Mei nodded once, like she’d been waiting for that. “Then we should clean this up quickly,” she said. “So no one cuts themselves.” She gave the maid a pointed look. “You can go finish your other tasks. I’ll speak to Henry.”
The maid hesitated.
“Are you… are you really…?”
“If there’s trouble,” I said, straightening up, “it hits me first. Okay?”
Her eyes went shiny again, but this time there was a different emotion in them.
“Thank you,” she whispered, and fled.
As soon as she was gone, my legs gave a little wobble. Jacob’s hand shot out, steadying me by the elbow.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he said, voice low and rough. “You know that, right?”
I looked up at him, at the scar that slashed through his eyebrow, the one that pulled the corner of his mouth just a touch when he was trying not to show what he was feeling.
“If you think I can stand here in this house and watch someone get hurt over a damn vase without saying anything,” I said, “you haven’t been paying attention.”
Something flared in his gaze. Pride. Fear. Something darker threaded through them both.
“He won’t like you interfering,” Jacob said.
My pulse skittered.
“He can add it to the list.”
“Chrissy.” My name left his mouth like a warning. Or a prayer. “You’re putting yourself in his crosshairs on purpose.”
“I’ve been in his crosshairs since my tire blew and I showed up late,” I said. “At least this way I know where he’s aiming, and it’s not at innocent people who don’t deserve it.”
“Mr. Stonewood is the way he is for a reason,” Jacob sighed.
“I don’t care why he is the way he is, I just care that he directs his anger at me and not at that poor maid. She’s been through enough today already, having to deal with Fourteen.”
That wasn’t entirely true. There was still a long list of reasons I hadn’t begun to untangle. Why invite women here at all? Why structure it like a horror movie pretending to be The Bachelor? Why me?
But right now, the only why that mattered was that a girl who made less in a month than my grandmother’s facility charged in a day wasn’t going to be the one paying for a rich man’s temper tantrum.
Mei handed me a small trash bag, her face composed again.
“Be careful,” she said. “The edges can cut you.”
I crouched back down and started collecting the broken pieces, dropping them gently into the bag. The fragments clinked softly against each other. My hands shook just a little.
Every shard I picked up felt like I was digging myself in deeper. Every soft thud into the plastic was another notch on some invisible tally in a powerful man’s head.
Sassed him about the contract. Kissed Jacob. Defended the staff. Offered myself up in the maid’s place.
If Ben Stonewood was the kind of person who saw people as problems to be solved with punishment and reward, I had just painted a bullseye on my own ass in neon paint… again.
Jacob knelt opposite me, helping gather the larger pieces. His fingers brushed mine over one chunk, callused and warm. His eyes met mine, searching, conflicted.
“You really going to tell Henry it was you?” he asked quietly.
“Yeah,” I said. “And if Mr. Stonewood wants someone’s head over it, he can have mine.”
My heart hammered harder just saying it.
