Page 196 of The Rules
There was no teasing in it now—just a quiet demand threaded through the sound of her name.
A pause. Heavy.
Then— “What part?” Quieter still. Slower. No pressure.
Just precision. Like he was cutting exactly where she couldn’t defend.
She didn’t answer.
Not because she didn’t want to. Because shedid.
And that terrified her more than anything else.
Ben didn’t touch her. Didn’t move. But she felt him—his stillness, his certainty. The way he waited not like a man who hoped she'd speak, but like one whoknewshe would. Eventually.
Her fingers curled in the blanket. A breath caught in her throat. The silence stretched.
“Katherine.”
Her name again—this time softer.
It wrapped around her like a palm at her throat.
Not squeezing.
Just holding.
Justthere.
She closed her eyes. Exhaled. And with it, something inside her gave way.
“The risk,” she whispered. “The secrecy. You.”
The words hung, fragile and raw, barely formed before the silence reclaimed them.
She didn’t look at him. Didn’t need to. She felt the shift—the way his breath caught, shallow and slow,like he’d taken the hit straight to the chest. A pause. A flicker of movement against the mattress. Then stillness again—like he was holding his own body still, too aware of how close they already were.
Finally, his voice cut through the quiet. Low. Rougher than before.
“…Of course it was me.”
No mockery. No smugness. Just the simple, grounded certainty of someone whoalready knewthe answer—but needed to hear her say it anyway.
Katherine let out a soft, strangled sound—half sigh,
half laugh—as she buried her face in her hands.
“I hate you.”
“No,” Ben murmured, and this time there was the faintest curve in his voice. Not quite a smile. Justwarm enoughto make her skin flush.
“You don’t.”
Another silence followed, heavier than the last. The kind that stretched across bare skin and unsaid things, wrapping around them like a secret neither of them was willing to fully name.
“You walked in wanting power,” he said, voice low and cutting. “And still, you handed it to me—every time.”
Katherine’s fingers curled into the sheets. Her lips pressed into a tight line, but she didn’t look at him.
