Chapter 28 – Ben
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
BEN
I surfaced from the dark oblivion of unconsciousness like I was crawling out of a frozen grave. My eyelids were so heavy I didn’t bother trying to open them at first. The first thing I registered was the ache in my side, where Brett had stabbed me.
Pain dragged low on my ribs, dull and stitched tight, tugging every time I breathed too deep.
With monumental effort, I forced my eyes open.
I was in my bedroom in the west wing, greeted by the familiar slant of the ceiling beams, the heavy pine scent of the old wood, and the faint crackle of the fire Henry must have kept going.
Someone — Henry, if I had to guess — had bandaged my side with clean gauze pulled from the medical kit he always kept stocked and ready.
The man was nothing if not prepared at all times; he’d had full trauma supplies on hand since the day I came home from the hospital.
The scent of fresh antiseptic hit my nose like a slap.
It smelled exactly like the hospital back when I woke up from the coma.
I squeezed my eyes shut. My heart stuttered, then pounded hard against the stitches.
Air felt suddenly thin, impossible. Chest tightening, ribs locking, the old terror clawing up—
I’m trapped again, can’t breathe, can’t move, they’re going to let me die…
I tried to gasp, tried to fight it, but the morphine Henry had shot into my vein while I was out wrapped everything in thick, dreamy syrup.
Memories crashed into me without mercy: the hiss of the ventilator, the endless beeping, the tube choking my throat, the black nothing I’d fought to escape while voices above me filtered into my awareness.
Henry’s voice had cut through the sterile haze like a blade, low and triumphant, telling the doctors he’d known all along I’d wake up.
That I was a fighter. That he hadn’t let Vivian anywhere near the decision to end my life support, and he never would.
He’d stood guard over me for three years, refusing to let her win.
Even after my father had mysteriously died, and Vivian had fled the country before anyone could question her, and Henry knew he didn’t have to worry about her anymore, he still stayed and advocated for me.
That was why he’d insisted on every treatment, every specialist, every extra day. He’d known I’d come back swinging.
He’d believed in me when no one else did. Even when I hadn’t believed in myself.
My panic surged, desperate and animal, but the drug dragged it down into slow motion and turned the scream in my head into a distant, muffled hum.
I could feel the panic attack trying to break through, lungs seizing, vision tunneling, but it stayed just out of reach, floating in that surreal haze where everything felt like a dream I couldn’t quite wake from.
Terror without the sharp edge. Suffocating dread without the release of losing control.
There was only the sick, heavy, floaty fog pressing on my chest, making every breath feel like I was wading through mud.
I forced myself to breathe deeply, then started cataloging my environment to try to ground myself.
The lights were low, my sheets were soft, and the room was warm.
I half-expected Chrissy to be long gone and to have police knocking down my door any minute now about the two men I’d killed to stop them from hurting her, but she wasn’t gone.
She sat in the chair at my bedside, body curled forward, elbows on her knees, her face buried in both hands.
Her hair was a wild, tangled halo around her.
Her shoulders shook once — barely — but I caught it.
Relief punched into me hard enough to both hurt, and leave me feeling like a wrung-out dishrag, all at once.
“Chrissy?” I rasped.
Her head jerked up, and my heart ached at the sight of her.
Her big, brown eyes were red from crying, and her cheeks were blotchy.
“You’re awake,” she whispered, her voice hoarse.
I swallowed hard and winced at how painful that simple movement was.
“Barely.”
The word tasted like blood and regret.
She stood too fast, grabbing the side of the bed for balance, then reached for me on instinct, but she caught herself mid-motion and pulled back. Her hands closed into tight fists at her sides instead.
I tried to sit up.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t sit up. Henry said you lost a lot of blood.”
“I’m fine,” I grumbled.
Her eyes flashed with fury.
“You are not fine, Ben. You were stabbed. You ran barefoot into a storm like a fucking lunatic. You nearly died.”
“You screamed for help. You needed me,” I said quietly.
She froze. Emotion flickered across her face so fast I didn’t catch it all… fear, anger, confusion, and something softer underneath that she crushed ruthlessly a second later. She bit the inside of her cheek and looked away, refusing to meet my eyes.
I shut my eyes, inhaled once, and forced the words out before I lost the nerve.
“Chrissy… you’re free to go.”
A deafening silence fell between us, immediate and suffocating.
She turned her gaze back on me slowly, eyebrows pulling inward.
“What?”
“Healing or not, I’m not keeping you here another minute,” I said, my voice rough but steady. “You’ve more than earned the $750,000 for your troubles. Henry will send the wire transfer today. You can just… have it. No strings. No repayment clause. No marriage requirement.”
Her breath caught.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because I won’t hurt you anymore.” The truth scraped its way out of me like shards of broken glass.
“I won’t lie to you. I won’t manipulate you.
I won’t keep you trapped in something you never really agreed to.
You didn’t know what you were signing up for, and that wasn’t fair.
I knew you wouldn’t read the contract carefully, and I intended to use that against you, but… I can’t. I won’t do it anymore.”
Her jaw trembled. She hugged her arms tight around herself and stared up at the ceiling like she was fighting the urge to cry again.
I pushed on anyway, because if I stopped now I’d never get it all out.
“No matter how it seems from the outside looking in, the Game wasn’t just some rich man’s whim, Chrissy.
I can promise you that much. It was a cage I built because I was too fucking scared to be honest with you.
Because my father’s trust — written before my accident, before everything went to hell — had a clause, and that clause is what made me decide to pursue the Game and set it in motion.
If I didn’t marry by midnight on Christmas Eve the year I turned thirty, every asset, every acre, every dollar, every piece of the Stonewood legacy would transfer to Vivian, my stepmother.
I couldn’t stomach the thought of losing everything to the woman who poisoned my father while I was in a coma, the woman who tried to pull the plug on me while I was too vulnerable to protect myself.
I couldn’t allow the woman who fled the country the second the police and the board started asking questions, to win. ”
Chrissy’s eyes widened, but she nodded for me to go on, unwilling to interrupt my explanation.
“I woke up to nothing but scars and suspicion,” I said.
“And a ticking clock. Vivian’s still out there, waiting for me to fail.
If she wins, she’ll gut everything my family built, everything that’s left of them.
Ashgrove House. The lodge. The investments.
All of it gone. And I’d be left with exactly what I deserve… nothing.”
I forced myself to meet her gaze.
“I told myself the Game was about finding someone who could handle my world. Someone loyal. Someone strong. Someone who wouldn’t flinch at the monster.
But really… I was looking for a way to have you, specifically.
I’ve wanted you from the second you patched my hand in that hardware store and didn’t look at my scars like they made me untouchable.
I watched you for years. I rigged everything so you’d come here.
I became Jacob so I could touch you without terrifying you.
So I could feel, just once, what it was like to be wanted for more than money or power or pity.
I even… I even bought off those boyfriends of yours.
I paid them to disappear because they weren’t good enough for you.
But no one is good enough for you, angel, not even me.
Especially not me, now. Not after everything I’ve done. ”
My voice cracked.
“I lied to you every single day. I tested you. I punished you. I marked you. And every time you passed — every time you chose kindness, loyalty, and integrity — I fell harder for you until I couldn’t breathe without knowing you were within my reach.”
Tears tracked silently down her cheeks now.
“I don’t care what it costs me with Vivian,” I said. “I don’t care if I lose everything. I don’t care if she guts the estate and takes every ounce of power left in my name. I won’t cage you another fucking second to save it. It’s not worth it to me anymore.”
The words nearly destroyed me as I said them.
“I’m releasing you from the Game.”
She stared at me like I’d dropped a nuclear bomb on her.
“You’re… you’re just letting me go? Just like that?”
“Yes,” I murmured. “I’m giving you back your freedom. The money is yours. Granny Irene’s care is covered. Your debts will all be paid. I’ll take care of all of it, regardless of what the contract said. There will be no marriage, no five-year clause, and no consequences.”
Her lips parted and she choked back a sob.
“Are you serious?”
I forced myself to look at her, to meet the fire and hurt and devastation in her eyes.
“You didn’t deserve any of this, Chrissy. Not the lies. Not the tests. Not the way I hid behind Jacob to get close to you. You deserved honesty from the beginning, and I was too much of a coward to give it to you.”
She held up a hand and cut me off, her voice trembling, but her piercing gaze was as steady as the north star.
“Then why didn’t you give me the honesty I deserved, Ben? You had every possible opportunity to come clean, but you didn’t.”
My breath stalled.
“I know, and I’m so fucking sorry—”
She stepped closer, slowly, as if approaching a wounded animal that she wasn’t sure she should touch. Her eyes burned with a mix of emotions I couldn’t decipher.
“I don’t understand you,” she whispered.
“You keep saying you didn’t want to hurt me.
You keep saying you were trying to protect me.
But you—” Her throat bobbed. “You designed this ridiculous, manipulative game. You put me through hoops like a performing circus animal. You tested me instead of trusting me. You watched me. You studied me. You bought off my boyfriends? What the actual fuck is wrong with you?”
“Chrissy—”
“NO.” Her voice cracked on the word. “You don’t get to interrupt this part. You owe me this.”
I went completely and utterly still.
She swallowed hard, fighting tears, fighting herself, fighting me.
“I would have pursued something with you,” she said softly.
“I would have chosen you. I would have said yes if you’d asked me out for coffee like a normal fucking person.
If you’d told me the truth — if you’d just had the balls to be honest from the fucking beginning — I would have jumped in with both feet and figured things out as we went along. ”
My heart stopped.
“And instead,” she whispered, voice breaking, “you played me. You killed two men to protect me… two men who never would have had the chance to hurt me if you hadn’t set up this stupid game in the first place.”
The accusation landed like a fresh stab wound. I winced, but didn’t deny it. I couldn’t.
“Are you…” I rasped, forcing the question out even as it terrified me. “Are you going to call the cops about me killing Hayden and Brett?”
She stared at me, stunned silent for a beat. Then she shook her head slowly.
“No.”
The word hit me like a shockwave. I blinked, the morphine haze making it hard to process.
“Why the hell not?”
“Because you saved me,” she said quietly, eyes glistening.
“And because… no matter what you put me through, no matter how angry I am at the lies, the manipulation, the betrayal, and all the ways you took advantage of me, I don’t want to see you go to prison.
But I don’t see how you’re going to avoid it, either.
Those bodies aren’t going to disappear on their own.
People will ask questions if two men you hired for this sick, twisted bullshit Game just up and fall off the face of the earth, never to be seen or heard from again. ”
I exhaled shakily.
“Henry was special forces before he became head of security for my family. He’s very good at cleaning up messes… even these kinds of messes.”
Her expression darkened with disgust, maybe, or resignation, but she didn’t press. Instead, she whispered, “And shit like that is exactly why I can’t stay here. Not after everything you’ve done. Not after what I saw in that barn. Not after… all of this.”
Her hand lifted, trembled, then lowered again without touching me, like she wanted the contact, but was willing to deny us both what we wanted after everything I’d put her through.
“I’m leaving, and I expect you to stay the fuck away from me from now on, Ben. I never want to see you again.”
The finality in her voice was a knife sharper than the one Brett had stabbed me with.
I tried to sit up. Pain lanced through my ribs, but I didn’t care.
“Chrissy, please—”
“No.” She shook her head, her tears spilling over and running down her cheeks. “I have to go, and you have to stay the fuck away from me.”
She stepped back and turned away from me, toward the door. I watched her go, step after shattering step, and the space between us grew impossibly wide.
She reached the doorway and paused, looking back at me one last time.
Her voice was a ghost of a whisper.
“You should have trusted me with the truth from the start.”
Then she turned and walked out, leaving me bleeding and alone in a warm room, but feeling colder than the ice storm I’d run into to save her.