Chapter 17 – Chrissy
Chapter
Seventeen
CHRISSY
His gaze found me across the room like maybe he felt the same magnetic pull between us I’d felt at dinner last night. Heat shot through my chest, embarrassing in its intensity. I swallowed and looked away fast, focusing on the velvet box in my hands like it held answers.
“Gentlemen,” Henry said, “please step forward and collect the ring your lady has chosen.”
The men moved, each one approaching the woman they’d been paired with. Jacob’s footsteps on the hardwood sounded louder in my ears than anyone else’s.
When I looked up again, he was there, right in front of me.
Up close, the scars were even more stark, twisting one side of his face into something the world might call monstrous. His eyes ruined that effect. They were blue and soft and dark and painfully aware.
“May I?” he asked, nodding toward the box in my hands.
My fingers didn’t want to let it go, but I handed it over anyway.
His thumb brushed mine as he took it and electricity shot up my arm.
Jacob opened the box with careful fingers. When he saw the ring inside, something flickered across his face, perhaps a flash of startled recognition, which he quickly smoothed away.
I couldn’t help the question that tumbled out of me.
“Do you… not like it?” I whispered.
His gaze snapped back to mine, and for a heartbeat, the whole world narrowed to the space between us and nothing else.
“I like it,” he said quietly. “More than you know.”
My pulse stumbled.
Henry’s voice boomed again.
“When I call your number, you and your partner will step into the center and proceed with the proposal. Remember, ladies… your answer matters.”
He started reading off numbers. Ten went first, of course. She strutted to the center of the rug on stilettos that could pierce armor, her partner dropping to one knee with a practiced grin. His speech sounded like it had been written by a PR team.
Half the room swooned.
The second he stopped speaking, I couldn’t remember a word of what he’d said because all I could think about was the ring in Jacob’s hand and the way my stomach churned at the idea of him kneeling in front of me.
“Eighteen.”
My number echoed through the sitting room like a verdict.
I froze.
Jacob inclined his head toward the center of the rug.
“That’s us, angel,” he murmured.
Somehow, my feet carried me forward despite the surreal out-of-body-experience feeling the moment was giving me.
We stopped in the center of the room. I heard whispers ripple around us.
“That’s the groundskeeper, right?”
“Are they allowed to use staff for this?”
“He’s… oh my God, look at his face…”
My cheeks burned. Not from shame for him, but from fury on his behalf. I wanted to spin around and tell them all to shut the fuck up.
Jacob didn’t flinch.
He lowered himself to one knee in front of me like it wasn’t a humiliation. Like it was the easiest thing in the world to kneel there, in front of a room full of vipers, and look up at me like I was the only person who mattered.
My lungs forgot how to work.
He cradled the velvet box in his palm, thumb tapping once against its edge like he had to steady himself. Then he opened it, revealing the simple silver band and green stone to the entire room.
It looked smaller from that angle. Humble. Out of place among all the glitz, like someone had dropped a memory on a table full of price tags.
His gaze lifted, locking with mine.
“Eighteen,” he said. My number sounded different in his mouth… soft and reverent. “I don’t have much to offer you.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. He was a man with scars and calloused hands and a job that probably barely paid enough to live on.
Don’t fall in love with the wrong person, Chrissy.
“I don’t have money,” he continued, voice low. “I don’t have a fancy title or a famous name. I can’t promise you mansions or private jets or a life where you never have to think about your bank account again. I can’t give you the kind of life Mr. Stonewood promises to give his future bride.”
God, it hurt to hear that, because I wanted him despite everything that had happened since I arrived, but I couldn’t afford to fall in love with the wrong person.
Part of me suspected it was too late and I was too far gone for that already, and the punishment I’d suffered last night to remain in the game was all for nothing because, whether he was a pauper or a billionaire like Mr. Stonewood, if he’d had all those things, or not a single penny to his name, the answer I wanted to give him would’ve still been the same, no matter what.
That was the problem.
He drew in a breath like it cost him something to keep going.
“What I can promise you is this. If you choose me, you’ll never have to carry your burdens alone again.
I’ll stand between you and the worst of the world for as long as I’m breathing.
I’ll fix what I can and sit with you in what I can’t.
I’ll make sure you always have a place that feels like home, even on the worst days. ”
His hand shook just slightly as he removed the ring from the box.
“I can’t offer you wealth,” he said, “but I can offer you myself. My hands. My heart. My protection. Not just during this Game, but for as long as you’ll have me. So, Eighteen…” His lips quirked the tiniest bit. “Will you marry me?”
Something in my chest cracked open.
This wasn’t the slick, careful speech of an actor trying to impress an audience. This wasn’t some rich boy playing at romance. He looked up at me like he meant every word down to the marrow.
The rule screamed in the back of my mind again.
Don’t fall in love with the wrong person.
I thought of Granny in her too-bright room that smelled like bleach and lemon cleaner. Of the invoices stacked on my kitchen table. Of the way my bank account balance made my stomach knot every time I checked it.
I thought of Jacob, standing in the road in the freezing dark last night, changing my tire with steady hands and soft eyes. Of how he’d remembered me from the hardware store four years ago when I’d patched up his bleeding hand and sarcastically told him I was a unicorn.
Thoughts of Mr. Stonewood tried to intrude, thoughts of how, blindfolded and scared, I’d never felt more free than I had when I gave up control to the mysterious stranger last night. I shoved them away.
I thought of how safe I felt with each of them, in different ways, and how dangerous that safety had become.
It would be so much easier if I could shrug and laugh and treat this like a game. If I could pick some huge ridiculous ring and play along like everyone else… but that wasn’t who I was.
My throat worked around words that didn’t want to come out.
“Yes,” I whispered.
Jacob’s brows drew together.
“What was that?”
His voice was softer now, meant only for me.
I swallowed hard and forced myself to speak clearly, to own the choice instead of hiding from it.
“Yes,” I said, louder this time. “If this were a real proposal… if any of this were real… I would marry you in a heartbeat, Seven.”
Silence crashed over the room like a wave.
Then, from somewhere to my right, someone scoffed.
“Oh, please,” a female voice snapped. “I don’t care how sappy that was. I would never marry a man who looks like that.”
The words sliced through the moment like a knife.
I jerked my head toward the sound. Number Eleven stood there, clutching a ring that could probably blind someone in direct sunlight, her lip curled in blatant disgust as she looked at Jacob.
Rage flared hot and instant in my gut.
“Then it’s a good thing he’s not proposing to you, isn’t it,” I growled before I could stop myself.
Her head whipped toward me, eyes narrowing.
Across the room, Henry’s expression cooled by about twenty degrees.
“Number Eleven,” he said, voice no longer warm. “You will return your ring to the table and collect your belongings from your room. You and your partner are eliminated from the Game.”
“What?” she sputtered. “For having standards?”
“For assaulting the dignity of a man who volunteered to help this game continue as it should,” he said flatly. “And for revealing that you are exactly the kind of viciously shallow woman our host does not want to marry.”
Her partner shifted uncomfortably beside her, color rising in his cheeks. She opened her mouth like she was going to argue, but the look Henry gave her shut it fast. She all but flung the ring onto the table and stalked toward the door, muttering under her breath.
A low buzz of whispers rose and fell again.
I looked back at Jacob.
His gaze was still fixed on my face, like none of the rest of it mattered. Slowly, carefully, he reached for my left hand.
“May I?” he asked.
I nodded, unable to find my voice.
He slid the ring onto my finger.
It wasn’t a perfect fit — just a hair loose — but I didn’t think it would accidentally slide off. Something about it felt right, like the ring was waiting for me to grow into it, somehow.
Heat crawled up my neck, spreading across my cheeks. My heart beat so hard I was surprised that no one could hear it.
“Thank you,” Jacob murmured, his thumb brushing over my knuckles in a brief, grounding stroke. “For your answer.”
He rose to his feet with the easy grace of someone whose body had already survived worse than kneeling on hardwood floors.
For a second, we stood too close, and I was intensely aware of his scars, my racing pulse, and the weight of the ring sitting on my hand like a promise I had no business making.
Henry cleared his throat.
“Thank you, Number Eighteen and your partner. You may return to your place.”
We stepped back together, side by side. I kept my gaze on the fireplace, because if I looked at Jacob again, everyone was going to see too much.
The rest of the proposals blurred into white noise. More grand speeches. More oohs and ahhs. More dazzling stones held up for judgment.
None of it mattered.
All I could feel was the ring on my finger, light and sure. All I could hear was Jacob’s voice in my head.
If you choose me, you’ll never have to carry your burdens alone again.
I’d told myself when I signed up for this that the Game was just that… a game. A twisted, high-stakes reality show, only with no film crew and better catering. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t confuse any of this with real life.
But when Henry finally dismissed us and the contestants began to file out, chattering in tight little circles, my chest ached with the knowledge that somewhere along the line, the rules had shifted.
At least for me.
“Chrissy.”
His voice — warm, low, familiar — brushed over my nerves like a hand. I turned.
Jacob stood a few feet away, hands tucked into his pockets now, shoulders slightly hunched like he was trying to make himself smaller again. His eyes flicked from my face to my hand and back.
“Can I walk you back to your room?” he asked.
I should’ve said no. I should’ve put distance between us, both for the sake of my heart and for the stupid glowing rule in my head.
Instead, I nodded.
“Yeah. Okay.”
We fell into step, together in the hallway, the sounds of the other contestants fading behind us. The quiet here felt different. It was thicker and charged like the air before a thunderstorm breaks.
I toyed with the hem of my sleeve, then with the ring, thumb circling the smooth band over and over.
“That speech,” I said finally, because silence had become dangerous. “Was that… part of the script they gave you?”
He huffed out something that was almost a laugh.
“No.”
I swallowed.
“So you just… came up with it.”
“Something like that.” He glanced at me from the corner of his eye. “Did I say anything wrong?”
The question was so earnest it hurt.
“No,” I said softly. “That’s the problem.”
He slowed as we reached my door. The brass number on it gleamed in the dim hallway light. My hand shook a little as I reached for the knob. He saw. Of course he saw.
“Chrissy,” he said quietly.
I looked up.
If I wasn’t careful, I could drown in the way he was looking at me.
“You know this is still a Game, right?” he asked. The words sounded like they cost him something. “None of it is… binding. Not yet, anyway.”
I let out a rough breath that wasn’t quite a laugh.
“Tell that to my nervous system.”
A corner of his mouth twitched.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not,” I said, but there wasn’t heat in it. Just tired honesty. “But thank you for saying it anyway.”
His gaze dropped again to my hand. Slowly, he curled his fingers like he was resisting the urge to reach out and touch the ring again.
“Get some rest,” he said. “There’ll be another challenge tomorrow.”
“Like today’s wasn’t enough?”
His expression turned wry.
“Something tells me the hardest ones are still coming.”
A shiver crawled down my spine that had nothing to do with the cold.
“Goodnight, Jacob,” I whispered.
“Goodnight, Chrissy.”
I slipped into my room and closed the door before I could say or do something even stupider, like ask him to stay.
The quiet pressed in around me. The air smelled faintly like the lodge’s cleaning products and my own soft, rosy perfume. I leaned back against the door and stared down at my hand.
The ring caught the low lamplight, the green stone glowing like its own little secret.
If this were real… I would marry you.
I’d said that. Out loud. In front of everyone.
My stomach flipped.
“You’re an idiot,” I muttered at myself, pushing away from the door. “You came here to win money, not catch feelings.”
Still, I couldn’t bring myself to take the ring off. Not yet.
I crossed to the bed, planning to flop down face-first and scream into the pillow until I felt less like I’d just signed my own emotional death warrant. The sight of something resting dead center on the duvet stopped me cold.
A black strip of silk.
A blindfold.
Beside it, a cream-colored card with my number — 18 — inked in elegant script.
My heart stuttered. I picked up the card with careful fingers and flipped it over.
One command stared back at me in precise handwriting.
Tonight at 10:00 PM you will put on the blindfold, sit on the edge of the bed, and wait for me.
The ring on my finger seemed to pulse in time with my racing heart.
For a second, I just stood there, caught between the weight of the rule in my skull and the echo of Jacob’s voice in my chest.
If last night had been a test… whatever came next was going to be so much worse.
I set the card down, the edges of it trembling between my fingers, and reached for the silk.
And for the first time since I arrived at the lodge, I realized something with bone-deep certainty.
I wasn’t sure if I was more afraid of failing the Game… or of what would happen to me if I passed.