Chapter 3Thirty Days In Your Skin

With the debt sorted, I packed a small duffel bag with a few clothes. When I came downstairs, both my parents were in the living room.

"Mr. Beaumont, Mrs. Beaumont. I don't have the face to live here anymore."

I bowed deeply to them, turned around, and walked out the door.

For the next few weeks, I checked into the most expensive luxury hotel in the city. I dined at exclusive private supper clubs, booked the most indulgent spa treatments, and drained every single penny of the savings Samantha had hoarded over the years.

Time bled away. Soon, there were only three days left until the swap ended.

When the hotel doorbell rang, Samantha strode in wearing designer heels, her eyes sweeping over the high-end shopping bags littered across the coffee table.

"You're a quarter million in debt, and you still dare to spend money like this?"

I took a slow sip of my espresso. "Isn't money meant to be spent?"

She let out a cold laugh, pulling a gold-embossed envelope from her designer bag and tossing it onto the table.

"Eleanor Beaumont & Bradley Dalton."

"Engagement Gala."

"You "must" come." She leaned over, her face inches from mine. "I want you to see with your own eyes that everything you used to have... is mine now."

Seeing Bradley’s name still made my fingers twitch.

I had been worn down by the horrific ending of my last life. I expected nothing from my parents, nothing from the Beaumont name.

But Bradley was different.

On the thirtieth day, the engagement party was held in the grand ballroom of the city's most opulent hotel.

Samantha wore a custom couture gown, standing at the center of the room, surrounded by glittering high society.

Bradley stood by her side. When people offered toasts, he drank on her behalf. When someone accidentally stepped on her train, he smoothly bent down to fix it, rising to softly ask if she was tired.

I knew those subtle, intimate gestures far too well.

He used to take care of me exactly like that.

I stood in the shadows near the back, a bitter, sour ache rising in my chest that I couldn't quite swallow down.

The ceremony began. The massive screens at the front were supposed to play a montage of the couple's romantic photos.

Instead, the screen flickered, glitching violently, before replacing the photos with massive screenshots of text messages.

The contact names at the top: "Samantha Russo" and "Bradley Dalton".

The ballroom erupted into a stunned, deafening uproar.

But my eyes were entirely locked on the timestamps of those messages.

The dates were from "before" Samantha and I had swapped bodies.

I remembered that specific night. I had cooked an elaborate dinner, waiting for Bradley at my apartment. He had called, his voice dripping with affection, telling me there was an emergency at the firm and that I shouldn't wait up.

But there it was on the screen, glaring and undeniable.

[Samantha: Isn't she waiting for you tonight?]

[Bradley: I told her I had to work late.]

[Samantha: What time?]

[Bradley: Nine o'clock. The usual spot.]

My fingertips turned to ice.

All that time, back when I trusted him with my whole heart, they were already sleeping together.

Bradley’s face drained of color. He lunged for the MC’s microphone.

"This is fake! I have never had that kind of relationship with Samantha Russo!" his voice boomed over the speakers. "She... she had some inappropriate feelings for me in the past, yes, but I rejected her unequivocally! These texts are forged!"

Samantha immediately rushed to his side, her eyes already welling with perfect, tragic tears.

She looked directly into the crowd, seeking me out. "Samantha... I know you've always had a crush on Bradley, but this is my engagement party! Even if you hate me, how could you use something like this to destroy us?"

She paused, playing the victim with sickening perfection. "I don't blame you for liking him. But you can't just forge chat logs out of jealousy."

The whispers in the room escalated into a roar.

"Theft. Expulsion. Lost fellowship. Delusional unrequited love. Forgery. Ruining an engagement."

The name "Samantha Russo" was officially rotting in the mouths of the city's elite.

I stood watching the two of them on stage, and suddenly, clarity washed over me.

Bradley had just declared into a microphone that he had never touched Samantha.

Samantha had just declared that the text logs were forged by me.

To save their own skin tonight, they had personally blockaded every single exit route they had left.

But I couldn't bring myself to smile.

The crowd parted.

My mother marched toward me, her eyes rimmed with red. Without a word, she raised her hand and slapped me hard across the face.

My head snapped to the side. The metallic taste of blood instantly bloomed in my mouth.

I didn't dodge it.

My mother was trying to hit Samantha. But the person feeling the blinding sting of that strike... was me.

Her voice shook uncontrollably. "Samantha, what has the Beaumont family ever done to you? Eleanor treated you like a sister. We gave you everything! Why must you try to destroy her?"

I slowly raised my head and looked at her.

When I was eight years old and running a high fever, it was that exact hand that had rested against my forehead, checking my temperature over and over through the night.

And tonight, that hand had just struck me.

My father stepped up behind her. He stared at me in heavy, suffocating silence before speaking.

"As of today, the Beaumont family cuts all ties with you. Do not ever come near Eleanor again."

I swallowed the blood in my mouth.

"Okay."

I turned and walked toward the exit.

Just as I reached the ballroom doors, Samantha chased after me.

She blocked my path, the malicious triumph bleeding through her fake tears.

"Your fellowship is gone. You're drowning in debt. And now Richard and Margaret have thrown you out like trash."

She glanced back into the glittering room toward Bradley. "Even the man you loved the most thinks you're disgusting."

She leaned in, her breath hot against my ear, her voice trembling with sheer exhilaration.

"Eleanor Beaumont, I have entirely decimated your life."

I looked down at my phone screen.

"23:50."

Ten minutes left.

I didn't argue with her. I stepped around her and walked out into the cold night air.

Back in the hotel suite, the floor-to-ceiling windows reflected Samantha's face. The left cheek was swollen and red.

The digital clock on my phone ticked forward, second by agonizing second.

"23:59:58."

Samantha’s words echoed in my head: "I have entirely decimated your life."

"23:59:59."

The screen ticked to "00:00".

I looked at the face in the glass, and the corners of my mouth slowly curled up into a smile.

An instant later, a violent, familiar wave of vertigo slammed into me.