Chapter 10 – Chrissy
Chapter
Ten
CHRISSY
The knock came just as I finished talking myself out of leaving, regardless of what Mr. Stonewood decided.
Three sharp raps sounded on the door, polite but precise.
“Miss Jones?” A feminine voice called out, and a key scraped in the lock, un-locking my door with a faint click.
I flinched, even though the knock meant I was being allowed to stay for dinner, at the very least.
My reflection in the mirror looked like someone else. The green dress was smoothed down over my hips, hair brushed out and twisted back from my face, lip gloss washed off and replaced with a subtle nude pink lipstick after the forbidden kiss I’d shared with a man I barely knew.
Not only that, but a man I wasn’t supposed to touch… a man I’d asked to kiss me like it was the last night of my life, or at least life as I knew it.
I swallowed and opened the door.
“Yes?”
The maid from earlier stood there, her dark eyes carefully blank, hands folded around a small leather folder pressed to her apron.
“Mr. Stonewood has reviewed the footage from your arrival,” she said. “He has decided to allow you to attend dinner this evening. However, I must inform you that you are on probation.”
Probation?
The word sluiced through my veins like ice.
“I must also offer you a warning, I’m afraid. One more misstep,” she continued, “and you will be escorted off the property immediately. Do you understand?”
I curled my fingers into my palms behind my back, nails digging into skin.
“Yes, of course,” I said. “I understand.”
Her gaze flicked over my shoulder, doing a quick scan of the room behind me, from where my suitcase sat mostly unpacked, to the still-made bed, to the wardrobe yawning open with one green dress missing.
“Dinner begins at seven-thirty,” she said. “If you’re ready, I’ll escort you to the dining room.”
She stepped back and I grabbed my heels from the floor beside the bed and slipped them on in the doorway, pulse thudding in my ears.
One more misstep and I’m done. No prize. No money. No chance to give Granny Irene anything more than the bare minimum I could manage on my paycheck and a miracle.
And Jacob—
I cut that thought off at the knees before it could get its hands around my throat.
He told me not to touch him, told me if anyone found out, I’d be out and God only knows what Mr. Stonewood might do to punish him. And what did I do? I touched him anyway, like some kind of unhinged idiot.
Worse, I’d told him that I’d wanted to kiss him for four years, even though we only met that one time at the hardware store when I bandaged up his cut hand.
The maid smoothed her perfectly coiffed black hair and set off down the hallway. I followed, the soft thud of my heels swallowed by the old wood and thick runners. The guest wing smelled like furniture polish and wood-burning fireplaces, something warm threaded through the cold.
I smoothed my palms down the skirt again. It was a nervous habit I couldn’t seem to quell. I was trying very hard to keep my hands busy, so I didn’t stop and throw up.
“You look lovely, Miss Jones,” the maid said quietly as we turned down a narrower corridor.
“Thank you,” I managed.
The lodge unfolded around us in pieces: the hush of side halls, the glow of sconces, the distant hum of conversation. Somewhere, dishes clinked. A door shut. A woman laughed too loudly and cut herself off mid-giggle.
We reached a pair of tall double doors. The maid touched my elbow in a tiny, grounding gesture and offered me a reassuring smile that made her almond-shaped eyes crinkle at the corners.
“Take a breath,” she murmured. “Then go in.”
Easy for you to say, I thought.
I inhaled and forced a smile anyway.
“Thank you.”
Then, the doors swung open as if someone had been notified of my arrival.
I stepped inside and paused. The dining room looked like something out of a magazine spread in Stonewood Living: Where Gothic Meets Rustic, With a Side of Old Money.
The long table with the perfectly white starched tablecloth was intimidating enough all by itself.
When you added in the real, lit candles in heavy silver sticks and crystal glasses catching the light, throwing it back in prismatic shards, it evoked the feeling of dining with royalty.
The walls were a deep, saturated green, the wainscoting’s paneling dark and polished.
Faces turned toward me as I stepped forward, and I froze.
There were nine men at the table, and eight women.
All nine men wore matching black domino masks, and each one could almost pass for the others…
except Jacob. Their suits and tuxes varied, their builds and jawlines similar enough that if you squinted, any of them could be the mysterious, reclusive billionaire.
That was the point of the game, for the nine female contestants to take our respective shots at figuring out which one of them was really him.
Ben Stonewood.
For one of us, and only one, Ben Stonewood would marry the woman who passed all his tests and trials and correctly identified him… if any of us could manage to do so.
I told myself not to look at Jacob, terrified that my face might give away what we’d done earlier in my room, terrified that Henry or the real Ben, whoever he was, might read some micro-expression on my face and throw me out on my ass. My gaze went where it wanted anyway.
Third chair in on the left side of the table, a small, gold number seven pinned discreetly to the lapel of his jacket. The tux didn’t quite fit across the shoulders. The mask cut across his cheekbones and left the scarring on his cheek and jaw exposed, pale and raised in the candlelight.
Jacob.
He was already standing, like he’d been waiting for me, and strode around from the men’s side of the table to my empty chair, directly across from his on the women’s side of the table, third chair in.
His eyes met mine from behind the mask, and the black domino framing them made the blue of his eyes seem darker and more turbulent than usual… but not quite as dark as they were after our kiss earlier.
The magnetic pull I felt toward him hit me so hard I almost stumbled.
That same low, hot twist that had hit me on the road when he stepped out of the truck burned through my core now.
The heat spread and pooled lower as I thought about earlier, in my bedroom when he caged me against the wall and kissed me.
The moment was burned into me forever. I’d felt his mouth on mine and thought, ‘This is it, this is the last time I get to be selfish and choose anything just for me’.
He didn’t say my name. He didn’t have to, and should probably stick to calling me by my number anyway, but his fingers brushed the back of my chair as he pulled it out for me.
His gaze flicked to the gold pendant around my neck with my number on it.
Every female contestant had one that matched mine, each with our number emblazoned on it for all to see.
“Number eighteen,” he said quietly.
The way he said it made my knees go weak, like it was a title instead of a placeholder.
“Thank you, Ja — I mean number seven,” I managed, sinking into the seat.
He slid the chair in for me, his hand a warm, brief weight on the back of my neck.
Remember the rules! No fraternizing with the help, my mind screamed at me in warning, but something inside me rebelled at the thought of rejecting Jacob’s comforting touch.
I folded my napkin into my lap before I could do something stupid like reach for him and take his hand, the rules be damned.
The other women, numbers ten through seventeen, watched me openly and with undisguised scrutiny. All of them were breathtakingly beautiful in slightly different ways. Glossy hair, expensive perfume, the kind of dresses that didn’t come from clearance racks.
Some of them smiled at me like they couldn’t wait to cut my legs out from under me. Some flicked quick looks at Jacob, then at me, then away.
I swallowed hard and forced myself to look anywhere but at him.
If I was going to survive this, I needed to understand the battlefield, the rules, the competition, and the men… especially the men.
My gaze drifted down the women’s side of the table, counting pendants, matching faces to the numbers I’d only seen written on the welcome packet that had been on the desk in my room.
One by one, I let myself look at the opposite side — at the men paired with them — each of them masked, each broad-shouldered and blue-eyed and black-haired, each of them a possibility.
Any one of them could be Ben Stonewood. That was the point.
Number ten sat furthest down from me, tall and sculpted and terrifyingly put together.
The sleek line of her icy-blonde bob didn’t dare frizz under the humidity.
Her partner, the man marked number three, lounged across from her with effortless confidence, fingers curled loosely around his water glass like he was born knowing how to behave at tables like this.
Number eleven was impossible to ignore, all red hair and curves and bombshell energy.
She gave a sultry little smile every time the man across from her, number six, so much as breathed.
He barely reacted, his jaw clenched like maybe he thought all of this was somehow beneath him.
His mask hid half his face, but nothing could hide the fact that he was ridiculously handsome. They all were.
Number twelve sat with perfect posture, the gold pendant with her number resting against a silk blouse that probably cost more than my rent.
Her matching partner, number one, looked as if he’d been carved from marble: structured, polished, a man who knew how to command a room without speaking.
She seemed like the type who’d guess the truth of who the real Ben was by sheer force of will alone.
Number thirteen? I clocked her pageant princess energy from a mile away.
Big smile, bright eyes, blonde curls. She seemed like the kind of woman who grew up winning everything she entered.
Her partner, number nine, was the ‘boy-next-door grows up to be sinfully hot’ type, all dimples and charm peeking beneath his mask. They looked disgustingly compatible.
Number fourteen looked like she could break someone’s jaw with one kick, no exaggeration.
She wore her gold number like a warning sign.
And she wasn’t looking at her partner, number four, so much as studying him like she intended to size up every weakness he had.
If he was Ben Stonewood, she looked ready to drag him to the altar by force.
Number fifteen made me feel like I should’ve spent more time practicing standing up straight.
She was all soft elegance, with her dark hair twisted into a ballet knot, a long neck, delicate wrists, and a dress that floated around her when she moved.
Number five didn’t take his eyes off her for a second, and I couldn’t tell if he was nervous or captivated.
Number sixteen looked like the kind of woman you’d see in a charity gala brochure, with glowing skin, perfect chestnut curls, and pearls that were definitely real hanging around her neck.
Her partner, number eight, radiated confidence, leaning back like he knew exactly how good he looked in his tux.
Every woman in the room kept half an eye on him.
And then there was number seventeen, all black hair and red lipstick.
She seemed the kind of quiet that suggested she wasn’t really quiet at all, but was just waiting for the right moment to strike.
Her gaze flicked to the man across from her, number two, then back to me like she was mentally sorting us into categories she’d already invented.
Every pair looked… right, balanced, and intentional.
Every pair except mine.
My partner — number seven, Jacob — wasn’t sitting across from me yet.
He was still behind me, close enough that the warmth of his hand on the back of my neck felt like it lingered even after he’d stepped away, close enough that I felt him move before I saw him stride around the table and sink back into his seat across from mine.
I dragged my eyes back to the men’s side of the table, letting myself look at the strangers again.
Any one of them could be the real Ben Stonewood. Except Jacob… right?