Betrayed Bride: Claimed By The Best Man

The elevator doors slid open with a soft chime, and Kloe Guthrie stepped onto the plush carpet of the Starlight Hotel's penthouse corridor. Her fingers ached from gripping the heavy crystal-encrusted skirt of her wedding gown, thousands of Swarovski elements catching the dim light like scattered stars. She'd been shaking hands and air-kissing cheeks for six hours straight, and her palm still felt stiff from the repetitive motion.

Her ankles burned. The four-inch Louboutins she'd insisted on-because Justen loved how they made her legs look-had rubbed raw blisters into her heels with every step. She slowed her pace, wincing as the leather scraped against broken skin.

Kloe fumbled with her satin clutch, extracting the gold-embossed keycard. Her fingers, swollen from the evening's exertion, struggled to find purchase on the smooth plastic. She needed to get inside, peel off this forty-pound dress, and soak in a hot bath before Justen finished his cigars with the groomsmen.

The corridor stretched before her, lit by antique wall sconces that cast pools of amber light between stretches of shadow. As she passed the third doorway, something stopped her. A scent, foreign and wrong, threading through the recycled air of the climate-controlled hallway.

Cheap perfume. Sweet, cloying, aggressively floral.

Kloe's nose wrinkled. She knew that scent. Candyce had bathed in it since they were teenagers, declaring it "her signature" despite every department store in Manhattan carrying identical bottles in their discount bins. Her cousin had worn it tonight, dousing herself before the ceremony while complaining that Kloe's Vera Wang made her own cocktail dress look "intentionally understated."

What was Candyce doing on the penthouse floor?

Kloe took two more steps. The presidential suite loomed at the corridor's end, its mahogany door slightly ajar. A sliver of warm light cut across the carpet from the gap.

Then she heard it.

A sound, breathy and damp, pushed through the crack in the door. It hit Kloe's eardrum like a physical blow-a woman's moan, pitched high and theatrical, the kind of performance Candyce had perfected in high school theater.

Kloe's heart slammed against her ribs. She stopped breathing. Her body moved forward without her permission, drawn by some horrible magnetic pull, until her eye aligned with the door's edge.

Inside, the suite's sitting room was visible. The Tiffany lamp cast everything in sickly gold. On the cream-colored sofa, two bodies moved in a rhythm Kloe recognized but had never seen from this angle. Candyce's red nails dug into broad shoulders. Justen's hands gripped her cousin's waist, his watch-a gift from Kloe's father-glinting under the lamp with every brutal thrust.

"God, you're so much better than her," Justen grunted, his voice thick with liquor and lust. "Like fucking a corpse with Kloe. This face, this body-this is what I wanted."

Candyce giggled, the sound like breaking glass. "You should have seen her face when you put the ring on. So grateful. So pathetic."

"Four years of playing the devoted fiancé." Justen's laugh was ugly, wet. "Worth it for the