Memories flashed uninvited — the sound of his footsteps approaching the bed last night, the slide of his fingers along theelastic of my panties, the way he’d made me cry out with each strike of his hand until I could barely remember my own name.
You take it like a good girl, you get to stay in the game.
Shame flushed hot under my skin. Not at what he’d done. At what my body hadn’t been able to pretend it didn’t want.
“Chrissy.” Jacob’s voice anchored me. “You know what happens when you put yourself between him and something he thinks is his business?”
I tied the top of the trash bag in a hard knot and rose, my legs protesting.
“Yeah,” I said, forcing myself to meet his gaze. “He gets mad and he decides I need to be taught a lesson.”
I swallowed, the back of my neck prickling.
Jacob went eerily quiet, just staring at me as he rose to his full height, towering over me.
“And then he does something about it.”
My words sat heavy between us. Mei’s quiet movements, gathering stray petals and damp cloths, faded into the background. The library — cleaner, brighter, alive again — suddenly felt less like a room and more like a very pretty cage.
Jacob’s jaw flexed and he looked away.
“You don’t have to like it,” he said, so soft I barely heard him. “You don’t have to let him see it if you do.”
Heat slammed through me, low and treacherous. My bruises throbbed in phantom memory. I swallowed again, hard, and forced myself to breathe.
“It doesn’t matter how I feel about it,” I said. “He’s still going to do what he wants.”
Mei looked up then, eyes sharp.
“I will speak to Henry,” she said. “You should finish what you can in here before the bell. There is still work to be done.”
There was always still work to be done. She left with the bag of broken vase, her back very straight. The moment the door clicked shut behind her, Jacob dragged a hand over his face, exhaling slowly.
“You’re going to be the death of me,” he muttered.
“Join the club,” I said weakly.
We finished the last little touches in silence, straightening a chair here, fluffing a pillow there, adjusting the lamp so it cast a warm pool of light over the reading nook by the window. From the doorway, the room looked… cozy and inviting, like someone might walk in any second, shrug out of their coat, and lose themselves for a few hours.
“There,” I said softly. “If this doesn’t win us whatever points he’s giving out today, I don’t know what will.”
Jacob didn’t answer. His gaze wasn’t on the room. It was on the doorway, on the empty space where Mei had just walked out, carrying a bag of evidence and my name. A bell rang somewhere in the house, clear and final.
“Time’s up,” I sighed.
Across the property, all of the women probably dropped paintbrushes and mood boards and fought over whose visionhad been better. I stood in the middle of a resurrected library and felt the countdown start in my bones.
At some point between now and when my head hit the pillow tonight, Henry was going to knock on a door. Or Mr. Stonewood was going to appear like a summoned demon. Someone was going to bring up a broken vase and a maid and ask who should pay for it.
And I had just volunteered.
I curled my fingers into my palms, feeling the cool bite of my ring press into my skin, the ghosts of last night’s punishment burning hot beneath my bruises. Fear slid icy fingers down my spine at the thought of what he might do to me this time. Right behind it, just as awful, came the flicker of something else. Something shameful and needy and hungry that I couldn’t pretend wasn’t there, no matter how hard I tried.
I had no idea how Ben Stonewood would choose to make me pay for opening my big mouth this time, but as I turned toward the door, heart pounding, one terrible truth settled in my chest like a stone.
For the first time since I arrived at this lodge, I wasn’t just afraid of being punished, I was afraid of how much a part of me wanted to find out exactly what he’d do.
Chapter
