Chapter 1Take My Bride She Is Yours

On the first night my best friend returned to the country, he got blindingly drunk over his first love.

"Three years, man," Caleb slurred, clutching his glass of bourbon like a lifeline. "Three whole years, and I still can’t get her out of my head." He leaned forward, his bloodshot eyes locking onto mine before drifting deliberately toward the woman sitting beside me. "She’s getting married next week. Tell me, Eli... should I steal her back?"

He was asking me, but his gaze remained glued to Elena.

Elena swirled the amber liquid in her tumbler with practiced indifference, but under the mahogany table, her knuckles were white against her silk trousers.

I parted my lips to speak, but before a sound could escape my throat, translucent lines of glowing text suddenly drifted across my field of vision like a phantom ticker tape:

[Look at this clueless side character trying to comfort him. His fiancée’s looking at the male lead with enough raw tension to set the room on fire.]

[She only stayed with Eli for three years to bide her time. Now that her first love is back, who wants the knockoff?]

[Let them finish this drink. The real couple is reuniting tonight, and the placeholder needs to pack his bags.]

I froze, the air evaporating from my lungs.

Looking across the table into Caleb’s expectant, faintly mocking eyes, I felt a strange, icy calm wash over me. I smiled softly.

"You don't need to steal her."

* * *

Both of them snapped their heads toward me at the exact same time.

A flicker of irritation crossed Caleb’s features. "What’s that supposed to mean, Eli? We’ve been brothers for years. Don't you want me to be happy?"

When I didn't answer, he pushed himself up, fueled by alcohol and reckless entitlement, and grabbed the lapel of Elena’s blazer. The distance between them vanished in an instant.

"If he won't give me an answer, you will," Caleb breathed against her mouth. "Should I steal you back, Elena?"

He dragged out her name, every syllable heavy with shared history.

The luminous words scrolled across the air in a frenzied blur:

[Just kiss already! They’ve lost so many years!]

[True love always wins!]

[Why is the fiancé still sitting there? Hasn't he realized she only started dating him so she could keep tabs on Caleb?]

Through the dim lounge lighting, I watched Elena's throat bob. She swallowed hard, her body taut with an effort at restraint that looked almost painful.

My mind flashed back to the beginning of our relationship. Every time Caleb posted an update from London, Elena’s profile would show up in my viewer history within minutes. I had spent three years believing she was simply clingy, so infatuated with me that she checked my feed religiously.

She wasn't looking at me. She was looking through me.

Caleb tightened his grip on her lapels, pulling her so close their breaths mingled. Only then did Elena finally raise her hands and push him back, her voice breathless. "You’ve had too much to drink."

"I haven't had enough!" Caleb shouted, leaning over the table. "Why should you two get married? I just want back what was always mine. Is that a crime? I want an answer from you two tonight."

Elena’s jaw tightened. She said nothing.

I had always known there was a ghost living in her past—a phantom ex-boyfriend for whom she had once swallowed a bottle of pills, for whom she had swallowed her pride and claimed her rightful place as the illegitimate heir to the Sterling estate just to prove a point.

I just hadn't known the ghost was Caleb. She had never breathed a single word of his name to me.

The theatrical tragedy unfolding before me suddenly felt cheap. I picked up my glass, drained the whiskey in one swallow, and set it down with a crisp clink.

"Like I said," I remarked, my voice entirely steady, "you don't have to steal anything. She’ll be handed right back to you."

Elena visibly flinched. But when Caleb stumbled beside her, her instinct took over—she caught him by the waist before he could fall.

Caleb wiped the drunken tears from his lashes and threw his arms around my shoulders in a suffocating embrace. "Are you serious, Eli? You can't take it back!"

"I won't," I said.

Before I could add that there was nothing left to take back, Elena cut in. Her brow furrowed as she wrapped her tailored coat around Caleb's trembling frame.

"He's drunk and out of his mind," she said, her tone laced with sharp reprimand directed at me. "Why are you indulging him? Let's end the night here. I have to stop by the office anyway; I’ll drop him off on the way."

She guided Caleb into the passenger seat of her Porsche with practiced gentleness, buckling his seatbelt before walking back to where I stood on the curb.

"Don't overthink this," she murmured, brushing an imaginary speck of dust from my shoulder. "I'm only helping him because he's your friend."

She lingered on the pavement, her chin slightly tilted, waiting for me to flare up, to show jealousy, to demand she stay.

She seemed to have forgotten that I had never given her Caleb’s new apartment address. How could she possibly know it was on her way?

The excuse was riddled with holes, but I suddenly found myself lacking the will to care.

I smiled, meeting her guarded eyes. "It's fine. You're free to do whatever you want."