Claimed by His Billionaire Best Friend

1 Two years after we secretly called off our relationship, the tabloids finally caught up. The morning headlines screamed that my fiancé, Hayes Kensington, had been spotted entering a boutique hotel with my best friend, Gemma. They were inside for three hours. Both our families were furious. We were summoned back to the Kensington estate overnight, forced to stand trial in front of the patriarchs. Just like I always did, I stepped up. I smoothed over the cracks with a calm, practiced smile. "Hayes and Gemma were just setting up a suite for me. It was supposed to be a surprise." The tension in the room instantly deflated. The elders sighed in relief. "Hayes likes to have his fun, but he knows where his loyalties lie," his father muttered. "Eight years together. You don't just throw that away." Now, on the ride back to my place, the silence in the car was thick. Hayes rolled down his window and lit a cigarette. The cherry flared orange in the dark, illuminating the sharp, careless lines of his profile. "Thanks," he said, his tone entirely too casual. "Name your price. Whatever gift you want, it's yours. Next time you need me to cover for you, just say the word." Almost no one knew that we had broken up two years ago. Bound by a massive, impending merger between the Harper and Kensington families, we had signed a private contract. We would serve as each other's shields. We would keep the peace. Once the two years were up, we would quietly, politely break the engagement. I sat in the passenger seat, letting the silence stretch. Then, I looked over at him. "Actually, there is something I need from you." He raised an eyebrow, amused. "Can we terminate the contract early?" I asked. "My boyfriend is getting tired of being a secret." The words hung in the air. The car went dead quiet. Hayes froze. The amusement vanished, replaced by a slow, calculating look that swept over my face, searching for a punchline. A moment later, he let out a low, breathy laugh. It was arrogant. Dismissive. "A boyfriend?" he said. "Since when? How did I miss that?" I weighed my words for a second, keeping my voice perfectly steady. "Almost two years." The smile died in his eyes. A heavy, suffocating pressure filled the small space of the car, tinged with a sudden, dark hostility. "So you just seamlessly moved on?" He tapped his fingers against the steering wheel, his jaw tightening. "God, Sloane. You've really outdone yourself." The questions came rapid-fire. "Who is it? What family? Do I know him? You've been hiding him for two years—what, is he not good enough to bring out in public?" I didn't owe him explanations, so I picked the easiest question to deflect. "It's not a good time." He stared hard at me. After a few long seconds, that infuriating, mocking smirk crawled back onto his face. "Alright, enough. Stop throwing a tantrum." He reached over, his hand instinctively going to my hair, ruffling it just like he used to. The gesture was deeply familiar, once meant to be affectionate, but now it just felt entirely out of place. "You don't have a boyfriend," he said, his voice dripping with condescension. "I know you, Sloane. Your standards are too high, and you're too damn stubborn. You don't just fall for people." A dull ache flared in my chest. That was exactly the problem. He thought he knew me so well. He was so absolutely certain that no matter what he did, I would always be right here, waiting. "Didn't you tell me that people change?" I looked at him, my voice stripped of all emotion. "Hayes, no one stands in the same place forever." The words landed heavily. The smirk finally, completely wiped off his face. A flicker of something—loss, maybe panic—flashed in his eyes, gone as quickly as it came. He lowered his voice. "Yeah. Don't wait for me. I can't give you what you want." He cleared his throat, forcing a faint, careless smile back onto his lips. "If you really are seeing someone, bring him around. Let me vet him." Streetlights slashed across his face as we drove, alternating between blinding gold and pitch black. This man, who had spent the last few years looking down on everyone, convinced he held the world in his palm, suddenly looked incredibly lonely. I looked away, turning my gaze out the window to the passing city. "We'll see," I murmured. I wasn't lying. I did have a boyfriend. A serious one. But I had a feeling I would never be able to casually introduce him to Hayes Kensington. Some relationships, once dragged into the light, don't just cause a scene. They cause an earthquake. It would be a devastating, ugly mess for everyone involved. 2 I had just stepped out of the shower when Rowan's name lit up my phone. "Did you see Hayes today?" Even through the speaker, I could picture the exact look on Rowan Montgomery’s face—that suppressed, jealous pout he tried to hide behind a veil of indifference. The lingering suffocation from the car ride evaporated instantly. I smiled, leaning against the bathroom counter. "Does the great Rowan Montgomery have spies watching me now?" Before he could defend himself, I decided to push it. "Yeah, I saw him. I even ate the food he put on my plate. Oh, and we held hands." His voice spiked. "Sloane! Do you want me to come over there and handle you?" I laughed softly into the receiver. "I'm kidding. I didn't touch the food, and when he reached for my hand in front of our parents, I pulled away." I heard a soft exhale on the other end. He was satisfied, his tone melting into something softer, though laced with a helpless kind of ache. "Baby," he murmured, his voice low. "When are you going to let me out of the dark?" My smile faded slightly. I lowered my voice. "I'm going to talk to him. Soon. Just give me a little more time, okay?" A long, drawn-out sigh came through the line. Then, a soft chuckle, endlessly patient and entirely indulgent. "I'm kidding," Rowan said. "I waited ten years for you, Sloane. I can wait as long as you need." Maybe it was the relief of that phone call, but that night, I had a long, vivid dream of the past. It was a montage of our youth. Hayes and I, practically raised side-by-side. The old Hayes had been gentle. Utterly devoted. His favoritism toward me was blatant and unapologetic. He would carry me on his back when my heels hurt after galas. He memorized every single one of my allergies, every coffee order. I remembered the night of our high school graduation. Fireworks shattering the sky over the country club. He had grabbed my hand in the middle of the crowd, his confession clumsy and breathless, promising me forever. "I love you, Sloane. I'm going to take care of you for the rest of my life." His eyes had held the stars that night. Through college on opposite coasts, he flew out every single weekend to see me. Our relationship was a given, an undeniable force of nature. By the time we graduated, we were engaged. Everyone in Manhattan society said it: Sloane Harper and Hayes Kensington were the golden couple. Then the earthquake hit, crushing all that tenderness to dust. Hayes found out, by sheer accident, that his father had a second family. A younger half-brother, born just two months after Hayes. His entire reality collapsed overnight. The boy I knew vanished. In his place was a man intent on tearing the world down with him. He threw himself into a vicious, hedonistic lifestyle. Yacht parties in Miami, pool ragers in the Hamptons. He surrounded himself with the worst kind of trust-fund sycophants. He stopped turning away women who threw themselves at him. He started replying to the late-night texts. I gave him grace. God, I gave him so much grace. I forgave. I waited. But my patience only seemed to validate his recklessness. The scandals piled up. Eventually, even my closest friend, Gemma, slipped into his orbit. I remembered lying in a hospital bed with a severe fever from pneumonia, calling him over and over. He was at a club. On our anniversary, he showed up two hours late. Gemma was walking right beside him. I had opened his phone that night—an accident, a notification glowing on the screen—and saw the graphic, undeniable texts between them. For months, I felt like I was drowning in ice water. But I couldn't let go. I knew the boy he used to be. I was stubbornly convinced he was just lost in his own grief. I was willing to wait out the storm. At first, when we fought, he would still try to coax me back, apologizing with that old desperation. But eventually, the apologies turned to annoyance. He told me being with me felt like suffocating. The endless screaming matches burned away whatever warmth we had left. I asked for space. I packed up and moved out of his penthouse. During that time, I was still trying to save us. When I had to travel to London for a week on business, I left our golden retriever, Barnaby—the dog we had raised together for years—with Hayes. The second I landed back in JFK, I went straight to his place to see the dog. When I reached out to touch Barnaby's paw, the skin was smooth. The familiar scar from when he caught his leg on a fence as a puppy was gone. I called his name, and the dog just stared at me, timid and strange. It wasn't Barnaby. I bribed the building's concierge to let me see the security footage. That was when I saw it. Ever since I moved out, Gemma had been coming and going from Hayes's penthouse as she pleased. One afternoon, she left the front door propped open. Barnaby slipped out. He never came back. Hayes lied to my face at first. When I finally backed him into a corner with the truth, his patience snapped. "Gemma didn't do it on purpose," he spat. "I bought you the exact same breed to make it right. What more do you want from me?" I looked at him, sick to my stomach. "We raised him together. And you think any dog can just replace him?" I whispered. "Hayes, am I just as easily replaced?" He was quiet for a long time. When he finally spoke, his voice was hollow. Cruel. "Sloane, love always ends up like this anyway. Maybe I just have my father's blood in me. I'm selfish. I can't make you happy." "I'm done wasting your time. Let's just end it." 3 I jolted awake. The bedroom was dead quiet, swallowed by the dark. I reached up and touched my cheek. My skin was dry, but my eyes burned. My phone buzzed softly on the nightstand. It was Rowan. He had sent a picture of the sunset from his office, the sky painted in bruised purples and golds. [Thinking about you.] I lay there holding the phone, a small smile pulling at my lips. The heavy, suffocating weight in my chest miraculously began to ease. Hayes had been far more ruthless than I ever anticipated. Immediately after ending things, he came to my family's estate. He pitched a business proposition: the corporate merger was at a critical stage. Our grandparents were in failing health. He didn't want the PR nightmare. He asked me to sign a two-year NDA. In public, we were still engaged. In private, we didn't exist to each other. Neither of us could go public with a new partner until the two years were up. Desperate to survive the fallout, I agreed. I booked a one-way ticket to London, just to breathe. I hadn't been in the UK for three hours before my purse, containing my passport and wallet, was stolen in SoHo. Stranded, unable to even check into a hotel, I thought of Rowan Montgomery. Rowan was Hayes's oldest, best friend. Right after high school, Rowan had packed up and moved to Europe, building his own venture capital empire from the ground up, entirely separate from the Manhattan elite. I sent him a desperate text. Less than an hour later, he pulled up to the curb in a sleek Aston Martin, looking exhausted but impeccably put together. He took one look at my tear-stained, shivering state, didn't ask a single question, and drove me straight to his townhouse in Kensington. He put me in the guest room. For the next few days, he cleared his schedule. He drove me out to the Cotswolds, took me to quiet cafes, and just let me exist without expectations. Slowly, carefully, he helped me unpack the grief. I mentioned, in passing, that I had lost my dog. Rowan took down Barnaby's description. He weaponized his entire network back in New York, hiring private investigators to pull street cameras and shelter records. A week later, he walked into the kitchen and set a folder on the counter. "We found him. He's safe. A family in Brooklyn took him in." Then, he cleared his calendar again and flew back to New York with me just to get my dog back. That was the exact moment Rowan Montgomery began his quiet, undeniable invasion of my life. At first, I fought it. My instinct was to run. He was Hayes's best friend. The lines were supposed to be strictly drawn. I didn't want the gossip, and more importantly, I didn't want anyone—especially Rowan—thinking I was using him as a pawn to get back at Hayes. I found a quiet moment to lay it out for him. "Rowan. Hayes is sleeping with my best friend. If I get close to you now, everyone is going to say I'm just doing it for revenge." I looked him in the eye. "I value you too much as a friend to do that to you." He didn't flinch. His eyes were clear, and a soft, easy smile touched his lips. "I don't give a damn what other people think." He took a half-step closer, his gaze locking onto mine, heavy with intent. "Sloane. Even if you were just using me to survive the fallout... I'd still let you." "Just try. Try being with me." His voice dropped to a rough whisper. "And if we don't make it to the end, I'll take the fall. I promise." The Montgomery family had long ago moved the bulk of their wealth to European markets. They were untouchable over there. But for me, Rowan began the grueling process of moving his entire headquarters back to New York, piece by piece. I watched him do it. And slowly, the ice around my heart began to thaw. Yet, I was trapped by the contract. I couldn't give him the public acknowledgment he deserved. Now, there were exactly seven days left until the two-year contract expired. I pulled up Hayes's contact and typed out a text. [Find time this week. We need to finalize the broken engagement.] Hours passed before my screen lit up. [What's the rush? We have seven days.] I sent him the address of a café in Midtown. [Tomorrow. 7 PM.] He didn't reply. The next evening, I sat in that café for forty minutes. Hayes never showed. As I sat there, I opened Instagram. The first thing on my feed was a new post from Gemma. It was a photo of the Manhattan skyline, taken through the floor-to-ceiling windows of Hayes's penthouse. I paid my tab, walked out, and hailed a cab straight to his building. When Hayes opened his front door, a flicker of guilt crossed his face. "What are you doing here?" "I sent you a time and place. You didn't show, so I came to you." He frowned, opening his mouth to speak. Before he could, Gemma walked out of the master bedroom. She was wearing one of his oversized button-downs. When she saw me, her eyes went wide, feigning a perfect picture of panic. I didn't blink. I knew exactly what this was. Hayes missing our meeting was her doing. She drifted to his side, her voice sickly sweet. "Sloane! Wow, it's been a while. My apartment's water got shut off, so I just came over to use the shower. You don't mind, right?" I offered a thin, polite smile. "Your personal life is none of my business." I didn't have the energy for her high school games. I looked right at Hayes. "The corporate framework for the merger is locked in. The board doesn't need our engagement to keep the stock stable anymore. The contract is done. Tomorrow, we go to our parents and officially call off the wedding." Hayes's face darkened. He stared hard into my eyes. "You're in that much of a hurry to scrub me out of your life?" I let out a dry laugh. "It's called honoring a contract." I reached into my bag, pulled out the three-carat diamond engagement ring, and held it out to him. "Here. The rest of the things you left at my place are boxed up. I'll have a courier drop them off tomorrow." Hayes looked at the ring—the ring he had slipped onto my finger with shaking hands years ago. His eyes went blank for a second. Then, he lifted his chin, his pride taking over. "Keep it. I'm not desperate enough to ask for jewelry back." I kept my hand extended, unyielding. "Take it. My boyfriend doesn't like it when I keep things from other men." 4 Hayes let out a sharp, incredulous laugh. "Sloane, this pathological lying is getting out of hand." Gemma jumped in, playing the peacemaker. "Sloane, please don't misunderstand. Hayes and I are just friends. You two have been fighting for two years, and I've just been looking out for him." She put a hand on her chest. "I get it. You're trying to make him jealous by making up some phantom boyfriend. But come on, if you were really seeing someone for the last two years, don't you think we would have seen him?" I looked at her, completely unbothered. "You will. Soon enough." Hayes's sneer deepened. "What's the matter, Sloane? Couldn't even invent a name?" I didn't care to argue. "There's a charity gala next week. Both our families will be there. We'll announce the broken engagement then." Hearing the words "broken engagement" for the third time finally cracked his composure. His face went ice cold. "Do whatever the hell you want." A week later, at the gala. Gemma paraded into the ballroom right beside Hayes, her hand resting intimately on his bicep. She was wearing a gown that practically screamed she was his plus-one. Hayes's mother spotted them, her mouth pulling into a tight, displeased line. She lowered her voice, hissing at her son. "Why would you bring her here? Even if nothing is going on, people talk. It's humiliating." Hayes barely glanced at me. "Gemma is Sloane's best friend. Who's going to say anything?" His mother's expression smoothed out, and she turned to me with a polished, camera-ready smile. "You two have been engaged for years now, Sloane. I think it's time we start locking down a venue." I kept my smile perfectly in place. "Actually, Mrs. Kensington, Hayes and I—" "Sloane and I need to handle something." Hayes's harsh voice cut me off. He stepped into my space, his hand clamping down over my wrist like a vice, and practically dragged me out of the ballroom. He pulled me down a quiet, dimly lit corridor. He backed me against the wall, his eyes burning with a messy mix of rage and something that looked dangerously like panic. "Why the hell are you so obsessed with canceling the engagement tonight?" I met his gaze dead-on. "Because we broke up two years ago." He scowled. "So what? We're both single. There's no rush to blow this up. Why does it have to be tonight, in front of half the city?" "I don't want my mother down my throat about wedding dresses, and I doubt you want yours setting you up on blind dates," I said. "Keeping the status quo while going our separate ways isn't exactly hard." Suddenly, the sheer absurdity of the situation hit me. For two years, he had been parading Gemma around town. Everyone in our social circle knew they were sleeping together. He brought her tonight just to humiliate me. And now, he was standing here, looking me in the eye, claiming he was single. I shoved him back, disgusted. "Hayes, I told you. I'm not single." He still thought it was a game. A patronizing smile touched his lips. "Is this because of Gemma? I haven't slept with her, Sloane. You don't need to worry about her. She doesn't mean anything to us—" "Hayes?" The soft, whining voice drifted from the end of the hall. Gemma stood there, her eyes welling up with perfectly timed tears. "My heels are really blistering. Can you just take me home?" She looked from Hayes to me, biting her lip, the picture of innocence. "Oh God, Sloane, I'm so sorry. Am I interrupting? I can just take a cab... it's fine." It was the same routine. The same fragile, helpless act she used to dismantle my boundaries, inch by inch, until she had crawled right into the middle of my relationship. Predictably, Hayes hesitated. Then, instinct took over. He reached out and caught her arm to steady her. "I'll take you home." He looked back at me, a flash of apology in his eyes. "Wait here. I'll drop her and come right back. We're not done talking." Without another word, he walked Gemma right back through the lobby, past the staring guests, and out the front doors. The whispers drifted over to me, sharp and biting. "Did you see the tabloids last week? They are absolutely sleeping together." "God, poor Sloane. Right to her face." "After eight years... how do you even recover from that?" I stood there, listening to them pity me. And the truth was, I felt absolutely nothing. No pain. No anger. Just a vast, empty indifference. It started raining as the gala let out. The elite huddled under the hotel awning, waiting for valets to pull their cars around. A sleek, black Maybach glided through the rain and stopped silently in front of me. Rowan Montgomery stepped out into the downpour. He held a large black umbrella, completely ignoring the shocked gasps and murmurs from the crowd. He walked straight to me, put a hand on the small of my back, and shielded me as he guided me into the car. The neon city lights washed over his sharp jawline. He was regal. Unbothered. And entirely mine. ... Across town, Hayes dropped Gemma at her building. As he drove back toward the hotel, his phone started exploding with texts. The group chats were melting down. Friends were casually trying to interrogate him. Why did Rowan Montgomery personally pick up Sloane Harper in his Maybach? Hayes glanced at the screen at a red light. He almost laughed. It was ridiculous. He knew Sloane. She was loyal to a fault. She didn't have it in her to jump to another man. And he knew Rowan. They had practically shared a crib. Rowan was the ice king of the tech and VC world. He never dated. He never kept women around. There was zero chance. Realizing he hadn't seen Rowan in months, Hayes decided to blow off the gala. He U-turned and headed straight for Rowan's Tribeca penthouse. He even pulled a bottle of vintage Macallan from his trunk, ready to drink until sunrise. Rowan answered the door. He was in gray sweatpants and a loose t-shirt. He leaned against the doorframe, his expression unreadable, and didn't immediately step aside. Hayes didn't notice the hesitation. He pushed past Rowan into the foyer, laughing. "Man, you wouldn't believe the absolute garbage people are spreading tonight. The group chat is going insane saying you and Sloane hooked up—" The words died in his throat. Hayes's feet glued to the hardwood floor. He stared past Rowan, into the sprawling kitchen. His lungs stopped working.