Chapter 9: The Wager

“If you don’t love me after thirty days,” Jason said, setting his glass down with quiet finality, the sound of crystal against wood the only noise in the enormous room, “I’ll let you go. I’ll give you whatever sum of money you name, and you can walk out of this house and never look back, never see me again if that’s truly what you want.”

I stared at him, searching his face for some hidden catch, some trick buried beneath the offer, the kind of loophole men like Sherwood always seemed to bury in their promises. “You’d actually do that? Just let me leave, after everything you did today to claim me in front of everyone?”

“I keep my word.” He said it simply, no hint of doubt in his voice, like the concept of breaking a promise had never once occurred to him as an option worth considering. “Whatever it costs me, financially or otherwise.”

I hesitated, some traitorous part of my mind already turning the question over before I could stop it, before I could remind myself I had no intention of ever needing the answer. “What if I end up falling for you instead? What happens then, in that version of this wager?”

Something shifted in his expression, warmer and more certain all at once, like he’d been waiting the entire conversation for me to ask exactly that. “Then it’s simple. You stay. You become my Luna in truth, not just in name, for the rest of your life, because you’re already mine, whether you’re ready to admit that tonight or not.” His eyes flickered gold as he said it, that same brief flash I’d noticed earlier, wolf bleeding closer to the surface than I suspected he usually allowed strangers to see.

He crossed the room, took my hand before I could pull it away, and pressed his lips to my knuckles, slow and deliberate, his gaze never once leaving mine. “My Luna.”

I gathered whatever courage I had left and pulled my hand free, refusing to let the warmth of that single gesture unravel my resolve before this had even properly begun.

“Fine.” I lifted my chin, meeting his gaze directly, refusing to let him see even a flicker of the uncertainty still churning beneath my defiance. “Thirty days. I know exactly how this ends, Mr. Proud — I take your money, and I walk out that door without a single backward glance. Challenge accepted.” I let a slow, defiant smile spread across my face. “Get ready to lose.”

Something delighted flickered behind his eyes, an expression I hadn’t expected from a man who’d spent the entire day radiating cold authority.

“I love a good dare, my lady.” He turned and started toward the door, his steps unhurried, though something in his posture suggested he was already three moves ahead of whatever game he thought we were playing. He paused with one hand on the frame, glancing back at me over his shoulder. “I will do anything. Anything, to make you fall in love with me.”

“You’re wasting your time,” I called after him, though my voice lacked the conviction I wanted it to carry.

He only smiled, unbothered, the same maddening confidence he’d worn since the moment he walked through the cathedral doors.

“Get some rest, Bella.” His voice softened slightly, almost gentle in a way that confused me more than his arrogance had. “Your closet already has everything you’ll need. Clothes, whatever else a woman in your position might require.” He glanced around the enormous room, at the private bath visible through an open archway, at the balcony doors overlooking what looked like miles of manicured grounds. “Because starting tomorrow, you’re going to learn exactly what it means to be Luna Salford.”

He left before I could form a response, the door clicking shut behind him with a finality that echoed through the too-large room.

I sat alone on that enormous bed for a long time after he’d gone, staring at the closed door, replaying every word of the conversation until my head ached with it. Thirty days. It sounded so simple when he said it, a clean wager with a clear ending, money on one side and a lifetime commitment on the other, as if love could ever be reduced to something so easily measured or won.

I told myself it would be easy.

I told myself I already hated him, hated the arrogance, hated the way he’d carried me out of my own wedding like a piece of luggage, hated the casual violence he’d ordered against Sherwood without a flicker of hesitation. Thirty days of resisting a man like that should have felt effortless.

And yet some small, unwelcome part of me kept circling back to the way his lips had felt against my knuckles, to the gold flicker in his eyes when he’d called me his, to the strange gentleness that had crept into his voice right at the very end, right before he told me to rest.

I pushed myself off the bed and crossed to the closet he’d mentioned, curiosity winning out over exhaustion for just a moment. The doors swung open onto racks and racks of clothing, everything in my exact size, everything clearly chosen — or at least ordered — with a precision that unsettled me more than it should have. Silk. Cashmere. Dresses that probably cost more than my father’s entire pack house.

He’d known I would say yes. He’d known before I ever opened my mouth, before I’d even fully understood the terms of what I was agreeing to.

I closed the closet doors and returned to the bed, pulling the heavy covers up around myself despite the warmth still lingering in the room, my mind refusing to settle no matter how hard I tried to convince myself that tomorrow would be simple.

Thirty days.