fucking soul make love to a man who wasn’t me. I was supposed to be mollified in my suspicions that trusting anyone—even those my mind had deemed safe—were entirely justified. That trust was the true traitor here. That humans were gullible and weak, and it wasn’t our fault that we betrayed each other because, in the end, we trusted what our eyes and ears told us over instinct. We had blinded and deafened ourselves to the animalistic part of our natures in so many ways.
I knew it was a shitty thing to do to her, but I’d done it for me. I’d done it so I could finally admit that, whatever I felt for her, would only break me and ultimately kill her because I wouldn’t be able to control myself if she betrayed me again.
That trigger wasn’t something I could control.
Therefore, I had to shove the truth in my goddamn eyes and accept that Eleanor was just human, and I was asking far too much to expect her to always have my back. To expect her to love me, regardless of shape or form or what her rational mind told her.
The carbon copy of myself—the man she’d tried to knee in the balls—had been an exact replica. In my mind, I’d already said a painful goodbye because how could I expect her to realise it wasn’t me when it was me standing before her?
I’d set her up to fail—digging that poisonous knife deeper into my useless heart.
However, Eleanor had just blown apart my theory with her determined one-finger salute. She’d made all my pain and fears slam to a screeching halt. She’d proven just what a twat I was by shoving the truth into my eyes.
She wasn’t like the others.
She was different. She’d always been different.
And she made me doubt…everything.
She stood up to me like she had that second day when she’d yelled at me in front of the guests. She’d torn into me without any concern for her safety after she’d finished.
She watched me the same way now.
She watched me come apart and splinter into worthless fragments.
How?
How did she know?
How was I so fucking stupid to hurt her this way?
Her teeth clenched as she pointed at my forearm. “Pull up your shirt.”
My thoughts bounced and collided, ratcheting my heart rate into a goddamn mess. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” She straightened her shoulders, as if conversing with me pissed her off. “Pull up your shirt.”
Pursing my lips, I did as she asked, yanking at the cuff until it bunched against my elbow. Blond hair scattered my sun-bronzed skin; the size of the arm smaller than my usual one. It felt strange to stare at a limb I had no connection with. No sense of ownership. My scars from my past were gone. My broken and healed bones no longer a part of me.
I had no kinship with this body, yet…Eleanor had known almost instantly that I hid inside it.
How?
Fucking how?
With another deep breath, she stepped into me. Hesitatingly, she raised both her hands, ready to touch me.
I stiffened with anticipation.
Her gaze caught mine with molten steel. “Close your eyes.”
I scowled. “What? No. I—”
“Close your eyes, Sully.”
I wanted to argue. I wanted to know what this experiment would prove. She hadn’t answered my question. This was wasting time.
She stepped back, dropping her arms. “You know what? Let me out of this hallucination. Right now. I want to get as far away from you as possible.”
My heart twisted into an agonising knot. “You’re mad at me because you think I gave you to a guest. A guest wearing my body.”
She flinched and bared her teeth. “I’m mad at you for not trusting my word. For putting me in this situation—even if it is just virtual reality. You made me believe I was about to be taken by force. I’m mad at you for the stress, the helplessness, the sheer panic of not being able to stop it.” Her skin lost its colour. “But I’m fuming mad that you’re watching me as if you don’t understand why I’m cursing the very ground you walk upon.”
I shrugged helplessly. “It’s true. I don’t understand.”
She sniffed with fury, ready to rip into me again.
My hand shot up, and I rushed. “I get what you’ve said. And I get that I fucked up making you live through something out of your control…but it was never supposed to be about force. You were supposed to want it.”
She laughed icily. “Want it? That I’d enjoy fucking a complete