Images flashed behind the blindfold, my hand on Jacob’s arm when I begged him not to leave me alone yet, the way he’d crowded me back against the wall and lowered his mouth to mine when I’d begged for just one kiss. The sound he’d made when I’d dragged my fingers through his hair. The way my body had leaned into his like it had been waiting four long years to do it.
The rules echoed in my mind again. I had definitely violated the no kissing rule.
My throat burned.
If I told the truth, it would be game over for me, and whatever ‘cost’ Jacob was already facing would get so much worse. But if I risked lying, and Mr. Stonewood really could tell, I would beeliminated, and Jacob would lose his job. There were no good options.
Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Bayview Hospice. Balance due.
“Miss Jones,” he said softly. “I’m waiting.”
Chapter
Fourteen
CHRISSY
I forcedair into my lungs and hoped deflection would work.
“He… helped me today,” I said. “On the road. In the foyer. He carried my suitcase, walked me to my room, and made sure I understood I was on probation.”
“That wasn’t my question,” he murmured, his lips grazing the shell of my ear through the blindfold.
Heat pooled low in my core and my pulse stuttered in response.
“Did Jacob touch you,” he repeated, “in a way that broke my rules?”
My nails bit into my palms.
Something inside me wanted to protect Jacob at all costs, but something about lying to the man who might become my husband didn’t sit right with me. I licked my lips and spoke, hoping the gamble I was about to take would work.
“We were alone,” I said, choosing each word like it might explode. “I was upset. He… was kind. He made sure I understood what was at stake, but he didn’t do anything thatfelt… wrong. I’m the one who touched him, sir, not the other way around. I kissed him because I wanted just one thing for myself before I signed my life away to you. It was reckless and insane of me, I know. But, to be clear, Jacob didn’t instigate anything. If you throw me out of the game for what I did, then so be it, but please… don’t take it out on Jacob. None of this is his fault. It was all me, and I should bear the full weight of the consequences alone.”
Silence stretched long enough that I wondered if I’d just hanged both of us.
Finally, he exhaled, the sound brushing the edge of something like a laugh.
“Interesting,” he said. “I expected you to lie to me, Miss Jones.”
Ice sluiced through my veins.
“But,” he continued, “you’re loyal. You protected the man who put himself between you and elimination, even when you thought it might cost you everything.”
His fingers brushed the blindfold at my temple, just once, like he was tempted to rip it off and see what that loyalty looked like in my eyes.
“That matters to me,” he said.
My shoulders sagged, just a fraction.
“So I can stay?” I whispered.
“For now,” he said. “I’m not finished with you yet.”
The relief was sharp enough to hurt, but it only lasted for half a second.
“Understand something, little doll,” he went on, voice dropping lower and colder. “You were late. You fraternized with my staff. You became the center of a scene at my table on the first night of the Game. You kissed my groundskeeper when one of the basic rules of the game is ‘no kissing’, for fuck’s sake.”
“None of that was?—”
