Chapter 30 – Ben #2
“So you’d blow up your legal position just to spite her.”
“If she gets everything,” I said, “she wins. If no one gets anything, she steps into smoke and ashes. Seems fair.”
“Seems childish,” he countered.
“It seems like the only power move I have left.”
“For fuck’s sake, Ben.” The veneer cracked. “You’re too smart to pretend that burning the house down with everyone inside it is a strategy.”
I went quiet. The fire popped behind him.
“You don’t understand,” I said finally, voice low. “I can’t marry anyone but her.”
“Can’t,” he repeated. “Or won’t?”
“Yes to both.”
He gave me a look. I dropped my head into my hands and dragged them over my face.
“I’d rather lose it all,” I said into my palms. “I’d rather hand every penny to Vivian. I’d rather die broke and alone in some shitty apartment than marry anyone but Chrissy Jones.”
Pain pulsed in my chest, sharp and merciless.
“I’d rather die than marry anyone except her.”
The words hung there, heavy and absolute. Henry’s expression shifted, something like pity flaring there before he stomped it out.
“You know how that sounds, right?” he asked quietly.
“Like a man who finally knows what he wants.” I let my hands drop to the arms of the chair, fingers curling into the worn leather. “And like a man who was too much of a goddamn disaster to deserve it.”
He studied me, eyes narrowing slightly, like he was measuring something in his head.
“Did you tell her that?” he asked. “Any of it?”
“She’d have laughed in my face,” I muttered. “Or hit me. Both would have been well-deserved.”
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not.”
I looked away.
He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. For the first time in a very long while, he looked his age. Older, even. Tired.
“You’re not thinking clearly,” he said. “You’re grieving. You’re in pain. You’re afraid. All valid, but none of them are a good basis for making irrevocable decisions about your life.”
“So your suggestion is what?” I asked. “I pick whichever contestant slapped the maid and offer her a ring?”
“The maid-slapper was eliminated,” he said dryly. “Try to keep up.”
Despite everything, a laugh scraped its way out of my chest. It sounded rusty and dead-on-arrival. Henry let me have it, just for a second, before his face went serious again.
“Listen to me,” he said. “You have five and a half days. That’s an eternity and no time at all. What you are not going to do is sign anything over, blow up any trusts, or hand Vivian a win because you’re wallowing.”
“It’s not wallowing,” I said. “It’s accepting reality.”
“Bullshit,” he said, with uncharacteristic bite.
“Reality is that you are wounded, traumatized, and in love with a woman who has every right to be livid with you. Reality is also that you’re still breathing, still on this side of the dirt, and the clock hasn’t hit midnight yet. That means there’s room for movement.”
“Movement?” I echoed. “She left, Henry. She told me exactly what I did wrong. She told me I could have had everything if I’d just been honest, then told me to stay the fuck away from her, and then she walked out of my life.
Where’s the movement in that? ‘Hey, sorry I built a psychological Saw-style trap around you, want to try again?’”
“If you go to her with that line, I’ll personally help her stab you,” he said. “But there are conversations to be had. Amends to be made. You’re acting like she vanished into another dimension. She went back to her life.”
“Her life,” I whispered, “which I might have ruined.”
He watched me for a beat too long for comfort.
“I’ll look into it,” he said quietly. “Discreetly. Make sure she has what she needs. Make sure Vivian’s people aren’t sniffing around anywhere they shouldn’t be.”
Fear crawled under my skin.
“Vivian wouldn’t touch her, would she?” I asked.
He lifted a brow. “You want to bet your life on that? Or Chrissy’s?”
Silence.
“She wants the estate,” I said. “She doesn’t care about—”
“She cares about leverage,” he cut in. “She cares about pain. She cares about making examples. And unless I misread the situation entirely, you just bled all over the snow for this girl. Even Vivian can do that math.”
My stomach turned to ice.
“If she so much as looks in Chrissy’s direction—”
“Then we’ll deal with it,” he said. “But we can’t deal with anything if you’re drunk, reckless, and busy martyring yourself on the nearest metaphorical sword.”
I dragged in a breath and let it out slowly.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked finally.
“For now?” he said. “Nothing.”
I blinked.
“That’s not usually your advice.”
“For now,” he repeated, “you are going to eat something, drink water, and sleep in a bed like a human being with organs that still need to function. You are not going to sign anything, call any lawyers, or make any grand gestures that can’t be undone.
When you can go six hours without picturing her face and bleeding internally, we’ll reassess. ”
“I’m not going six minutes without picturing her face,” I said.
“Then think softly,” he said. “Not catastrophically.”
I snorted.
“You should put that on a mug.”
“I’ll put it on your gravestone if you fall down the stairs drunk and split your head open,” he shot back. “Stand up. Slowly. I’ll help you to the bed.”
“I can walk myself,” I muttered.
The attempt to get to my feet proved that was a lie. Pain knifed up my side, and I nearly went right back down. Henry caught my arm and steadied me with a grip that brooked no argument.
“Humor me, son,” he said.
I let him help me to the bed.
We made our way across the room like two very poorly matched dance partners, his hand gripping my elbow. The house was too quiet. Too echoing. Every closed door felt like a mouth shut on the word Chrissy.
“I don’t know how to live in a world where she hates me,” I said under my breath.
“Get in line,” he said. “A lot of us have had to figure out how to live in worlds we didn’t want. You start by not making them worse than they have to be.”
He settled me on the edge of the bed and adjusted the pillows behind me with surprisingly gentle hands.
“Rest,” he said. “You’re no good to anyone like this.”
“I’m no good to anyone anyway.”
“Stop,” he said sharply. “That kind of thinking is how Vivian wins.”
He straightened, looking down at me, his expression grave.
“You said you’d rather lose everything than marry anyone but Chrissy,” he said. “Fine. Noted. I believe you.”
“Good,” I muttered.
“But understand this, Benjamin,” he went on. “If that’s really the hill you want to die on, there’s only one way you walk off it alive.”
I frowned.
“And what’s that?”
“You find a way,” he said quietly, “to fix your fuck-ups and make sure she’s the one you marry.”
The words lodged in my chest.
“She won’t even speak to me,” I said.
“Today,” he agreed. “Grief is loud. Anger is louder. Both are temporary. You don’t have to fix this in a day.”
“The clause—”
“Gives you a deadline,” he said. “It doesn’t tell you how to use the time in between. You want my opinion?”
“I usually regret it,” I said.
“Too bad,” he replied. “You’ve got five and a half days to become the kind of man she could ever even consider forgiving. Whether she takes that step toward you or not is up to her. But right now, you’re not even giving the universe a fighting chance.”
I stared at him.
“Sleep,” he said again. “Tomorrow, we’ll talk strategy. Today is for not self-destructing.”
He moved toward the door, then paused with his hand on the frame.
“One more thing,” he added.
“Of course,” I said. “Why not.”
“Vivian’s attorney called,” he said, glancing back over his shoulder. “She’s confirmed her arrival in the States for the twenty-fourth. An early flight in.”
My pulse kicked.
“To collect what she feels she’s owed,” I said, voice flat.
“To try,” he corrected. “Whether she succeeds or not is still in play.”
The room seemed smaller suddenly. The air thinner. Six days had just shrunk into something that felt like a breath and a heartbeat and nothing more.
Henry’s gaze pinned me.
“Get your head on straight,” he said. “Because when she shows up, you’re going to want more than whiskey and self-pity in your arsenal.”
Then he flipped off the main light, leaving only the small lamp by the bed, and stepped out into the hall, door snicking softly shut behind him.
I lay there, staring at the ceiling, feeling the weight of the deadline press down on my chest like a familiar ghost.
Five and a half days until Christmas Eve. Five and a half days until Vivian came for everything. Five and a half days to either become someone Chrissy could forgive, or lose her, and my father’s legacy, and the future I’d built in my head, in one catastrophic, final blow.
For the first time since she walked out, the thought of doing nothing terrified me more than the thought of trying and failing.
Because trying meant facing her, and failing meant living the rest of my life knowing I’d had one chance at something real… and fucked it up beyond repair. I closed my eyes and saw her face anyway.
“Chrissy,” I whispered into the empty room.
The silence that answered felt like a promise and a threat all at once. And somewhere underneath the ache, under the fear and shame and grief, a single, dangerous thought took root.
If I only had one woman I was willing to marry… then I’d damn well have to find a way to be worth marrying.