MARRIED TO MY BEST FRIEND

A spike of pain hammered behind Chloe’s eyes, but it was nothing compared to the sickening jolt of memory that slammed into her the second she woke up. She hadn’t just slept with a stranger. She had spent the night tangled in the sheets with Alistair Sterling—her best friend Izzy’s father.

Then, blinding sunlight sliced through a gap in the curtains, a blade of heat across her face. She groaned, a dry rasp in the crushing silence. The effort to lift a hand to shield her eyes sent a fresh tremor of agony through her skull.

She forced her eyelids open.

This was not her apartment.

The room was a vast, sterile study in gray, black, and chrome. A single, aggressive slash of abstract art hung on a concrete wall. The air was crisp and cold, smelling of cedar and soap that cost more than her rent. Nothing was familiar. Nothing was hers.

She shifted, and a deep, muscular ache seized her body. The fog in her head broke completely, replaced by burning, hyper-vivid flashes of last night. Izzy hadn't lied when she'd bragged about her father's intense presence, but Chloe had never expected to experience it firsthand. Alistair had come home reeking of expensive scotch. When she had tried to help him to the master bathroom to wash up, the atmosphere had abruptly shifted. He had pinned her against the cold marble of the vanity, his gaze dark and starving, looking at her like a man who hadn't touched a woman in years. His movements had been fiercely possessive, his usually severe mouth claiming hers with a raw, bruising heat. He had pressed her down, taking her apart piece by piece until all her polite restraint shattered into breathless moans.

The blood drained from her face. Alistair Sterling. Thirty-six to her twenty-two. A reserved, incredibly handsome figure in a tailored suit who usually looked at her with detached politeness. But last night, the machine had glitched. A shameful heat crept up her neck as she remembered how her own instincts, drowned in tequila, had eagerly answered his aggressive demands.

She squeezed her eyes shut, a useless gesture against reality. Izzy. Oh, God, Izzy. What had she done?

She scrambled to sit up, clutching the impossibly smooth silk sheet to her chest. The other side of the king-sized bed was empty, the pillows pristine, but his scent lingered in the cold air.

Her traitorous mind supplied the exact reason she’d been drowning herself in tequila last night. Abe Hays. The memory of his cruel smirk cut through her hangover like glass, replacing the numbness with a sharp, burning humiliation.

Just two weeks ago, he had erased their ten years together in a matter of minutes.

After her parents died, the Hays family had taken her in, and she had spent a decade propping Abe up, quietly assuming they were building a future together.

But when it came time to secure a corporate merger, he had discarded her for Sloane Knight without a second thought.

He hadn't even given her the dignity of a private breakup. He had done it in his office, with Sloane practically sitting on his lap, looking at Chloe as if she were a beggar intruding on their space. "Don't make a scene, Chloe. It's pathetic," Abe had sneered, his voice dripping with condescension when she demanded an explanation. "My family took you in out of pity. You were a convenient little plaything, a charity case I kept around out of habit. Did you honestly believe I'd marry a broke orphan when I can have Sloane? You should be on your knees thanking me for letting you warm my bed all these years."

The sheer, gaslighting cruelty of it, combined with Sloane's mocking laughter as she advised Chloe to "pack her cheap bags and know her place," had shattered her completely. Driven by a fierce, bleeding pride, Chloe had walked out that very hour, leaving behind the only home she knew. Half a month had passed, and Abe hadn't reached out once.

A vibration on the nightstand made her jump. Her phone. With a trembling hand, she reached for it. The screen lit up with a message from Izzy.

Chlo, you awake? Don't freak out. I've got you!