Chapter 2 – Ben #2
I flicked on the single lamp near the far wall, its light cutting through the shadows and illuminating the long table Henry had built for me when I first woke up from the coma and came home…
when I couldn’t handle crowds, or noise, or being seen.
Back then, I’d used the west wing to slowly re-learn my own damn name, and the art of being human, or a human-shaped monstrosity, as it was in my case.
Now? Now, it housed a different kind of recovery and a different kind of obsession.
I opened the top drawer and pulled out the folder I’d touched more times than I’d ever admit aloud. It was thick, worn at the corners, and stuffed full of four years’ worth of answers to a question I hadn’t been able to stop asking:
Who is Chrissy Jones?
I flipped the folder open.
A photo of her sat on top, a copy of her employee ID badge from the mediation office in downtown Stonewood.
Her dark brown hair was shorter in it than it had been when we met in the hardware store, and fell in soft waves around her face, curling where it brushed her shoulders.
She wasn’t smiling, just staring straight at the camera with those big, beautiful brown eyes like she was neither afraid of seeing, nor of being seen.
My chest tightened as I thumbed through the rest of the folder, my eyes tracing over information I’d long since memorized.
The folder held four years’ worth of intel, and I flipped through it all.
Her employment history since graduating from Stonewood University.
Certification paperwork showing she’d become a mediator, and a damn good one.
Notes Henry had collected from public hearings she’d participated in.
Complaints she’d filed against employers and angry ex-husbands on behalf of women who’d been too scared to speak up for themselves.
Screenshots of her LinkedIn.
A grainy photo of her hugging Granny Irene outside the hospice.
My throat burned and I swallowed hard.
Chrissy was doing everything alone.
I turned another page, this one cataloging her relationships.
She’d had two casual boyfriends in the past four years. The first lasted for five months. The second didn’t make it past eight weeks.
Both of them were… well… they were weak, to put it simply.
They were the kind of men who wilted and made themselves scarce the second Henry asked them a single, pointed question while they were out drinking with their buddies.
He didn’t even have to make a threat or give them a warning.
All he had to do was have a casual conversation that made them suddenly realize they weren’t ready for a real commitment, and certainly not one with my girl.
It was so fucking easy to buy them off and redirect them. It only cost me a total of fifty thousand dollars, twenty-five thousand dollars each, for them to direct their interests elsewhere.
Why did I do it?
I didn’t do it because I was jealous. I did it because they weren’t worthy of my girl. They wouldn’t have protected her… not the way I will...
They were greedy, pathetic fucking losers. God himself could materialize in this room right now and tell me to leave Chrissy Jones alone, and I’d tell him to go fuck himself because that’s never going to happen.
Chrissy deserved fire, strength, and someone who wouldn’t cut and run at the first sign of difficulty.
She deserved someone who would walk through hell for her without a second thought.
I kept flipping, scanning the section that chronicled her family dynamics.
A printed transcript of her ongoing group text with her parents made me snarl.
Her parents insisted that Granny Irene should be brought home so they wouldn’t have to pay hospice bills.
Chrissy hated that idea, insisting that Granny Irene get the best care she could afford, and insisted on paying for it herself, if that was what it took.
Her mother accused Chrissy of being dramatic, too sentimental, and financially irresponsible.
Her father said: She’s dying anyway. Why are you wasting money to drag that process out?
My jaw locked so tight it hurt.
Chrissy had paid every single hospice bill all by herself. She had taken extra shifts at work to cover the shortfalls and kept her grandmother fed, warm, cared for, and safe.
And she did it without help or thanks or praise, all without a single complaint.
I pressed a hand to the folder, steadying myself as a familiar ache curled through my chest.
She wasn’t doing all that because she had to. No, she was doing it because she loved fiercely and quietly and without asking for anything in return.
Chrissy Jones wasn’t the kind of woman you dated for eight weeks and let go of when an admittedly unhinged billionaire offered you twenty-five thousand dollars to get the fuck out of her life. She was the kind of woman you built a life around… if she’d let you.
I exhaled slowly, my breath fogging the cold air as I thought over the proposed prize for the Game.
I slid the old draft of Henry’s ‘enrichment retreat’ idea out of the folder and shoved it aside. It was too soft, too subtle, and far too easy to walk away from.
Chrissy Jones wasn’t the kind of woman who took charity. She wasn’t the kind of woman who reached for comfort, and she damn sure wasn’t the kind of woman who ever thought to put herself first.
But she would put down her metaphorical sword and pick up a pen if the terms you put in front of her could save her Granny Irene.
Her hands would shake the whole time, she’d chew her lip raw, and she’d probably hesitate, but she’d sign in the end because Chrissy always chooses love over fear, and taking care of others before she ever stops long enough to worry about herself.
I opened the newer draft that Henry and I had argued over for months. It was simple, blunt, and entirely unforgiving.
Prize for winning The Game: $750,000 to be delivered in cash, cashier’s check, or trust allocation immediately upon completion of all Final Round requirements.
That would be more than enough to pay for every overdue hospice bill, the next year of Granny Irene’s care, and all of Chrissy’s own outstanding debts. It would give her three things I was fairly certain she’d never had before: breathing room, safety, and financial freedom.
And more importantly? It was more than enough to make anyone in her position feel like they had no choice but to try their damndest to win it.
My father had wanted me married when he’d written that godforsaken clause, but he hadn’t specified how the marriage had to happen, and he hadn’t specified who I had to marry.
And Chrissy? Chrissy was the only woman in this entire godforsaken world I’d ever felt anything for that wasn’t hollow or forced.
She was the only one besides Henry who’d made me feel like I wasn’t a monster after my accident, the only one who made me breathe deeper, the only one who made me want something badly enough to lie, cheat, or steal to obtain it.
I turned the page.
Mandatory Contractual Clause:
“The winner of The Game agrees to enter into legal marriage with Benjamin Stonewood within seventy-two hours of competition completion. The marriage must be maintained for a minimum duration of five (5) years. If the marriage is annulled, abandoned, or dissolved prior to the five-year mark, the winner agrees to repay the prize money in full, plus interest accruing at 12% per annum.”
My signature was already on the bottom.
Henry’s was next to it as a witness.
My father’s estate lawyers had drawn it up, so I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was airtight.
Even Chrissy’s mother wouldn’t be able to argue a way out of this contract for Chrissy.
And Christ, the woman would probably try her damndest to do it. She’d probably try to claw the prize money out of Chrissy’s hands before the ink on the contract was even dry.
But once Chrissy signed? She’d be mine, and I’d do everything in my power to keep her.
My girl would finally be protected, stabilized, and damn well secured. And her Granny Irene would never want for anything for the rest of her days.
I ran my thumb slowly along the edge of the contract.
Henry thought the clause was heavy-handed. He wasn’t wrong, but this wasn’t a proposal. This wasn’t some sappy romance movie playing out in real life.
No… this was the intersection of strategy and necessity. This was a family legacy tied to duty and death and the cold, incessant ticking of a clock I couldn’t outrun, even if I tried.
This was the only way I would ever get my hands on the woman who’d undone me with alcohol wipes and a steady voice telling me to sit my ass down so she could bandage my injured hand.
This was survival, desire, and fate, all colliding in one big, unstoppable train wreck.
I was going to marry Chrissy Jones whether she realized it yet or not, and she was going to walk into that marriage willingly, believing it was her choice… believing she was fighting for her grandmother’s quality of life, for however long she had left to live.
I closed the contract slowly, letting the pages fall together with a soft slap.
Henry didn’t understand. He didn’t know what it felt like to stand in a hardware store with blood dripping down your hand and have the first woman in years look at you without flinching.
The man had absolutely no idea what it had meant to me when her eyes had softened instead of going wide and horrified like everyone else’s.
Henry had no concept of how her voice had wrapped around my ribs and squeezed until something in me cracked wide open.
But I did.
And I would do anything and everything I could to keep her in my world.
Even this, tricking her into marrying me, binding her to me forever with a contract she would rationalize as a lifeline.
Because for her? It would be exactly that.
And for me? It would be the first breath of air after years of drowning in a desolate need I had no idea how to fill… until now.
I tucked an invitation to the Game and the contract into the inner pocket of the certified mail delivery service hoodie Henry kept on hand for ‘emergencies.’
This was definitely an emergency, and Chrissy Jones’ desk at the mediation office was about to become the place where destiny and manipulation shook hands.
I stepped out of the west wing, hood up, contract in hand, and walked into the cold Baldwin County rain like the devil heading for a deal only he understood.
“I’m coming for you, baby,” I murmured, my voice dropping into a dark, unsteady cadence. “And you’re going to say yes.”