no names – you are each to be addressed only by your assigned number, for the duration of the game’. What the hell was that about? Something about giving us all numbers felt a little bit dehumanizing, but I supposed that billionaire recluses could afford to have their quirks. I scanned to the end, and nothing really registered much, so I closed it down. I could read it in detail later.
Sleep didn’t come easy.
I lay awake for most of the night, staring at the ceiling like it might offer answers, then flipping to my side, then my back, then curling in on myself with the covers tangled around my legs and the weight of what I’d agreed to when I hit accept pressing hard against my ribs.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that screen again.
You have one goal: survive the week without failing the only requirement… do not fall in love with the wrong person.
I saw the number, too — $750,000 — burned into the inside of my skull like a neon tattoo.
When morning finally came, it arrived like a dare.
Grey light spilled through the slats of my blinds, pale and dull, the sun hiding behind clouds that looked too heavy to bother with. The kind of Alabama winter day that pierced you with a wet chill.
I dressed in layers. Leggings. A soft thermal. A jacket I hadn’t worn since last February. Just in case.
It was supposed to get colder as the week went on.
I brewed the strongest coffee my tiny machine could manage and drank it standing up, suitcase already waiting by the door. My phone buzzed with notifications I ignored. My calendar reminded me of a call I’d already canceled.
I spent the day watching garbage TV and trying to ignore my nerves until it was finally time for me to leave. I double-checked the address in the card I’d been given, checked the arrival time, grabbed my keys, and walked out the door.
The drive to the Old Stonewood Hunting Lodge this evening would be a short one, and I didn’t know what I’d find at the end of it, but I knew one thing for sure: whatever happened during the course of the Game, I wasn’t coming back the same.
Chapter
Six
BEN
December 11 — 5:41 PM
Old Stonewood Hunting Lodge – West Wing
The lodge wasquiet in the way only old money and older ghosts could make a place quiet.
Not silent — never silent — but cloaked in a suspended stillness, like the lodge’s walls were inhaling and holding their breath, waiting for something to shatter.
