The only pleasure I took was that he was jealous, and spitefully, I believed he should be.

But what fueled my fury was her response. Or more accurately, her lack of response. She didn’t tell him all the ways she’d disavowed him. She didn’t tell him she’d chosen me, nor did she regale all the ways he had been wrong.

Instead, she’d agreed to speak to him again. And all the joy I’d felt on Brock’s jealousy shifted into a deep, unsettling rage at my own.

Maybe I’d been a rebound all along. Maybe I’d only convinced myself because she was so convincing.

I’d believed her, every word that she said. But I knew other truths to be certain, too. She hadn’t dealt with her breakup, the humiliation, the truth of how it hurt her. Instead, she’d packed it all up and put it away, pretending to forget. Pretending to move on. And along came Brock to crack that door open again. What if she decides she made a mistake? Would I be realized as replacement rather than a relationship? Would those feelings we’d both believed were honest be tarnished by the knowledge?

I should have known Brock’s presence would bite me in the ass. It was inescapable, a cruel inconvenience, and one that kept him firmly in his line of sight. How could she forget him when he—and more notably, Natasha—were so present? When Natasha insisted on parading it in front of her, flag in hand?

There has to be an explanation. It wasn’t what you think it was.

I drew a deep breath to steady myself, fearing it would only flame the inferno in my chest.

Trust her, I told myself. There’s nothing he has that she wants.

Except money. Power. Status. He’s everything you’re not, another merciless voice said.

She doesn’t want that. I know she doesn’t.

That ruthless other self only smiled like it knew better.

I made it back to the reception hall, and when the interns caught sight of me, there was a light of concern in their eyes. So I did my best to smooth my face, to calm myself, to offer a smile and relax my coiled shoulders and clenched fists, still poised to make Brock Bancroft eat his own teeth.

The visceral fury surprised and confused me. Not that I could have knocked Brock out—I’d been in enough fights with and behind my brothers that I held no issue with expressing myself with my fists, if necessary. But the depth of the potential betrayal tore open a part of me I rarely saw, one without ration.

What has she done to me?

I was changed, and at present, that change was not pretty. I sought to know why and realized it was simple.