Third a Kiss

“That’s what happened to me. Roy Slater approached me and asked to buy me. He wanted to…marry me.” I swallowed hard. “Sully agreed.”

“He might have agreed, but he’d never have gone through with it.”

“He looked pretty set when he told Cal to draw up the contract.”

Jealousy leaned closer, her hazel gaze diving deep into mine, once again shoving aside my worries, my sins, and fishing for my truth until she grabbed it with both hands and yanked it to the surface. “I give you my word, there is no way in hell he would’ve put you on that helicopter with another man.”

Goosebumps scattered down my arms, completely ignoring the muggy humidity and pretending I sat in snow instead. “How can you be so sure?”

She grinned, revealing perfect teeth. “Because you’re his.”

“We all are. He bought each and every one of us.”

“Don’t be obtuse, Jinx. You know exactly what I mean when I say you’re his. You’re the one. You’re his forever.”

A sick chuckle spilled from my mouth. “Look, I appreciate the pep talk and your attempt to make me feel better, but you don’t know what you’re—”

“Who do you think gave you this diamond?” She held it up, spinning it in her fingers. “If you slept with Sully as much as I think you did yesterday, your answer should be fairly clear by now.”

I went deathly still. “Wait…the night Sully came to lock me in the cage. After I’d run away. You said I needed to know something about—”

“The diamond. Yes.” She nodded brusquely. “Yes, I did. But…I’m guessing you already know what I was going to say.”

I shivered. “You expect me to believe Sully was the one who gave me that?”

“Wasn’t he?”

“I mean…physically, yes. You were there. He shooed away all the other goddesses and then gave me the box.”

She lowered her voice, cocooning us in our secrets. “What did he whisper to you? I scampered the moment he looked at you as if he’d throw you on the table and eat you for breakfast.”

“He…” I licked my lips, wishing I didn’t remember in exquisite detail but unable to deny it. His voice vibrated in my skull. “… another man told me that you’re the best he’s ever had. That he’ll never forget fucking you. That he gave you a piece of his heart. I got…jealous.”

“He said it was from a man who fell in love with me.”

If it was him…why was he jealous? Jealous because he hid behind a ruse?

“That man…being him,” Jealousy murmured.

My heart literally hiccupped. Anger hung on the coat-tails of my agony and I scooted away a little, needing space, needing her to stop this nasty game. “I asked him point-blank if he felt anything for me, and he…”

“You, Eleanor Grace, are something. You have the power to be everything. And that is why you’ll forever remain nothing.”

“He denied feeling what I did.”

Jealousy huffed impatiently. “That’s not what I think he said at all.” She tossed me the diamond. I didn’t catch it in time, and it plopped onto the sand, sinking until the shiny jewel became just another pebble on the beach.

“Why is this so important to you, huh?” I asked. “Are you trying to deliberately hurt me? Don’t you think I’ve overanalysed everything he’s said to me? Trying to read between the lines, to see a message he might be giving me.”

“Oh, I know you’ll be doing that. And I know you see the message he’s been giving, but you’re too weak to admit it.”

“Weak?” I bared my teeth. “You’re calling me weak now?”

“Afraid too.” She crossed her arms. “Afraid of admitting that you’re both in deeper shit than you realise. That you’re both too damn stubborn to actually tell the truth. To let the truth have a chance.”

“I’m not the stubborn one. He is.”

“Then stop him being so stubborn.”

“How?”

“By doing exactly what you’ve been doing.”

“It’s not enough!” My temper shot free. “I’ve tried. I’ve lectured myself that what exists between us isn’t normal. That it’s worth fighting for. But how can I trust something so new and strange when the circumstances between us are so fucked up? How can I trust myself?”

Jealousy stood, wiping the sand from her apricot sundress. Plucking the diamond from the beach, she dropped it into my palm. “The bigger question is…how can he trust you?”

“What do you know that you’re not telling me, Jess?” I chose to use her real name, to imprint the seriousness of my question.

She responded in kind, her pretty face stern with honesty. “Sullivan Sinclair is a man with severe trust issues, very little faith in humanity, and from what I can piece together, he’s done monstrous things to those he’s loved in the past. He will lie to your face if you ever ask him if he loves you. He will lie to himself until he almost believes he feels nothing. He will never admit that you’ve wormed your way past his defences because that would force him to confront his very existence as a man. His whole operation. His view on the world, his empathy toward his creatures, his utter disdain for his own kind. By admitting he’s fallen for you, he’s effectively signing his own death sentence because there is no easy path from there. No easy way of admitting that his prior convictions might be wrong. That he might one day severely hurt or kill you because his trust is non-existent.”

Coming close, she ducked in front of me and balanced with her hands on my thighs. Just like when she’d come to claim me for Euphoria the first time. Just like when she’d asked if I was more afraid of evolving than the actual pleasure Euphoria would give me. “Look, I told you before…Sully is reaching burnout. He knows it himself. He knows something has to give. He knows something bad will have to happen before he can finally admit to himself that he isn’t the cold-hearted bastard he believes. And he hates you because you’re forcing him to admit it far sooner than he wants.”

Her fingers clutched my thighs. “He was the one who gave you that diamond. He was the one who fucked you in Euphoria. He was the one who told you he was in love with you because he could use the disguise to hide the truth from you as well as him. I guarantee if you get him to where he thinks he can hide behind a mask, he will be far more lenient with the truth. He’ll admit what’s in his heart because he knows he can take it all away again, and it won’t mean a thing because it wasn’t him admitting them.”

I sucked in a breath, shaking and shocked. “Why are you telling me this? How do you know all this?”

She cupped my cheeks, pressing sand granules into my skin. “I know because I watch and listen. I know because the night Sully hooked you up to Euphoria, he tripped out of that bathroom and looked as if he’d seen everything he ever wanted and knew he could never have it. He made you believe he sent you to fuck Markus Grammer, but the moment he pressed that button—” She stopped herself, sighing heavily.

“The moment he pressed the button…what? What happened?”