The bruises looked worse in daylight.

I stood in front of the bathroom mirror in nothing but a towel. Three dark marks on my left breast. One under my collarbone. A fainter one on my ribs, shaped like his mouth.

Perfect.

I pressed my thumb into the one on my collarbone until it ached. Then I let my knees fold.

The towel hit the tile. So did I.

The first sob was fake. The second one surprised me. It tore up from somewhere low and ugly, and suddenly I was shaking for real. Maybe for the hotels. Maybe for the girl who used to believe Damian when he said sweetheart.

I crawled back to the bed and dragged the sheet over me, balling it in both fists.

Footsteps pounded in the hall.

"Nora?" Rhys shoved the door open, shirt half-buttoned, hair wrecked. "Nora, what happened? Are you hurt?"

"Don't." I yanked the sheet up to my chin. "Don't come near me."

He stopped dead in the doorway.

"Okay. Okay. I'm right here. I'm not moving."

"Look at me, Rhys." I let the sheet slip just enough to show the marks. "Look what I am."

His face went gray.

"I never wanted to hurt him," I whispered. "Never. I've been faithful to Damian for six years. Six years. And last night I just—I don't even know who that was."

"Nora—"

"I drank his scotch. I wore that dress. I sat at his table and I—" My voice cracked clean in half. "What kind of woman does that three days before her wedding?"

"A scared one." He took one careful step closer. "You said it yourself. Brides get scared."

"Scared doesn't spread her legs for her fiancé's best friend."

He flinched like I'd slapped him.

I buried my face in the pillow. When I spoke again, it came out flat and quiet. The quiet was the part that scared him. I watched it land.

"I don't want to be alive anymore, Rhys."

The room went silent.

Then the mattress dipped. He sat on the edge, not touching me, his hands clenched between his knees.

"Don't say that. Don't ever say that."

"Why not? It's true."

"Because it wasn't your fault." His voice dropped to a rasp. "You said no, Nora. You said we shouldn't. You said his name. You were crying, and I kept going."

I lifted my head slowly.

His jaw was locked tight, but his eyes were wet.

"I pushed you," he said. "That's on me. Not you."

For a moment I almost felt sorry for him. He really believed it. He thought he'd taken something from me.

"Then why did it happen?" I asked. "Why were you even here last night? Why did Damian send you to me?"

His mouth opened.

This was it. One sentence. Damian asked me to. One sentence, and maybe I'd forgive him for the rest.

He reached over and tucked the sheet higher around my shoulder, gentle as a nurse.

"He was busy. He didn't want you alone. That's all."

Something in my chest went very still.

"That's all," I repeated.

"Nora, I swear, I'll fix this. I'll talk to him. Nobody needs to—"

"Get out."

"Let me just—"

"I said get out, Rhys." I turned my face to the window. "Go tell my fiancé I'm fine. You're good at that."

He stood there long enough that I heard him breathe twice. Then the door closed.

I wiped my face with the corner of the sheet.

Fine. He'd had his chance.

---

Damian Wycliffe hated being kept waiting, so he arrived at the Calloway townhouse ten minutes early and let himself in.

Rhys was in the kitchen, sleeves shoved up, staring into a cup of coffee he hadn't touched.

"You didn't answer my texts." Damian dropped his keys on the counter. "I asked how it went. Simple question."

"It went."

"That's a terrible report."

Rhys turned around. His collar shifted.

Damian saw it. A red mark, just above the shirt line. Then another, lower, a scratch dragging down toward his chest.

The keys stopped jingling.

"What the fuck is that?"

Rhys glanced down. He didn't fix his collar. "What do you think it is?"

"I told you to keep her busy." Damian crossed the kitchen in three strides and grabbed his shirt. "I didn't tell you to fuck her."

"Didn't you?"

"I said distract her. Flirt. Get one picture, if it came to that. Not—" He jerked the collar wider. More marks. Nora's nails. "You touched her. You actually put your hands on her."

Rhys shoved him off, hard enough that Damian hit the counter.

"You're angry? You?" He laughed, short and mean. "You stood in your study and asked me to seduce your fiancée so you could take your girlfriend to the beach house. You were the one who wanted this, Damian. I just did the job."

"Watch your mouth."

"Or what? You'll fire me from being your friend?"

Damian straightened his jacket. When he spoke again, his voice was calm. Too calm.

"Listen carefully. Whatever happened last night stays in that apartment. And don't you dare fall for her."

"Why? Afraid she'd pick me?"

"Afraid you'd be stupid enough to think she might." He smiled thinly. "Nora's mine. The hotels are mine on Saturday. You were a tool, Rhys. Tools don't get feelings."

Rhys picked up his coffee, finally. Took a slow sip. His hand was steady.

"Funny. Where were you at midnight?"

"Working."

"In the Hamptons? With Selene?" He set the mug down. "You spent all night inside another woman, and now you're standing in my kitchen playing the loyal fiancé. Do you hear yourself?"

Damian's jaw flexed once.

"She cried," Rhys said quietly. "This morning. She said she didn't want to live. Over you. Over a man who'd already sold her to me for one weekend."

For a second, Damian looked almost uncertain.

Then he picked up his keys.

"She'll be fine by the rehearsal dinner. She always is." He walked to the door. "Keep your shirt buttoned tonight."

The door slammed hard enough to rattle the glass.

---

Selene was waiting in the backseat of his car when he came out, legs crossed, wearing his coat and apparently nothing under it.

"You look angry, baby."

"Drive," Damian told the driver, and raised the partition.

"Is it her?" Selene trailed a fingernail down his tie. "The little hotel princess?"

"Shut up."

He pulled her into his lap. The coat fell open. She was bare underneath, just like he'd guessed, and he dragged his mouth down her throat to her breast and bit hard enough to make her yelp.

"Fuck, Damian. Rough day?"

"Unzip me."

She did, quick and greedy, and wrapped her hand around his cock. He was already hard. He hated that he was already hard.

"Who are you thinking about?" she purred, stroking him slow. "Me? Or her?"

"Get on it, Selene."

She sank down onto him in one smooth, wet slide, moaning loud enough that the driver had to hear. Damian gripped her hips and slammed her down, over and over, the leather seat squeaking under them.

"Harder, baby. Fuck me like you mean it."

He did. He fucked her until she was clawing at his shoulders, until she came shuddering on his cock, and he followed with his face buried in her neck.

But the whole time, behind his closed eyes, he saw a red mark on Rhys's collarbone.

Selene laughed breathlessly and kissed his jaw. "Mm. You should be angry more often."

His phone buzzed against her thigh.

He fished it out.

Nora: Rehearsal dinner moved to six. I have a surprise for you. Bring Rhys.

That evening, I set the table for three.

"A thank-you dinner," I told Damian on the phone. "Rhys carried our wedding gift all the way from London. The least we can do is feed him."

"You're too sweet, sweetheart."

"I know."

The gift sat on the sideboard when they arrived. A crystal decanter, hand-cut, wrapped in silver paper. Rhys set it down like it weighed a hundred pounds.

"It's from the Mayfair shop you liked," he said. He didn't meet my eyes.

"You remembered." I touched his arm for exactly one second. "Thank you, Rhys."

Damian's hand landed on the small of my back before I could pull away.

---

He sat so close our knees touched under the table. Damian, who usually texted through dinner. Damian, who once told a photographer that public affection was "for people with nothing else to sell."

Tonight he cut my steak for me.

"Smaller pieces, sweetheart. You always rush." He slid the plate back in front of me and kissed my bare shoulder. "There."

"I'm not five, Damian."

"No. You're almost my wife." He reached for his wine and smiled across the table. "Rhys, did she tell you about the honeymoon suite? Maldives. Overwater villa. Glass floor right under the bed."

Rhys's fork scraped his plate. "She didn't mention it."

"Ten days. No phones. No board meetings." Damian's thumb stroked the side of my neck, right where Rhys had left a mark I'd covered with concealer. "Just the two of us. I plan to keep her very busy."

I tucked my head against his shoulder and laughed. Soft, pretty, the laugh of a girl in love.

Across the table, Rhys gripped his glass so hard his knuckles went white.

"Sounds great," he said.

"It will be." Damian kissed my hair. "Won't it, Nora?"

"Perfect," I murmured.

Rhys drained his wine in one swallow.

Damian checked the empty bottle and pushed back his chair. "We're out. I'll grab the Bordeaux from the cellar. Don't have too much fun without me."

His footsteps faded down the stairs.

The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on.

I stood and moved to the sofa, smoothing my skirt. "You should slow down on the wine, Rhys. You're—"

He was already in front of me.

One hand slammed into the cushion beside my head. The other braced on the armrest. I was caged in, my back pressed into the leather, his face inches from mine.

"Don't do that," he said. "Don't lean on him like that in front of me."

"He's my fiancé."

"He's a fucking liar, and you know it."

Then his mouth crashed onto mine.

It wasn't gentle. His tongue pushed past my lips, hot and desperate, tasting like red wine and anger. His fingers drove into my hair and tilted my head back so he could take more.

For one heartbeat, I kissed him back. My hand fisted in his shirt. My tongue met his.

Then I shoved.

"Stop—Rhys, stop!" Tears spilled down my cheeks. I let them. "I'm getting married. Saturday. In four days, I'm getting married."

He jerked back like I'd burned him.

"Nora. God. I'm sorry." He stumbled away from the sofa, one step, two, three, until his back hit the bookshelf. "I'm sorry. I didn't—I shouldn't have."

I wiped my mouth with my wrist. My lipstick smeared across my skin.

He didn't say anything else. He just stood there with his hands hanging at his sides, chest heaving, staring at the carpet like he wanted it to swallow him.

The cellar door creaked.

Damian walked in holding the bottle. He stopped.

His gaze traveled over me. My hair, tangled on one side. My lips, swollen and red. Then over to Rhys, frozen against the shelves, rigid as a statue.

The bottle didn't move in his hand.

"Found it," Damian said lightly. "Two thousand five. Good year."

Nobody answered.

He set it on the table and began peeling the foil, slow and careful, like nothing in the room had changed.

I rose. "I need to wash my hands. The steak sauce."

"Take your time, sweetheart."

---

I didn't go to the bathroom. I closed the hallway door most of the way and pressed my shoulder to the frame.

Damian's voice came low and sharp.

"Are you out of your mind?"

"Keep your voice down."

"In my house. With me one floor below." The cork popped. "What the fuck were you thinking?"

"I wasn't." Rhys sounded hollow. "That's the problem, isn't it?"

"The problem is you don't know your place. I asked for one weekend. One. And now you're pawing her on my couch like some lovesick—"

Rhys laughed. It was a cold, ugly sound.

"You asked. Listen to yourself, Damian. You set this up. You put her in that dress, at that table, with me. You handed me the key to your apartment." A glass clinked down hard. "When you were planning all this, did you ever once think about what would happen after?"

"Nothing happens after. She's marrying me."

"She cried in my arms. Twice now. Over you."

"Then stop holding her."

I counted to ten. Then I pushed the door open and smiled.

Both of them went silent. Damian's hand stopped mid-pour. Rhys turned toward the window.

"Did I miss something?" I asked.

"Just wedding logistics." Damian held out a glass. "Seating chart. Rhys is being difficult about his speech."

"Be nice to him, Damian. He flew a long way."

I crossed the room and slipped my arm through Damian's. I leaned into his side, resting my cheek against his shoulder, and gazed up at him like he was the only man in the world.

"Rhys didn't mean anything by it," I said softly. "Whatever it was. He's your best friend."

Damian's arm tightened around me. "Of course."

Over his shoulder, I caught Rhys's reflection in the dark window. His jaw clenched. His eyes were fixed on my hand curled around Damian's sleeve.

He looked like a man watching someone walk into traffic.

Good.

---

The doorbell rang.

Damian's whole body went still under my hand.

"Expecting someone?" I asked.

"Maybe." He kissed my temple and slid free. "Stay here."

I didn't. I followed him to the foyer, two steps behind.

He opened the door.

A woman stood in the hall. Dark hair pinned up, red dress, a smile sharpened to a point. She held a bottle of wine in both hands like a trophy.

I knew her face. I'd seen it on the security camera, climbing the steps of my family's beach house with her suitcase.

Selene.

"Sorry I'm late," she said. "Traffic."

Damian turned to me and dropped his voice to a whisper.

"Sweetheart, don't be mad. This is Selene Marrow. Rhys was crazy about her back in college, but she moved to Paris before he worked up the nerve." He squeezed my hand. "I thought, why not give my best friend a little reunion? Before the wedding."

I stared at him. He stared back, perfectly innocent.

Behind us, I heard Rhys set his glass down.

Selene lifted the bottle. "Château Pétrus, '82. I hope I'm not intruding."

I smiled until my cheeks ached.

"Intruding? Don't be silly." I stepped forward and took her arm. "Please, come in. Stay as long as you like."

Her perfume washed over me as she passed.

Jasmine and vanilla.

And dangling from her left ear, catching the light, a single diamond teardrop.

The right one was missing.