We Were Just Friends

Noa Kestrel has spent seven years believing she found the safest person in her life.

Rafe Morrow was her best friend before he became her boyfriend. He was the one who showed up at midnight when her relationships fell apart. The one who remembered her coffee order, her anxious tells, the name of every dog she ever treated. The one who waited - patiently, quietly, devotedly - for seven years until she finally saw what everyone else already knew: they were meant to be together.

Their friends cried at the news. Her father said nothing. Her boss said something she didn't understand until it was almost too late.

Six months into the relationship, Noa finds a birthday card in Rafe's apartment - one she mailed to a friend years ago. A friend who vanished from her life without explanation. Rafe has an answer. Rafe always has an answer. But this time, Noa knows the answer is a lie.

What begins as a single crack becomes an unraveling. A chance encounter with an ex-boyfriend reveals anonymous messages that destroyed their relationship from the outside. A recovered spreadsheet exposes a coordinated campaign of fake online reviews that obliterated another ex's career. A manila folder full of screenshots proves that every breakup, every lost friendship, every lonely night that drove Noa deeper into Rafe's arms was not bad luck. It was architecture.

For seven years, Rafe Morrow studied the woman he wanted. He mapped her vulnerabilities. He catalogued her relationships. He used her best friend as an unwitting information pipeline. And one by one, with the patience of a man who builds websites for a living and understands how to make fiction look like reality, he eliminated every person who stood between him and the woman he had decided was his.

Now Noa must do the most dangerous thing she has ever done: pretend she doesn't know. She must sleep beside a man whose computer contains a file labeled with her name - a maintenance plan for their relationship, complete with contingency protocols for what to do if she becomes suspicious. She must smile across the dinner table while building a case. She must use the skills he unknowingly taught her - patience, performance, the art of appearing to be exactly what someone expects - to dismantle the most convincing lie she has ever been told.

Set in the moss-draped squares and jasmine-scented streets of Savannah, Georgia, We Were Just Friends is a psychological thriller about the darkest form of devotion - the kind that looks like love from every angle until you see the scaffolding behind it.

Some people wait for the one they love. Rafe Morrow made sure there was no one else.