A Kiss For Three
Description
New York's sharpest "marital investigator," Iris Lowell, is paid to tempt husbands and deliver proof. On the same day, two heiresses hire her to test tech magnate Adrian Cole and painter Nico Moreau-only for Iris to discover the men are inseparable best friends who spot her game, unmask her without malice, and invite a rule-bound truce on their secret rooftop fort. What follows is a slow-burn knot of wit, three-way tenderness, and inconvenient honesty that threatens Iris's creed. As she gathers evidence that the wives are the ones actually cheating, desire flares: Adrian and Nico quietly compete, and the longing between all three becomes impossible to ignore. Iris must decide whether to exploit the truth-or protect the rare decency she's found. Years later, she has moved on... but keeps a single rooftop photo as her compass.
Chapter 1
Oct 16, 2025
I’m lying between two men on a bed big enough to be mistaken for a sacrament. My chest rises and falls like I’ve raced a storm and won by a breath. I turn left. Amused eyes and a grin that could melt me. I turn right. Greenish-grey eyes, unreadable yet deep enough to make me shiver.
I hold each gaze for a beat that stretches long enough to feel like a promise, or a warning. Heat diffuses under my skin; the city hums beyond the window like it’s trying not to interrupt. Two hands rise—one from each side—hovering, then resting against my neck, gentle, a mirror touch. I close my eyes and swallow, tasting adrenaline and something sweeter.
Here we lay; him, I, and his best friend. Two of my “targets;” two men who almost destroyed my career. And their own, too.
Let’s not start here.
Let’s wind back to the day I chose the first crack.
***
I never trusted mornings. They come in washed and eager, peddling redemption like bodega flowers—bright, overpriced, dead by nightfall. Still, I took mine the usual way: coffee black in a chipped porcelain cup that’s survived six moves and one spectacularly ill-advised marriage.
New York purred outside my Midtown window—sirens stitching the avenues, steam shouldering through grates, a bus sighing as if it also regretted last night.
People imagine a private investigator’s office as a nest of secret files and red string. Cute. I don’t hunt men with paper; I hunt them with questions. My wardrobe is honest about it—garment racks with everything from courthouse blazers to nightclub sequins, wigs lined like chess pieces, heels stacked like ammunition. But the real work starts with a mouth and ears.
The buzzer crackled. “Ms. Lowell? Serena Cole for you.”
She came in on a ribbon of perfume, all navy silk and diamonds that said old money with new PR. She sat without being asked and placed her clutch like a verdict.
“A private eye specializing in infidelity cases, right? I’d like certainty about my husband,” she said. Her voice was velvet pinned to steel.
Okay, I thought, noting: Adrian Cole—tech magnate, golden boy genius turned kingmaker. I clicked my recorder on and leaned forward. “Start at the obvious: who are you already suspicious of?”
Her composure twitched. “I’m not.”
“Everyone is.” I kept my tone calm. “Name the women you’ve wondered about. Assistants, yogis, the publicist with the laugh, the neighbor who texts at midnight. The ones you hate on sight.”
She looked offended, then smaller, then practical. “He doesn’t… there isn’t anyone. Adrian is careful.”
They always say that: careful, not faithful. The distinction pays my rent.
“So why now? What do you suspect?”
“Patterns,” she says. “Nights extended by two hours. Meetings that do not show up in calendars. Messages that begin with a business pretext and end with punctuation that feels… warmer.”
“How warm?”
“A tilde,” she says drily. “The most cowardly flirtation in the English language.”
Serena’s gaze went to the window—nothing, then everything. “I can’t be the last to know. Because the prenup requires documentation. Because the papers love a Cole headline.”
“Understood,” I say. “Any hard lines?”
“Public humiliation,” she says instantly. “For him. For me. For our child. None.”
“I don’t do public,” I say. “I do mirrors. You hired me to hold one up.”
We negotiated terms: access, boundaries, time frame. I do brisk better than I do warm. Professionalism is kindness with edges. When she stood to leave, she said, “I want the truth, whatever it looks like.”
“You’ll have it.”
Serena’s eyes find the costume rack. “Do you always dress the part?”
“When needed.”
She nods like I’ve said a clever thing and heads for the door. Before it closes, she adds without looking back, “I want to be wrong.”
“I know,” I say, and the latch takes the rest of her sentence.
Her perfume stayed after she didn’t. I sipped cooling coffee and watched New York ooze past taxis and thunder over potholes.
I should add: I play the violin. Amateur, but sincerely. A hand-me-down instrument with a scar on the bout. I have a teacher in Queens who still calls me “kid” though I’m twenty-seven and cynical by trade. Why violin? Blame Sherlock. If my childhood had a love story, it was me and Sir Arthur’s detective: keen, exact, amused by humanity’s mess.
I married a Watson once. We built a scrappy little agency out of nothing but wit and subway grit. He cheated with a client who cried on my sofa about her cheating husband. I could say more; I prefer the short version. Now I work alone. I trust the coffee more than the oath.
The buzzer again. “Ms. Lowell? Camille Astor.”
A former model. Different silk, same calculus. Camille was ivory where Serena was navy, effortless where Serena was lacquered. She smiled like a woman who’d been photographed into a brand.
“Iris,” she said warmly, as if we were at brunch. “I need your investigation services.”
“Name,” I said. “And who you already suspect.”
“Nico Moreau.” She paused, enjoying the small thunder that name throws in certain rooms. “And I don’t suspect anyone.”
“Try harder.” The target’s name rang familiar. Famous painter, darling of the art world, temperamental genius with a reputation for brilliance and chaos. I watched her again. “Assistants. Collectors’ wives? The gallery intern who stays late?”
“Nico is faithful to his art,” she said, with the prim bite of a person who’s rehearsed a defense so often it’s become a grievance. “Artists thrive with boundaries.”
When she left, I reached for a browser: “Adrian Cole rumor”, “Adrian Cole affair”, “Adrian Cole spotted with”. I got tech product launches, philanthropy, a jawline that has its own subreddit. Nothing dirty enough to stick. I tried: “Nico Moreau girlfriend”, “Nico Moreau scandal”, “Nico Moreau late-night”. I got museum galas, paint-smeared interviews, a romantic history so curated it could hang in a white cube.
I drilled deeper: tags, geotags, accidental cameos in other people’s posts. Charity shots, yacht summers, holiday tables. It took thirty minutes and one peppermint I didn’t want to find the thread that tugged the whole sweater loose.
Two boys on a beach, sun-drunk, arms slung across each other’s necks. Caption: “Nico + Adrian, 12 and invincible”.
Then prom photos, then graduation, then a fundraiser where they’re shoulder to shoulder while a senator laughs three inches too close to the lens. Different suits, same posture. The kind of closeness that survives distance and other people’s opinions.
I leaned back and let the city pour its noise through the glass. Two clients in one day. Two spotless husbands. One shared childhood that might be coincidence, might be strategy, might be nothing at all.
I don’t believe in fate. I believe in leverage. And in New York, leverage is everywhere if you’re willing to listen.
I clicked my pen against my teeth and told the ceiling, “All right, gentlemen. Let’s make a mess.”
A Kiss For Three
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