Chapter 4

4: 4

I tilted my lips into a smile.:

“If it weren't for you, I'd never have been locked in there in the first place.”

I lifted my head and looked straight into Oswald's eyes.:

“Shareholder Stephens, shouldn't you be off helping your little childhood sweetheart find her underwear? What are you doing here, playing the devoted man?”

His body stiffened, a flicker of panic in his eyes, and his voice softened at once.:

“So you already know?”

His gaze slid away, unable to meet mine.:

“I didn't hide it from you on purpose. The lodge has its rules. The heart-matching game applies to everyone.”

“Lottie………”

He reached out to touch my hair, but I turned my head aside and let his hand fall short.

He was silent for a few seconds.:

“I promise you. Tomorrow night's game, I'll choose you. No question.”

“Don't go to the ice room. Just stay here and rest.”

With that, he dropped a hot-water bottle beside me, turned, and left.

I glanced at it and laughed.

Probably a freebie from the hot-spring suite.

The warmth he gave me was nothing but the leftovers he and Paige Dickerson didn't want.

The lodge had a rule in writing: every guest could use the hot spring only once every two weeks.

By that rule, everyone who had soaked last night should have lost their eligibility to compete today.

Yet Paige sat down at the game with no hesitation at all.

Her face was flushed and glowing, and she looked at me with open smugness.:

“Lottie, thank you so much for suffering in my place yesterday.”

“But the doctor says I have to soak one more time to lock in the effect, or it won't fully heal and the illness could come back.”

“Right, Oswald?”

I raised my eyes and looked coldly at Oswald beside me.

He said nothing, and his silence granted her every bit of favor.

A new round of the heart-matching game began.

Blindfold on. Feel for the hand. Mark the heart.

The eighteenth time, the heart mark on his palm landed without a single mistake in Paige's hand again.

He pulled off the blindfold, a trace of guilt he couldn't quite hide in his eyes.:

“Last time. Once Paige is fully healed, I promise I'll only ever bring you here.”

“I've already told them. The water in the cell won't be too cold tonight.”

With that, he didn't hesitate. He took Paige and turned toward the hot-spring suite.

After everyone there had gone.

I stood, and reached out first to take Dale Morton's hand.:

“Come on. Let's go to the hot spring.”

Oswald, there's no future for us.

Our future was put out for good, one bucket of ice water after another, by you.

Back in the hot-spring room, the unease in Oswald grew and grew, an anxiety he couldn't name.

He murmured under his breath, a thread of self-doubt in it.:

“Am I………have I really been too cruel to Lottie?”

Paige took off her makeup, unbothered.:

“You're overthinking it. Lottie's so tough, she got through seventeen rounds of ice water. One more won't make a difference.”

“If I don't lock it in this once, all eighteen of those hot-spring soaks are wasted. You really want to throw away all that effort for nothing?”

She talked him around, and he forced the discomfort back down.

While Paige showered, he had no heart left for the red wine.

Instead, for once, he pulled up his chat history with me.

Lately our messages had grown fewer and fewer.

From hundreds a day before, to now barely once in a week or two.

While he and Paige were glued together all day long.

Guilt rose in his chest, and he couldn't bear to look any longer.

Just as he was about to close the screen, he noticed a medical record.

Eighteen cumulative immersions in ice water: the cold in her body becomes fully irreversible, with no possibility of ever bearing a child.

The eighteenth time.

Tonight was exactly the eighteenth time!

Oswald's mind went blank in an instant.

He tore out of the suite like a madman and ran for the ice-water cell.

“Lottie Henson!”

“Let Lottie Henson out! Now!”

The staff member looked at him, baffled.:

“Miss Henson didn't go into the cell tonight.”

His pupils shrank, panic pushed to its limit.:

“Then where is she?!”

“Miss Henson went into the hot-spring suite with one of the male guests.”