Chapter 3: The Morning After the World Changed

Silk sheets.

That’s my first coherent thought. These aren’t my sheets. Mine are cotton, budget-friendly, bought on sale at Target.

These are silk. Cool against my bare skin. Expensive.

Oh God.

I keep my eyes closed. If I don’t open them, maybe last night didn’t happen. Maybe I’m home. Maybe the champagne and the stranger and the feeling of his hands on my waist as we swayed to music that didn’t exist, maybe it was all a dream.

My head pounds. Definitely not a dream.

I crack one eye open. Floor-to-ceiling windows. City skyline. Sunrise bleeding gold and pink across buildings I can’t afford to live in.

Definitely not my apartment.

I turn my head slowly. The movement makes my skull throb.

He’s there.

Asleep. Face-down in the pillow beside me, one arm stretched across the space between us like he’d been reaching for something. Dark hair messed from, from my fingers, oh God, I remember my fingers in his hair.

In the morning light, I can see him clearly. Sharp jawline. Broad shoulders. A tattoo curling around his ribcage, some kind of Roman numerals I can’t read from this angle.

He’s beautiful. Devastatingly so.

And completely familiar.

No. No, no, no.

I know that face. I’ve seen it on, where have I seen it?

His phone lights up on the nightstand. The screen glows. A text preview.

**Ethan: Have you seen Ariana? She’s not answering. I’m worried sick.**

Everything stops.

Ethan.

This man knows Ethan.

I sit up too fast. The room spins. The sheet falls away and I’m naked, completely naked, and I grab it back up to my chest like modesty matters now.

The movement wakes him.

He turns over, eyes still half-closed, and reaches for me with sleep-warm familiarity. Like we’ve done this a thousand times. Like it’s normal.

“Morning,” he murmurs. His voice is rough. Deeper than last night.

Then his eyes open fully.

We stare at each other.

I watch recognition slam into him the same moment it hits me. His face goes white. Those dark eyes I thought were beautiful last night now wide with something that looks like horror.

“Fuck,” he says.

I know him. I know exactly who he is.

Lucian Blackwood.

I’ve seen him in Forbes. In business magazines scattered around Ethan’s apartment. On Ethan’s I*******m, the two of them at some charity event, arms around each other’s shoulders, grinning like brothers.

Best friends since college, Ethan had said. Closer than family.

“Oh my God.” My voice cracks. “Oh my God.”

Lucian sits up. Runs both hands through his hair. “This isn’t, we didn’t, fuck.”

His phone buzzes again. We both look at it.

**Ethan: Seriously, man. Call me. Something happened with Ariana and I can’t find her.**

The irony would be funny if I wasn’t about to vomit.

“We need to, I need to,” I can’t finish sentences. Can’t think. I scan the room for my clothes. My dress is on the floor. My bra hanging off a lamp. How did it get on the lamp?

“Wait.” Lucian’s voice cuts through my panic. Controlled now. Cool. The stranger from last night is gone, replaced by someone harder. “Just, wait.”

“Wait?” I clutch the sheet tighter. “Your best friend is texting you about me while I’m naked in your bed. What exactly should I be waiting for?”

“I didn’t know.” He stands, unconcerned by his own nakedness, and grabs his pants from the floor. “Last night, I didn’t know who you were.”

“Well, I didn’t know who you were either, so we’re even.” I spot my underwear. Lunge for it. Try to put it on under the sheet with some shred of dignity.

“This is, this is bad.” He’s pacing now. Three steps to the window. Three steps back. “This is really fucking bad.”

“You think?” My dress. I need my dress. “He can’t know about this.”

“Obviously he can’t know.” Lucian spins to face me. “Do you have any idea what this would do?”

“To you? To your friendship?” Anger cuts through the panic. Sharp. Clean. “Yeah, I get it. Your reputation matters more than—”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Isn’t it?” I find my dress. Yank it over my head. The zipper’s broken. Perfect. “God, I’m so stupid.”

“You’re not stupid.”

“I slept with my ex-boyfriend’s best friend twelve hours after catching him cheating.” I laugh. It sounds unhinged. “That’s pretty much the definition.”

His phone rings. We both freeze.

Ethan’s name lights up the screen.

“Don’t answer it,” I whisper.

“I have to. He’s been calling all night. If I don’t, he’ll—” Lucian stares at the phone like it’s a bomb. “Fuck.”

It rings. And rings.

He answers.

“Yeah.” His voice is perfectly normal. Casual. Like he didn’t just wake up next to his best friend’s ex. “Little early, man.”

I can hear Ethan through the speaker. Frantic. “Have you seen her? Ariana’s gone. She won’t answer. Something happened and I, I fucked up, Luc. I fucked up bad.”

Lucian’s eyes meet mine. Something passes between us. Shared guilt. Mutual destruction.

“What did you do?” Lucian asks. He sounds concerned. Brotherly.

“I, there was someone else. She found out. Walked in and saw, and now she won’t talk to me.” Ethan’s voice cracks. “I need to find her. I need to fix this.”

My hands are shaking again. Like last night. Like they haven’t stopped.

“She probably just needs space,” Lucian says. Each word sounds like it costs him. “Give her time.”

“I can’t. What if she does something stupid? What if she’s hurt?”

I should feel something. Satisfaction, maybe. That he’s worried. That he’s suffering.

I feel nothing.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Lucian says. “Ariana’s smart. She can take care of herself.”

The way he says my name. Like he knows how it tastes.

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.” Ethan exhales. “Sorry for calling so early. I’m just, I’m losing it.”

“It’s fine. That’s what friends are for.” Lucian’s jaw tightens on the last word. “Call me later, okay?”

“Thanks, man. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

The line goes dead.

Silence fills the room like flood water.

“He’s crying,” I say. Numb. “I’ve never heard him cry.”

“Ariana—”

“Don’t.” I hold up a hand. Find my shoes. One by the door. One under the bed. “We need to agree. Right now.”

“Agree on what?”

“That this never happened.” I straighten. Meet his eyes. “We were never here. We never met. You never bought me a drink. I never, we never—”

“I understand.”

“Good.” I grab my purse. My coat. “And you can’t tell him.”

“I won’t.”

“Promise me.” I’m at the door now. Hand on the handle. “Promise me you’ll never tell Ethan what his best friend’s girlfriend did.”

“Ex-girlfriend,” Lucian corrects quietly.

“What?”

“You said girlfriend. You’re not anymore. That ended when he, when you saw—” He stops. “You’re not his anymore.”

The words land strange. True and terrible.

“Promise me anyway.”

He crosses to me. Stops a foot away. Close enough to touch. Neither of us moves.

“I promise,” he says. “This never happened.”

I nod. Turn the handle.

“Ariana.”

I pause. Don’t look back.

“For what it’s worth,” his voice is rough again, raw, “I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

I leave without another word. Take the service elevator even though I don’t know where it goes. End up in a loading dock. My dress is inside-out. My hair is a disaster. I smell like his cologne.

My phone has sixty-three messages.

I delete them all.

And as I walk into the morning sun toward my car, I tell myself that was the end of it.

That I’ll never see Lucian Blackwood again.

I’m very good at lying to myself.

It’s a skill I’ve perfected.