Page 218 of The Rules

The room seemed to close in around them. Her voice came barely above a whisper. "If we do this... we're just as bad.

No different."

Ben’s lips pressed into a thin line—but it wasn’t anger that moved him. It was calculation. A bitter, anchored knowing.

Then, a quiet, bitter laugh broke from his chest. Hollow. Dry. "You still don’t get it."

She looked up, wounded and sharp all at once.

"You think you're clean?" he asked, eyes narrowing. "You lived a lie for years. You danced behind masks and cash tips and secrets. You let men touch you for money while your father rotted in prison. You think that’s different than what I’m doing? You crossed lines, Katherine. You just told yourself yours were prettier."

Katherine flinched. Her body locked tight. But she didn’t look away.

"I’m not judging you," he added, voice lower now—gravel-thick, but not cruel. "You did what you had to. You survived.

So did I."

Her stomach twisted painfully. The words landed with devastating precision, exposing the choices she'd made—choices she'd rationalized away. She could have found another path. She could have struggled through legitimate channels, endured the weight of debt, the uncertainty of repayment.

But she hadn't.

She'd chosen the mask. The club. The secrets.

Because he's right, she realized with a sickening clarity.

And she hated that he was right.

Katherine swallowed hard, her throat tight. The accusation in his words burned, but she couldn't deny the truth behind them. She'd made her choices. Crossed her lines. All while telling herself it was different—that she had no choice.

The fire in her chest didn't fade—it flared hotter, spreading through her veins like wildfire. But it was tangled now.

Twisted with guilt. With the sting of being seen too clearly, of having someone pull back the curtain on the justifications she'd built so carefully.

Ben stepped closer.

Katherine's breath caught in her throat as he moved toward her, close enough that she could feel the heat rolling off him.

His presence was overwhelming, suffocating in its intensity.

She should step back. She should put distance between them. But her body refused to move.

Her pulse quickened, hammering against her ribs as the air between them thickened. The anger still burned—but it had shifted. Warped into something rawer. Sharper. Electric. Dangerous.

The space between them sizzled with unresolved tension, a live wire neither dared to touch, yet neither could look away from.

A long silence stretched between them.

She could hear her own breathing, shallow and uneven. Could see the muscle ticking in Ben's jaw, the restraint vibrating through his frame. His eyes stayed locked on hers—dark, steady, unreadable.

Then, quietly, her voice broke the tension. "Why? Why tell me all this?"

The question slipped out before she could stop it. A crack in her armor. A moment of unguarded vulnerability she hadn't meant to show.

Ben exhaled. Long. Measured. Like it hurt to admit it.

He dragged a hand down his face. His shoulders, always so composed, sagged just enough to betray the weight he carried. He looked different now. Not weak—but worn. Like someone who had walked through something brutal and hadn’t fully come back.

"Because I don’t want to lie to you," he said. Quiet. Bare.