My Fiancé Planned to Fake His Death, So I Married My Nemesis

Three days before the wedding, Ryan Brooks threw himself a bachelor party.

He called it one last taste of freedom before marriage.

With the young intern, Lily Moore, locked tightly in his arms, his eyes brimmed with bitterness and grievance.

"Lily, trust me. I'm not marrying Clara Hayes. I've already arranged everything. I'll fake my death at the wedding and take you away from this place."

What Ryan didn't know was that this marriage had never been an equal match to begin with. It was the Brooks family that had begged the Hayes family for it.

Watching the two of them kiss like they couldn't bear to part, Clara calmly slipped the ring onto the finger of Ethan Blackwell, Ryan's sworn enemy.

Her red lips curved slightly as she spoke in a cool, steady voice.

"Three days from now, come marry me."

......

Clara's parent, Richard Hayes and Margaret Hayes didn't object to changing the groom.

The Brooks family had never truly been worthy of the Hayes family anyway.

What they never expected was that Clara's replacement choice would be Ethan, the man she had spent years fighting like a sworn enemy.

"Ethan? You two have been at each other's throats for years. Do you really think he'll show up and marry you?"

Clara glanced at the wedding invitation and smiled faintly.

It was the kind of confidence that came from deep within, quiet and absolute.

She and Ethan had once fought viciously over a development project, tearing into each other without mercy. At one point, she had even hired an assassin who nearly got him killed.

And yet, she knew he would come.

Because she was Clara Hayes, the woman who ruled Hayes Group like an empire. A queen in the business world.

And Ethan never walked away from an opportunity to expand his territory.

From a business standpoint alone, he had every reason to accept.

As for feelings... Clara lowered her eyes slightly and shook her head. That wasn't something she needed to think about right now.

"What about Ryan? Did you tell him?"

Clara let out a soft laugh as she met Margaret's gaze.

"He doesn't need to know. A dog in heat can't understand human language anyway."

Back in her room, Clara's eyes fell on the framed photo beside the bed. It was a picture of her and Ryan together.

A wave of nausea twisted through her stomach so violently it felt physical.

She was disgusted by Ryan. But even more than that, she was disgusted by herself.

She couldn't believe she had once loved a man like him so openly, so recklessly, as if the entire world needed to witness it.

On Ryan's eighteenth birthday, Clara had lit up the entire city skyline with fireworks just to celebrate him becoming an adult.

When Ryan's proposal got rejected by another corporation, she flew back overnight and acquired the company outright, simply to avenge his humiliation.

And when she learned he was gravely ill, she had prayed desperately for his recovery, staying up night after night until she collapsed from exhaustion.

The more Clara thought about the past, the more unbearably stupid she felt. With one sharp motion, she hurled the photo frame to the floor.

Glass shattered across the room. Then suddenly, Clara laughed.

Along the cracked edge of the frame was a tiny line of text, "Complimentary scenic gift."

She remembered the way Ryan had handed it to her back then, swearing it had been custom-made just for her.

She had treasured it so much that she kept it by her bedside every day.

Now she realized it had all been lies from the very beginning.

Clara stepped barefoot across the shattered glass without hesitation.

Cheap love built on lies meant nothing to her.

A moment later, she sent an emergency meeting notice to the senior executives at Hayes Group.

Within three days, she intended to erase Ryan Brooks from her world completely.

No one who betrayed Clara Hayes had ever escaped unpunished.

And the first thing she planned to take from him... was every privilege he had ever enjoyed in the business world.