On the day of the wedding, my husband-to-be's secretary posted on Instagram：
【Boss is getting married today. I wanted to send my blessings, but I didn't sleep at all last night. I really don't feel well.】
The moment Stephen Sanchez saw it, he dropped the bouquet and walked out of his own wedding.
I grabbed for his arm. “Please. Don't leave me here alone. At least wait until the ceremony's over, can you do that?”
His face went cold. He shook my hand off.
“God, you're selfish. Did you even see what she posted?”
“She saved my life. I swore I'd protect her for as long as I live. How am I supposed to stand here getting married when I know she's suffering?”
“If you're worried about looking stupid up there by yourself, grab any warm body off the street to fill in. I don't care either way.”
Half an hour later, the story was trending online.
He'd found Rebecca Butler at the riverside, already in a wedding dress. He threw fifty million at a mock ceremony just for her, and let the cameras catch every second.
People were eating it up. And between the fawning, they didn't forget to tag me：
“Some people are just embarrassing. Can't even hold on to the groom. The secretary won this round and it wasn't close.”
“How do you even wrap up a one-person wedding? Is she going to drag a chicken up to the altar?”
I was calmer than any of them expected. I pulled out my phone and dialed a number：
“Seen enough of the show? Good. Get over here and marry me.”
……
The line went dead, and the entire ballroom went silent for one full second before it erupted.
The girl holding the livestream rig nearly shoved the lens into my face.
“Are you seeing this? The nerve on this bride.”
“The groom bailed half an hour ago to throw a mock wedding for another woman, and she's standing here acting like she's still in demand?”
“Listen to that tone. If you didn't know better, you'd think she's got a backup groom waiting in the wings.”
I hung up, expression unchanged.
A cold laugh cut through the noise beside me.
“Who is she fooling? She got ditched and she's too humiliated to admit it, so now she's pretending someone's coming to save the day?”
“Everyone knows Carina Sullivan spent years throwing herself at Stephen Sanchez. Waiting for him in the rain with an umbrella, hand-delivering breakfast to his office, degrading herself just to chase one man. As if there's some backup option.”
I stood there, silent, listening to every word of that venom.
And quietly laughed at my own stupidity.
All these years, I really had treated Stephen Sanchez as my future husband. I'd taken walking down the aisle as a certainty.
But things never go the way you plan.
His secretary, Rebecca Butler, was the thing I hadn't planned for.
He'd leave me stranded at a gala without a partner to go fix a pipe at her apartment.
And today, because of one 「I don't feel well」 from her—
He chose to walk out. Left me standing alone at my own wedding, facing the stares, the whispers, the interrogation from every relative in the room.
That was when a commotion rippled through the crowd.
“Check your phones! Stephen Sanchez ditching his wedding is the top trending story right now!”
“And the numbers keep climbing.”
“You have to admit, the man's romantic. One line from his secretary and he drops fifty million just to give her a mock wedding……”
Others found the whole thing absurd and weren't shy about it.
“That's not romantic. That's trash.”
“He was literally in the middle of his own wedding. He just up and bolts to play house with his secretary? How is that anything but insane?”
My mother sat rigid in the front row, her face ashen, eyes rimmed red. She started to stand, but my father pressed her shoulder back down.
“Wait a little longer. If nothing changes, we'll handle it at the restaurant.”
