Page 76 of The Rules

His stare didn’t soften, it sharpened.

"You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?"

And that? That wasn’t banter.

That was a blade.

The words slicedthrough the air, too precise to be casual, too calm to be safe.

Something inside Kath went quiet. Alert. Her smirk faltered, just a breath.

Because Ben wasn’t masked tonight.

Blondie began to move—confident, fluid, every step choreographed control. But the air felt wrong.

Ben didn’t watch her the way he usually did. The sharp focus was still there, but something had shifted—cooled. Hardened. No tension. No visible reaction. Just silence, and a stare so weighted it made her skin prickle.

"You ever make a mistake so fucking big," he said suddenly, voice low and far too calm, "it stains you—even when you can't remember why it hurt so much in the first place?"

The words sat in the air, raw and unguarded.

Kath’s breath caught. Just for a second. That kind of confession didn’t belong here—not in this room, not between them.

But she covered it with a familiar tilt of her lips. Her armor. "Sounds like you’re a few sessions behind on therapy."

Ben laughed. Not the good kind. It was quiet, rough—like something splintered had scraped up his throat on the way out.

"Yeah," he said. "Maybe."

But he didn’t look away.

And suddenly, it wasn’t a game anymore.

Kath watched him carefully, the usual banter and flirtation between them replaced by a heavy, almost palpable tension.

He didn't answer right away, instead rolling his glass in his hand, the whiskey catching the light. And in that moment, Kath knew there was something more—a memory, a regret, something that had etched itself into the lines of his face.

Finally, Ben spoke, his voice low and tinged with a rare vulnerability. "I was barely more than a kid. Fresh out of law school. Thought I knew everything. But I didn't."

Kath stilled, her heart beating a little faster. This wasn't the usual game they played—this was something real and raw.

She waited, watching as Ben's grip tightened around the glass.

"Sometimes, you don't realize you're playing someone else's game until it's too late," he continued, the words laced with a quiet pain that made Kath's chest ache.

She wanted to stop him, to ask what had happened, but against all her better judgment, the words slipped out before she could stop them. "And what would you do if you could go back?"

Ben's gaze met hers, and for a moment, she saw something vulnerable there—a glimpse of the man beneath the carefully constructed facade. He exhaled slowly, the tension in his shoulders easing just slightly.

Katherine watched his expression shifted, the vulnerability from moments ago disappearing behind a carefully constructed mask. His smirk returned, sharper and more defensive than before, as if he regretted letting her see that glimpse of the man beneath the surface.

"I don't waste time looking backward," he said, his voice regaining its usual cool, detached tone. The silence that followed was heavy, almost enough to crack the tension that had built up between them. Almost.

Katherine’s gaze dropped, catching on the rim of his glass—there was a faint chip in the crystal, just off the edge, barely visible. She focused on that, irrationally fixated for half a second. A flaw. Out of place. Like this moment. Like this version of him—unguarded, but fleeting.

The silence stretched, almost kind. Almost safe.

Then he spoke again—and the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding slipped away.