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Home / Romance / The Night My Best-Friend Ruined Me / Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

All Chapters of The Night My Best-Friend Ruined Me: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

151 Chapters

Chapter 1

ARIA'S POV The door closed behind us, and i knew there was no going back.I stood with my back against the door, still trapped in my black graduation gown, my heart hammering against my ribs.I want all of you tonight," he said.Adrian didn’t waste a second. He was already out of his jacket, his tie hanging loose, sleeves rolled up to reveal the powerful forearms I’d spent three years staring at in secret.He crossed the space between us in three quick steps."You sure?" he asked, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that made my thighs ache and my pussy clench with need.I didn't speak; I just nodded. My hands were trembling so badly I couldn't even find the zipper of my dress. Though he didn't let me struggle for long.He caught my wrists, his touch felt like it was burning me, and gently moved my hands away."Let me," he whispered.The sound of the zipper sliding down was deafening in the silence of the room. The heavy fabric pooled at my feet, leaving me in nothing but the plain

Chapter 2

ARIA'S POVI reached out blindly, my fingers searching for the warmth of his skin, but all I found was cold, expensive linen.My eyes snapped open, and for a second, I just stared at the ceiling of the hotel room, waiting for the reality of last night to settle back into my bones.It felt like a dream, the kind you try to hold onto while you’re waking up, but the soreness between my thighs told me it was real.We actually did it. Adrian Blackwood, the guy I’ve basically worshipped since we were kids, finally made me his."Adrian?" I called out, my voice sounding small and raspy in the quiet room.No answer.I sat up, clutching the duvet to my chest, looking around the suite.His clothes were gone. His watch, his phone, even the half-empty water bottle that had been on the nightstand—all gone.It was like he’d never even been here.I tried to tell myself he just went down to get us breakfast or maybe he had an early meeting with his dad. Being the heir to the Blackwood empire didn't co

Chapter 3

ARIA'S POVSix weeks. Forty-two days of staring at a phone that refused to buzz, of waking up in a room that felt more like a prison cell than a home, and of mourning a best friend who had essentially ghosted my entire existence.According to the rumors Lydia made sure I overheard, Adrian had been on some high-society tour of Europe, a month-long trip meant to prepare him for his "real" life—a life that apparently didn't include me.I’d actually gone to his house a few days after that morning at the hotel. I was desperate, my pride in tatters, just needing to hear from a maid or a guard that he was okay.But I was just met with a cold wall.They told me he traveled and wouldn't be back for a while, and the way they looked at me made it clear I wasn't welcome on the Blackwood property anymore.But this morning, the world shifted again. I’d created a burner Instagram account…..call me desperate, but I needed the false sense of closeness.And there he was. A tagged photo at his private p

Chapter 4

ARIA'S POVThe walk back to the Vale mansion felt like a death march. My life as a nineteen-year-old student was officially over.I stood at our front door, my hand shaking too hard to fit the key into the lock. I knew Dr. Sterling had already called my stepmother, and of course my father would hear it from her as well.I pushed the door open and was immediately hit by the suffocating silence of the grand foyer. It didn’t last long."In the study. Now."My father’s voice was like a whip crack. He didn't even look at me as he walked past the staircase.I followed him silently, my stomach churning. Veronica and Lydia were already there, sitting on the velvet armchairs like they were waiting for a show.How did Lydia even get here so fast….?"Sit," my father commanded.I sat on the edge of a hard wooden chair, my bag clutched to my chest."I just got off the phone with Dr. Sterling," he began lowly. "She told me a very interesting story about her most recent patient. A patient who happen

Chapter 5

ARIA’S POVFIVE YEARS LATERIt’s funny how time can feel like a slow crawl when you’re starving with a crying newborn, and then suddenly feel like a blur once you finally have your feet under you.I wasn't the scared girl with a backpack and a few hundred dollars anymore. I was Dr. Aria Vale, lead researcher at Thorne-Bio.I had spent every waking hour of the last half-decade making sure I was indispensable."Dr. Vale? The board is ready for you," my assistant, Sarah, said, poking her head into my office.I stood up, smoothing out my tailored charcoal blazer. I caught my reflection in the glass window.I looked expensive. I looked powerful. I looked like someone who could never be locked in a room again."Tell them I’ll be there in two minutes," I said, my voice steady. "And did the daycare call back about Leo’s field trip?""All set. He’s excited about the aquarium," she smiled.Leo. My five-year-old son with dark, curly hair and eyes that looked exactly like a man I had spent five y

Chapter 6

ADRIAN’S POV"The codes, Adrian. Now."I stared at her for a long, agonizing beat. My jaw was clamped so tight my teeth felt like they were going to crack. Five years. I’d spent eighteen hundred nights wondering if the girl who broke my heart was even alive, and now here she was, standing in the middle of my lab, commanding me like I was her subordinate."One-zero-four-two-nine," I rasped. My voice sounded foreign to my own ears, hollow and jagged.Aria didn't even look at me as she punched the digits into the terminal. The girl who used to blush if I brushed against her shoulder in the library was dead. This woman was made of obsidian.I walked over to the coffee station, not because I wanted a drink, but because my hands were shaking and I couldn’t let her see. Every instinct in my body was screaming. I wanted to grab her, to shake her, to demand to know why she was back. But mostly, the dark, ugly part of my mind kept telling me that this was all a performance.*She’s a spy, son.*

Chapter 7

Aria's povThe morning was a complete disaster.Everything felt heavy, like I was walking through chest-deep water while someone threw rocks at my head.I was trying to get Leo’s socks on, but he was in one of those moods where he just wouldn't sit still.My hands were shaking, and it wasn't even from the third cup of coffee I’d pounded since five in the morning.It was him. Adrian.The way he looked at me in that lab yesterday was still burned into the back of my eyelids. Such an annoying bastard.He looked at me like I was a criminal. Like I was something disgusting he’d found on the bottom of his shoe after a long walk.Seriously, the audacity of that man.I pulled a stubborn sock over Leo’s foot and finally managed to get him to look at me."Mama? Why are you sad?"I froze, my breath catching in my throat.He was looking up at me with those eyes. Those deep, piercing blue eyes that were an exact replica of the man currently making my life a living hell.The dark, curly hair fallin

Chapter 8

Adrian POV I hadn't slept.I’d spent the last six hours in the dark, the blue light of my tablet searing my retinas as I stared at the grainy photos my private investigator had sent from Seattle.The timeline was a mess. It didn't make any sense how a girl who ran away with nothing could suddenly afford a top-tier PhD program and a lifestyle that didn't involve starving on a street corner.Unless she had help.The kind of help that involves a man with deep pockets and a lack of morals.I was sitting in her new office before the sun was even fully up, occupying her chair like it was a throne.I wanted to be the first thing she saw when she walked in.I wanted to see that mask of hers crack, even if it was just for a second.When the door finally slammed open, I didn't even flinch.Aria stood there, looking like she wanted to set the whole building on fire, but her eyes were steady."Get out of my chair, Adrian."Her voice was like a bucket of ice water, but it only made the heat in my

Chapter 9

Aria's povI stared at the black-and-gold invitation on my desk like it was a live grenade.A welcome gala. Mandatory attendance.Adrian was really leaning into the whole tyrannical billionaire thing, wasn’t he?I rubbed my temples, feeling the dull throb of a headache that had been my constant companion since I landed in this city."I'm not going, Marcus. I have three sets of cultures that need to be monitored every four hours."Marcus Thorne didn’t even look up from his tablet as he leaned against the doorframe of my new office."You’re going, Aria. The board is already nervous about the relocation to Blackwood Biotech. They need to see that you and Blackwood are on the same page.""We aren't even in the same book, Marcus. He thinks I’m a corporate spy and I think he’s a narcissist with a god complex."Marcus finally looked at me, and his expression was surprisingly soft."I know it’s hard. But the investors want a show. They want to see the brilliant Dr. Vale in a dress, not a lab

Chapter 10

Adrian's povThe gala was a masterpiece of orchestrated bullshit, and I was the conductor.I stood on the mezzanine, my hand wrapped tight around a glass of scotch, watching the sea of vultures below.They were all there—the city’s elite, the stakeholders, the families who thought they owned the world.But my eyes weren't on the investors. They were glued to the woman in the black silk armor standing by the balcony.Aria.She looked like she was carved out of shadows and spite.Seeing her navigate the room, I couldn't find a trace of the girl who used to tuck her hair behind her ear and stutter when I caught her staring.This woman didn't hide. She stood her ground while the vultures circled.I felt a presence beside me and didn't need to look to know it was my father.The air around Edmund Blackwood always smelled like old leather and cold calculations."She’s a distraction, Adrian," he murmured, his eyes fixed on Aria like she was a bug he wanted to pin to a board. "The board is alr

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