The audacity of it took her breath away. She’d been expecting a subtlety, some sly ploy perhaps. Anything but this blunt, brutal honesty. Alliances were made and broken with each round, that was how the game was played. But this was a shift in the balance of power so significant there could be no game after this, not if he got away with it.
Not if Jack let him.
Side with me over her.
“I don’t know, Caleb. It’s not exactly within the rules,” Jack said, with a frown revealing his own uncertainty. “That’s a promise that has nothing to do with me, but everything to do with Beth.”
“You pulled promise. I’ve asked for the promise I want.”
“Yeah, but it’s meant to be something involving me, not her. It’s hardly fair, is it?”
There was a logic to Jack’s voice. A rationality. And yet he did not sound horrified, not the way she felt, with swirls in her belly that might be fear, or might be anticipation. Jack sounded like he could be persuaded by a good argument. Or a bribe.
“No,” she said, head shaking. “He can’t do this, Jack. Don’t give in to him. Don’t let him. It’s outside the rules. He can’t use your promise to entrap me.”
But Jack held up a hand to forestall her protests, not even looking at her.
“Stay out of this, Beth. This is between Caleb and I.”
She jolted back in dismay.
Caleb never once took his...