Chapter 1

The wedding was over, and the guests had just gathered to crowd our bedroom for the games.

Then I got the call. My oldest friend had been dumped, and he'd slit his wrists at home.

I apologized to Denise Henson and drove for his place like a madman.

But when I got there, he wasn't hurt at all. He shoved me into the room and locked me in from the outside.

My phone buzzed. Someone had dropped a video into the bridesmaids' group chat.

Andrew Swanson, Denise's so-called male best friend, had his arms around her, grinning as he sucked a hickey onto her neck.

"Every important moment of your life, I've been part of it, ever since we were kids."

"So obviously the wedding night gets a little of me too~"

Through the door, Lucius James kept talking.

"We did this for you, you know. We were worried you'd get all jealous again, so we got you out of the way."

"The games everyone planned tonight are pretty wild. You're too uptight, you can't loosen up, you'd just kill the mood. That's why Andy stepped in for the wedding night."

"And come on, if there really were something between him and Denise, you wouldn't be the groom, would you? So quit throwing a fit."

On the screen, Denise sat with her hands tied.

She didn't stop him. She lowered her head, all suggestive.

One by one she undid the buttons of Andrew's shirt, lost in the game and having the time of her life.

Just like that, I lost all interest in any wedding-night games.

If Denise thought it was fine to let her best friend take my place on our wedding night,

then I could just as easily let someone else take her place at the marriage license office.

...

My eyes landed on the luxury gift box on the nightstand.

The brand Andrew liked to buy.

I spoke to the friend on the other side of the door.

"Lucius. If you don't let me out, I'm dropping this gold cuff link of yours into the toilet and flushing it."

The next second, sure enough, the door opened.

Lucius came charging in, furious.

"Give it back. That's the gift Andy gave me for getting you out of there!"

Right. Of course it was.

I looked at him, and I was just disappointed.

"So for a watch, you teamed up with someone to trick your own oldest friend?"

"When your boss humiliated you, I was the one who stood up for you, who got you into a better company. Is this how you repay me?"

Lucius rolled his eyes, yanked the watch off his wrist, and threw it at my feet.

"Don't flatter yourself, Harvey Harding. Andy told me the whole thing. He's the one who put in a word with my boss for me!"

"Andy told me this junk birthday present you gave me isn't worth thirty bucks. And you think you deserve to call yourself my friend?"

"The cuff links he gave me run close to a hundred grand. That's what a real friend is!"

"And besides, the two of them have known each other way longer than you and Denise. It's perfectly normal for best friends to share each other's big moments. You're the one making a thing of it. I did all this because I was scared you'd blow up and Denise would call off the license and you'd lose your golden ticket. What gives you the right to blame me?"

I looked at the watch, its face shattered, and I almost laughed.

Junk that wasn't worth ten bucks?

It was an antique I'd bought at auction. Worth over a million.

As for the boss at that company, he probably didn't even know who Andrew Swanson was.

Running into Lucius again in this city years ago, I'd been genuinely thrilled.

I'd thought that between friends there was no need to put a price tag or a title on a gift.

Turns out I'd poured my whole heart out to a dog.

I picked up the cuff link, dropped it into the toilet, and while Lucius shrieked and scrambled to fish it out, I left.

By the time I got back to the wedding suite, the master bedroom was full of cheering.

The video that had gone out to the group by mistake had already been deleted.

But I'd made it back in time for the live show anyway.

Denise and Andrew were sitting on the wedding bed, playing some game where you kiss for five minutes without coming up for air.

One of them bare-chested, the other down to a camisole, both of their necks covered in kiss marks.

A full five minutes before they finally broke apart, a thread of spit still stretched between their lips.

They saw me push the door open, and the air froze.

Andrew shrugged and drawled at Denise, snide.

"Den, your little jealous fit is back. Game's over, huh? Better go soothe her. Don't make it sound like we're the ones who did her wrong."

Denise pulled me out to the living room and asked, low.

"Harv, why did you come back? You didn't wait for me to come get you."

"Getting married is a big deal. Everyone just wanted me to enjoy it. They were afraid you'd be too self-conscious to loosen up, that they might accidentally upset you, so Andy played those games in your place. There was nothing to it."

I looked at her face, not a trace of guilt on it.

"Our wedding night. You get the groom sent away, then you're tongue-kissing another man and letting him give you hickeys, and you call that playing a game?"

"Denise. Do you take me for an idiot?"

Before she could say a word, Andrew came out, dressed again.

He held out a set of red pajamas to me.

"Here, these are yours. Den and I were playing the strip game just now, she'd nearly gotten me down to nothing, and I didn't bring pajamas, so I borrowed these for a bit."

I'd chosen them carefully for tonight.

Instead of the tenderness I'd imagined, there was only this, and it made my skin crawl.

I dropped the pajamas straight into the trash.

Andrew's face darkened.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

I said it plainly, with all the contempt it deserved.

"Isn't it obvious? I don't want a homewrecker's filth in my house. Get out. Now."