Chapter 24 – Henry
Chapter
Twenty-Four
HENRY
Chrissy Jones was already freaking the fuck out when Mei backed out of the room.
I knew because the camera caught the exact second her face changed.
The 360 degree lens embedded in the light fixture gave me a perfect view of everything - the bed, the fire burned down to embers, the sheets tangled around two bodies that should never have been there together.
Audio came through clean, her breathing sharp and uneven the moment the door clicked shut.
Her eyes darted to it.
Good girl. She was smarter than she looked.
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
Beside her, Ben was still asleep.
Not Mr. Stonewood. Not the architect of the Game. Just a man… scarred, bare, one arm heavy across her waist like it was already a habit. Like entitlement earned through something softer than fear.
Chrissy’s hands flew to her hair. She pushed herself upright, twisting to look at the door, then the walls, then the ceiling, like she was looking for a way out.
“Jacob,” she hissed.
She shook him harder than was necessary. Panic had stripped the tenderness from her touch.
“Jacob. Wake up. We’ve been caught.”
His eyes snapped open. For half a second, he was still Jacob, confused, warm, and reaching for her on instinct. Then her words landed. I watched him process them and wake fully in real time.
“What?”
His voice was rough with sleep.
“Mei saw us,” Chrissy whispered. “She saw you, saw us together, naked, in my bed. She said she has to report it to Mr. Stonewood.”
Ben responded only with thunderous silence. He pushed up into a sitting position and stared down at his hands, his mind probably scrambling through every possible ramification of last night’s recklessness on his part, and hers.
I leaned back in my chair, fingers steepled, eyes never leaving the screen.
Ben’s face went blank, not with panic or fear. No, that expression was pure calculation.
“Shit,” he muttered, already scanning the room the way he always did when reality intruded. His gaze flicked up to the ceiling light. He found the camera immediately. Of course he did.
“Don’t,” Chrissy said, grabbing his wrist when he started to rise. “Don’t do anything that might get you fired or hurt or worse. Please.”
She was crying now, not pretty tears, not dramatic ones. These tears were the kind that came from knowing you’d just stepped off a cliff and couldn’t see the bottom yet, but it was rushing up to meet you faster than you could possibly imagine.
“I ruined everything,” she whispered. “I was so close. I was so goddamn close.”
Ben swore under his breath, low and vicious. He dragged a hand down his face, fingers digging into his scar like he could scrape the night away.
“This is on me,” he said.
That was new, and dangerous.
“You have to leave,” Chrissy said frantically. “Now. Before—”
“Too late,” he replied flatly.
She shook her head.
“No, no, you don’t understand. If Mr. Stonewood finds out—”
He laughed once, the sound short, sharp, and utterly humorless.
“Oh, he already knows, I’m sure,” Ben said.
Her face crumpled.
Beside my desk, Mei stood perfectly still, tablet clutched to her chest like a shield.
“Do you want me to cut audio?” she asked quietly.
“No,” I said.
Ben reached for Chrissy then, not to touch her intimately, not to pull her close, but to steady her, hands on her arms, grounding and controlled.
“Listen to me,” he said. “Whatever happens next, you keep your mouth shut. You don’t confess. You don’t beg. You don’t explain. Don’t do anything that will give anyone an excuse to hurt you. Maybe there’s a way to salvage things despite how bad this looks.”
“I can’t—”
“You can,” he snapped, then softened immediately. “You have to.”
She nodded, tears streaking down her cheeks.
“I didn’t mean to — I just — you felt so different from him. I needed to know what it was like to be with you, just once, before this was all over.”
That did it.
Ben’s jaw clenched. His hands dropped from her arms like he’d been burned.
I exhaled slowly. That sentence alone could dismantle months of careful psychological architecture.
Ben swung his legs off the bed.
“Get dressed.”
“What?”
“Get dressed,” he repeated. “They’ll come for you first. You’re a contestant. I’m just a groundskeeper. They’ll worry about me later.”
She stared at him, horror dawning.
“They’re not going to—”
“Yes,” he said. “They are going to call you on the carpet for this, and I’m so sorry for that, but if you just throw me under the bus, maybe you can fix things. Maybe, just maybe, you won’t lose everything because I was incapable of staying away from you.”
She sobbed once, sharp and broken, then scrambled for the cashmere sweater and boot cut jeans Mei had left behind for her. Her hands shook so badly she could barely dress.
Ben stood, naked and unashamed, staring up at the camera like he could see me through the lens.
For a long moment, neither of us moved. Then he inclined his head a fraction.
A warning that a shitstorm was likely coming, and promise to do whatever he could to fix last night’s fuck-up.
I turned to Mei.
“Escort Miss Jones to my office,” I said calmly. “House arrest, effective immediately. No contact. No exceptions.”
“And Mr. Stonewood?”
I watched Ben sit back down on the bed, elbows on his knees, head bowed — a man who had just remembered exactly what he was capable of.
“He’ll have to get the fuck out of her room before the other contestants wake. I’m assuming he’ll use the secret passage and go back to the West wing,” I said. “Let him sit with what he’s done, what we all have to pivot from now.”
And Chrissy Jones? She needed to understand just how close she’d come to destroying everything, including the man she’d just slept with.
By the time Chrissy Jones was brought to my office, the house had already been scrubbed back into order.
Beds remade. Cameras recalibrated. Narrative reasserted. Ben Stonewood did not like chaos lingering.
Chrissy stood just inside the doorway, her skin pale and posture tight, dressed in luxurious clothes she could never afford, even on her best day. Her dark eyes flicked once to the security detail stationed behind her, then back to me. She didn’t sit. She didn’t ask to.
Good instincts. Too late, but… good instincts.
“Close the door,” I said.
The click sounded louder than it should have.
I folded my hands on the desk and regarded her for a moment longer than was comfortable. Not to intimidate her — fear was already doing its job without my help — but to let the weight of what she’d done settle fully into her bones.
“I know,” I said calmly, “that Mr. Stonewood told you the night before last that he intended to keep you if you somehow managed to pass all his tests.”
Her breath caught, just slightly, and her cheeks flamed bright pink.
“And yet,” I continued, “you allowed Jacob into your bed last night.”
Her mouth opened, then closed again. Whatever explanation she’d rehearsed died before it could escape. I didn’t give her room to find another.
“I don’t know what Mr. Stonewood is going to do,” I said. That part was true. “But I am told that you are under house arrest effective immediately. You are restricted to your room until he comes to deal with you personally.”
Her hands clenched into tight fists.
“House arrest?” she whispered.
“You’ve done very well in the challenges, Miss Jones,” I went on, my tone almost conversational. “Exceptionally well, considering the circumstances.”
I leaned back slightly in my chair.
“I would hate it for you if you came this far only to fuck it up now.”
Her eyes shone, panic breaking through the composure she’d been clinging to since dawn.
“What… what happens next?” she asked.
I stood, signaling the conversation was over.
“Whatever Mr. Stonewood deems appropriate. Best of luck to you,” I said evenly. “Someone will knock on your door when it’s time for you to put on your blindfold. Mr. Stonewood will speak with you personally about what Mei reported to me this morning.”
The color drained from her face so fast I thought she might faint.
Security stepped forward before she could say anything else. They didn’t touch her — they never had to — just positioned themselves close enough that she understood resistance was pointless.
As they escorted her out, she looked back once.
I remained where I was until the hallway cameras confirmed her return to her room.
The lock engaged with a soft, final sound.
Only then did I allow myself to exhale.
Chrissy Jones had mistaken proximity for permission.
Ben Stonewood would disabuse her of that notion shortly, I was sure, and when he did, there would be nothing left for me to manage except the fallout.
Unless, of course, she broke him first. God help us all if that happened because the last time a Stonewood man fell this hard, it ended with the sole heir in a coma and a fortune’s worth of blood money.
I finished my coffee and waited for the next disaster I’d have to clean up.