Chapter 3: The Best Friend

GRACE'S POV

I didn't sleep. Couldn't even pretend to try. Instead I sat on the couch with my laptop until the sky started turning gray, going through three years of my life like I was excavating an archaeological site. Every text message, every photo, every casual mention of working late or meeting clients. I built a timeline in a spreadsheet because that's what you do when your brain is trying to protect you from feeling too much—you organize the pain into columns and rows until it looks manageable.

Stella's name appeared forty-seven times in Carter's texts over the last eighteen months. Forty-seven times he'd made plans with my friend, and I'd never questioned it because why would I? She was my friend first. We'd met doing a campaign for an activewear brand back when I was still modeling, back when she was the girl who always stood just behind me in group shots, the almost-pretty one who booked catalogues instead of runways. She'd been so sweet back then, or I'd thought she was. Always complimentary, always available, always interested in my life in that way that had felt flattering instead of invasive.

I should've seen it. Should've noticed how she looked at Carter at our engagement party, how she always found reasons to touch his arm when she talked to him, how she'd volunteered to help him plan my surprise birthday dinner last year. I'd thought she was being a good friend. Turns out she was just collecting access.

The sun was fully up by the time I grabbed my keys and headed for the door. I knew where Stella lived because I'd been there dozens of times—a rent-controlled one-bedroom in the West Village that she'd inherited from an aunt, the kind of apartment that should've been gratitude-inducing but instead just made her bitter about everything she didn't have. I'd listened to her complain about it over wine. About the outdated kitchen and the neighbors and how unfair it was that some people got penthouses handed to them while she had to scrimp and save.

Some people. She'd meant me, I realized now. She'd been sitting in my home, drinking my wine, talking about how unfair my life was.

I rang her buzzer at seven-thirty in the morning and didn't let up until she answered. Her voice came through the intercom scratchy with sleep. "Hello?"

"It's Grace. Buzz me up."

Silence. Long enough that I thought she might refuse, might pretend she wasn't home. Then the lock clicked and I was shoving through the door before she could change her mind.

She was waiting in her doorway when I got off the elevator, wearing an oversized t-shirt that I recognized—one of Carter's old college shirts that he'd claimed he lost during a move. She'd tied her hair up in a messy bun and her face was bare of makeup, making her look younger and somehow more guilty. Like I'd caught a kid with her hand in the cookie jar instead of a twenty-eight-year-old woman who'd been sleeping with my husband.

"Grace, I—"

I pushed past her into the apartment. It smelled like her perfume, that jasmine scent she always wore too much of, mixed with something else. Coffee. She'd already started coffee, which meant she'd been awake. Which meant she'd been expecting this. "When did it start?"

"Can we at least sit down? Can I get you—"

"When did it start, Stella?" I turned to face her and watched her flinch. Good. I hoped I looked as angry as I felt, hoped she could see exactly what her betrayal had cost me. "I found videos. Multiple videos. So don't try to lie to me about what this was."

Her face went red, then white. She closed the door behind her carefully, like she was buying time. "I don't—videos? What are you talking about?"

"Carter's email. Marcus sends them to him, apparently. Little trophies of his conquests." My voice was shaking but I kept going. "There's one of you in what looks like Marcus's penthouse. One in Carter's office. Should I keep going or do you want to save us both the embarrassment?"

Stella wrapped her arms around herself. "I didn't know he was recording."

"That's what you're leading with? Not 'I'm sorry' or 'I don't know what I was thinking' but 'I didn't know he was recording'?" I actually laughed, high and sharp. "Jesus Christ, Stella. We were friends. I trusted you."

"We weren't really friends though, were we?" She said it quietly but there was an edge underneath. "Be honest, Grace. You liked having me around because I made you feel good about yourself. The successful model with the loyal sidekick. You never actually saw me."

"Is that what you told yourself? That it was okay to sleep with my husband because I didn't see you?" My hands were shaking so I shoved them in my pockets. "When did it start?"

She moved to her kitchen, poured herself coffee with steady hands. Didn't offer me any. "Does it matter?"

"Yes. It matters. It all matters now."

She took a long sip, stalling. When she finally spoke, she wasn't looking at me. "Your bachelorette party. We all went to that club in Meatpacking and you left early because you had a dress fitting in the morning. Remember?"

I did remember. I'd felt guilty about leaving, about abandoning my friends, but the dress needed alterations and the seamstress could only do mornings. Stella had hugged me, told me not to worry, that they'd keep the party going. "That was two months before my wedding."

"Yeah." She set down the coffee cup. "Carter showed up after you left. Said he wanted to buy us all a round, celebrate his last weeks of freedom. We were drunk and dancing and he kept looking at me like—like he actually saw me. Like I was the only person in the room. No one had ever looked at me like that before."

"So you slept with him." My voice came out flat. "Two months before he married me, you slept with him."

"We just kissed that night. But he got my number and he texted me the next day. Said he couldn't stop thinking about me. That you were beautiful but I was real." She looked up finally and I saw tears in her eyes, like she was the victim here. "He made me feel special, Grace. For the first time in my life, someone like Carter Vaughn was choosing me."

"He was engaged. To me. Your friend." I felt dizzy, had to grab the back of her couch for balance. "You were in my wedding. You gave a toast about how perfect we were together. You looked me in the eye and lied."

"I didn't lie. I said what everyone wanted to hear." She pushed away from the counter, came closer. "And honestly? You have everything, Grace. The career, the face, the man. Would it have killed you to share? To let someone else have a piece of what you took for granted?"

I stared at her. Actually stared, trying to figure out if she was serious. "Share. You think I should've shared my husband."

"You didn't even want him!" Her voice went high, defensive. "You were always complaining about how much he worked, how little time you spent together. You took him for granted and I—I appreciated him. I made him happy in ways you couldn't."

"In ways I couldn't." I repeated the words slowly, letting them sink in. "You mean you had sex with him. That's what you're calling appreciation."

"It was more than that." She was crying openly now, mascara-less tears tracking down her face. "We talked. Really talked. He told me things he never told you. About his childhood, his fears, his dreams. We had a connection."

Something clicked then, watching her cry over my husband like she'd lost something precious. "You're in love with him."

She didn't answer but she didn't have to. I could see it in her face, in the way she'd said his name, in the way she was standing there trying to justify the unjustifiable because what else do you do when you've destroyed a friendship for a man who's never going to choose you?

"Stella." I made my voice gentle, which was harder than staying angry. "He doesn't love you. You know that, right? Whatever he told you, whatever connection you think you had—he recorded you. He sent videos of you to his friends. That's not love. That's not even respect."

"You don't know what we have." But her voice wavered. "You don't know him like I do."

"I know he's been sleeping with at least six other women. I counted. Six that I could confirm from his emails alone, which means there are probably more." I watched her process that, saw the moment it landed. "Did he tell you that you were special? That you were different from his wife, from all the other women? Because I'm guessing he said the same thing to every single one of them."

Her face crumpled. "He said—he told me he was going to leave you. That he was just waiting for the right time, that he didn't want to hurt you but we were meant to be together."

"When did he say that?"

"Last month. After we—" She stopped, swallowed hard. "After we'd been together at his office. He held me and said he'd never felt this way before, that being with me made him realize what he'd been missing."

"Last month he told me he wanted to start trying for a baby." The words came out before I could stop them. "Last month he took me to dinner and made this whole speech about family and legacy and how ready he was to be a father. So which one of us do you think he was lying to?"

Stella sat down hard on her couch. "Both. He was lying to both of us."

"Yeah." I should've felt vindicated but I just felt tired. Hollowed out. "He's a liar, Stella. That's what he does. He finds out what you want to hear and he says it and he makes you believe it because that's how he gets what he wants. And what he wanted from you was—what? Easy sex? Someone to make him feel desired? A way to feel like he was still the player he was before marriage?"

"Stop." She pressed her hands to her face. "Just stop."

"Why? Because you don't want to hear it? Because it hurts?" I moved closer, made her look at me. "You hurt me. You've been hurting me for eighteen months. You sat at my dinner table and smiled at me and the whole time you were sleeping with my husband. So no, I'm not going to stop. I'm going to make sure you understand exactly what you did."

"I didn't mean to—"

"Yes, you did. You made a choice. Every single time you met him, every time you texted him back, every time you let him touch you—those were choices. And you chose him over me. Over our friendship. Over basic human decency." I grabbed my purse, headed for the door because I couldn't breathe in there anymore, couldn't stand being in the same room with her. "I hope he was worth it."

"Grace, wait." She stood up, wiped her face. "Please. Can we—can we at least talk about this? I know I messed up but maybe we can—"

"Talk about what? How you're going to make this right? There is no making this right, Stella. You destroyed our friendship. You helped my husband destroy our marriage. And for what? For a man who recorded you without your consent and shared the video with his friends?"

Her face went even paler. "He shared it?"

"With Marcus at minimum. Maybe others. I don't know yet. Still working through the evidence." I opened the door, paused in the hallway. "Did you know about that? About the boys' club he has? The one where they all share their conquests and compare notes?"

"I—what? No. That's not—" She shook her head like she could physically reject the information. "Carter wouldn't do that. He's not like those guys. He's different."

"He's exactly like those guys. He is those guys." Something occurred to me then, something in the way she'd said it. "Wait. You know about them? About Marcus and the others?"

"I mean, I've met them. At events and stuff. But I didn't—I don't know what you mean about sharing."

"But you know there's a group. A club." I stepped back into the apartment, let the door close. "What do you know about it?"

Stella's eyes went wide and I realized she'd said more than she meant to. "Nothing. I don't know anything. I just meant his friends, his business partners. That's all."

"You're lying." I could see it in her face, in the way she wouldn't meet my eyes. "Stella. What do you know?"

"I can't—Grace, if I tell you, if Carter finds out I told you—"

"He's already going to find out we talked. I'm not exactly being subtle here." I crossed my arms. "What are you afraid of?"

She looked genuinely scared now, worrying her bottom lip. "They have lawyers. Really good lawyers. And they make people sign things, agreements about not talking about certain aspects of their personal lives. Marcus explained it to me once when I was at one of their parties. He said it was to protect everyone's privacy but it felt—I don't know. Wrong."

My stomach dropped. "What kind of agreements?"

"I don't know the details. But I heard Marcus and some other guy talking once, making jokes about their wives not being able to take them to the cleaners because of the paperwork. They were laughing about it. About how smart they'd been." She wrapped her arms around herself again. "That's all I know. I swear."

"But you knew Carter was part of this. This group of men with their bulletproof agreements and their casual contempt for their wives." I felt something hot and sharp lodge itself in my chest. "And you still slept with him. You still helped him cheat."

"I thought—" She stopped, started again. "I thought if I was patient, if I was understanding about his situation, he'd eventually leave you for me. That I'd be different because we had a real connection. But listening to you talk about the other women, about the videos—" Her voice broke. "I was just another one, wasn't I? Just another name on his list."

"Yeah." I didn't have it in me to soften it. "You were."

She started crying again, huge gulping sobs that shook her whole body. I watched her fall apart and felt nothing. No sympathy, no satisfaction, just a vast empty space where our friendship used to be.

"I need you to tell me everything you know about this group," I said. "Every conversation you overheard, every joke they made, every detail about how they operate. Because if Carter and his friends think they're going to walk away from this unscathed, they're wrong."

Stella looked up at me through her tears. "Grace, you can't go after them. These are powerful men. They'll destroy you."

"They already destroyed me." I grabbed my phone, opened the notes app. "Now I'm going to return the favor. So start talking."

She hesitated, and I watched her weigh loyalty to Carter against whatever remained of her conscience. Finally, she took a shaky breath. "The guys all know. About me and Carter, about all their side pieces. They joke about it at their dinners, make bets about who can—" She stopped, her face going pale.

"Who can what?" My voice came out sharp.

"I don't know. I heard Marcus say something once about a bet but Carter shut him down really fast, said it wasn't for outsiders to know about." She looked at me with wet, frightened eyes. "What kind of bet do you think he meant?"