Instead, it felt like a very pretty trap.
We veered right this time, instead of gathering in the main foyer like we had last night. The east sitting room lived up to its name, all soft upholstered furniture, pale blue walls, and tall windows overlooking a stretch of winter-brown woods and gray sky. A fire crackled in the huge stone hearth, but it still didn’t cut all the cold. The air carried that same damp bite as outside.
What stole everyone’s breath, though, wasn’t the fireplace or the view, it was the table in the middle of the room.
A long antique table ran nearly the full length of the room, draped with white linen and lined with rows upon rows of ring boxes. Hundreds of them, it felt like, each one opened to display something sparkling inside. Diamonds. Sapphires. Rubies. Gold bands crusted with stones so big they almost looked fake.
Even from a distance, the wealth on that table buzzed like a live wire.
I swallowed, my throat tight. My whole life could change drastically if I sold just one of the rings sitting on that damn table. It could cover Granny’s care, not to mention the debt I had that never seemed to shrink no matter how many bills I paid. With the money from selling just one of those obscenely opulent rings, I could become a version of myself that didn’t have towatch every dollar and wonder what would happen when my money and my luck both finally ran out.
“Ladies,” Henry said, his voice smooth as he stepped in front of the table. “Welcome to your first official challenge of the Game.”
The room quieted instantly. A few of the women straightened their spines like their posture could make them more deserving, somehow.
“As you know,” he continued, “our host is searching for more than surface-level attraction. He’s looking for a partner. A wife. Someone who understands that marriage is both a promise and a choice.” He gestured toward the array of rings. “Today is about that choice.”
My palms grew damp and I scrubbed the clamminess off on the skirt of my dress.
“In a few minutes, your partners will join us.” The potential Bens, and Jacob, too. My heart stuttered at the thought. “But first, each of you is going to step forward and select a ring from this table. Any ring you want. Later today, your partner will propose to you with the ring you chose.”
A hush swept through the room, electric and almost greedy.
My stomach swooped.
A proposal? I hadn’t let myself think that far ahead. I’d been stuck on the number — seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars — and the most important rule.
Don’t fall in love with the wrong person.
Henry clasped his hands behind his back.
“Choose wisely. What you pick will say as much about you as your answer to your partner’s proposal does.”
He stepped aside.
For a heartbeat, no one moved. Then one of the women — Number Ten, tall and sleek and made of sharp perfume and sharper cheekbones — stepped forward with the confidence of someone who’d never questioned whether she deserved nice things.
“After you,” one of the others muttered, sarcasm curling the edges of her voice.
Ten pretended not to hear. She prowled along the table, glossy hair swinging, pausing thoughtfully over each ring like she was contemplating a business acquisition. She finally plucked up a massive pear-cut diamond flanked by two smaller stones and held it up for everyone to see, her smile bright and victorious.
Of course.
That seemed to break the spell. The room dissolved into motion as the other women surged forward, voices rising in overlapping commentary.
“Oh my God, look at this one?—”
“I need at least three carats, minimum?—”
“Is that a pink diamond?”
I stayed where I was, fingers tightening on the back of the nearest armchair. My chest felt like an iron band had wrapped around it and someone was ratcheting it tighter and tighter around me with each breath I took. There were so many fuckingrings… so much money glittering under the light from the tall windows and the crystal chandelier.
Granny Irene’s laugh floated through my mind, the good version of her, the one from before Alzheimer’s chewed holes in her memories.
It’s not the stone that matters, baby girl. It’s the hand that puts it on you.
My throat burned.
