Chapter 1

My best friend was sleeping with the man I had been married to for less than a year.

I first realized it less than a minute after walking into Sloan's new apartment.

His phone connected to her Wi-Fi automatically.

But in the elevator, he had looked me in the eye and told me this was his first time here.

I did not even know the password.

I stared at the small word "Connected" on his screen, my champagne glass frozen halfway to my lips.

"Genevieve?"

Sloan Mercer drawled my name as she leaned out from the open kitchen. She had just returned after three years in Europe. Her honey-blonde hair was shorter than when she had left, but her smile was the same one I remembered from college.

"You're not already regretting your promise to help me unpack, are you?"

"Too late for regrets." I set down my glass and went to hug her. "If you disappear to another country without warning me again, I'm burning your passport."

"You'd better ask Graham if he's willing to defend you first."

I looked over my shoulder.

Graham Ashford stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows, answering work emails. Beyond the glass, the Charles River was gray-blue beneath the December sky. The apartment was warm enough to make anyone drowsy.

Sloan and I had been laughing for a while, but he had barely looked up.

I pouted on purpose. "Could you at least pretend you're happy my best friend is home?"

Graham finally smiled.

He put away his phone, walked over, and ruffled my hair. His voice carried the familiar mix of affection and helpless amusement.

"She's your best friend, Gen. I'm just the poor man you dragged out of a board meeting to move boxes."

I swatted his hand away, though warmth still spread through my chest.

We had been in love for five years and lived together for three. We had finally married on New Year's Eve the year before.

At least to everyone looking in, we were still in the sweetest part of our marriage.

"Speaking of that." Sloan leaned against the counter with her arms folded. "Your first anniversary is next week. If you phone it in, I'm taking her back to Europe with me. Any objections, Gen?"

"I-"

"She's not going anywhere," Graham cut in.

He said it so naturally, as though it were a fact no one would ever need to question.

Sloan rolled her eyes dramatically. "Did you hear that? You haven't even been married a year, and he's already making your decisions for you."

Graham ignored her. He took a can of ginger ale from the refrigerator and poured it into a glass without ice.

"Didn't you say your stomach was bothering you this morning?" He handed it to me. "Drink it slowly."

The glass was warm beneath my fingers.

I looked at his face, so close to mine, and the unease that had stirred inside me almost vanished.

They would never betray me.

The three of us had been friends since college. Sloan was the closest friend I had, and Graham was the man I had loved for five years.

One automatic Wi-Fi connection might mean nothing.

Maybe he had been here before and forgotten to mention it. Maybe Sloan had reused the settings from her old apartment. Maybe-

"Ow."

Sloan sucked in a sharp breath.

A shard of glass had nicked her wrist while she unpacked a box. The cut was shallow, barely beading with blood. She did not seem concerned.

Graham seized her hand immediately.

"When did this happen?"

The teasing note that usually lived in his voice was gone. In its place was a tension that did not belong there.

Sloan blinked, then laughed and tried to pull away. "Just now. It's only a cut from broken glass, Graham. I'm not going to die."

"Was the glass clean? When was your last tetanus shot?"

"Graham, I survived falling off a trail in Peru."

"That cut got infected," he said without hesitation.

The room fell silent for a beat.

Sloan's smile tightened.

Graham seemed to realize how quickly he had answered. He released her, took out his phone, and forced his voice back into its usual careless tone.

"You complained about it in the group chat. Gen showed me the pictures."

I did not remember ever showing him those pictures.

He was already calling the private clinic at Copley Medical Center to book an appointment for Sloan the next morning.

"Don't read into it," he said after hanging up, giving her a sidelong glance. "I just don't want you suing your landlord over a champagne flute on your first day back."

Normally, their bickering would have made me laugh.

This time, I could not hear a word of it.

I looked down at my right hand.

The week before, I had burned it on the oven while making dinner for Graham. A thin scab had formed over the red mark on the back of my hand.

We had eaten four dinners together and slept in the same bed every night.

He had not noticed once.

Sloan seemed to catch my silence. Something flickered in her eyes. "Gen? Are you okay? You look pale."

I forced a smile and tightened my fingers around the ginger ale, now completely flat.

"I probably haven't been sleeping enough."

All I wanted was to disappear.

An eerie, heavy silence filled the car on the way home.

In the reflection of the window, I could see Graham's phone. He was searching for "how to care for a glass cut" and "how to prevent scarring."

Each new phrase felt like another fine needle slipping into my heart.

The air in the car seemed to harden around us.

"I wonder what kind of man Sloan will marry one day," I said suddenly.

Graham's thumb paused over the screen.

"Her?" He scoffed. "Who could put up with that personality?"

"She told me once, when she was drunk, that she really wants a family." I traced the edge of my seat belt with one finger. "What do you think we should give her when she gets married?"

For one suspended moment, the only sound was the low hum of the engine.

The easy lines of Graham's profile went rigid.

"She can't marry someone else!"

He froze the instant the words left his mouth.

His throat worked. His fingers tightened around the steering wheel.

"I mean..." His voice had gone rough. "A woman like her couldn't live with an ordinary man. And she would never settle."

I watched the city lights streak past the window. With every word he spoke, the thorn in my chest sank deeper.

"Graham."

"What?"

"If today was really your first time at Sloan's new apartment..."

I turned toward his suddenly rigid profile.

"Why did your phone know her Wi-Fi password?"

The silence inside the car was deafening.