On the Wedding Day, He Replaced the Bride with The Unforgettable Flame

On our wedding day, Caleb Lockwood's Unforgettable Flame, the one who'd run off abroad, came back.

She clutched a critical condition notice, her smile fragile. "Caleb, I thought you were going to let me wear a wedding dress one last time."

To fulfill her wish, Caleb Lockwood gave her my wedding dress and made her the bride instead.

He locked me in the dressing room. Through the door, his voice was laced with impatience.

"We have a whole future ahead of us. What's the harm in letting her have this one moment?"

Later, a wealthy young man who'd long admired me from afar bought out all the stock in the Lockwood Group and used it as leverage to propose.

Caleb Lockwood, his eyes red, begged me, "Are you really going to abandon me for him?"

I took a step back. "We don't have a future anymore. Why should I care what happens to you?"

...

On the day of the wedding, the makeup artist fidgeted, opening and closing her makeup case.

"Miss Sterling, perhaps we should start on your makeup?"

My gaze kept darting toward the door. Caleb Lockwood had taken a call and rushed out, and he still hadn't returned.

"Let's get started."

The wedding was set to begin in half an hour when the phone I'd left on the table lit up.

[Your man is wonderful. And now, he's mine.]

[Oh, and so is your wedding.]

The message came with a photo: a girl, beaming as she held up her phone, nestled carefully in a man's embrace.

You could only see the back of the man's head, but I knew it was Caleb Lockwood.

I recognized the girl, too. She was Evie Channing—Caleb Lockwood's Unforgettable Flame.

She was wearing the wedding dress I had meticulously designed. It was one of a kind.

I remembered Caleb Lockwood had taken the dress once, claiming he needed to have some details altered.

I took a screenshot and sent it to Caleb Lockwood.

[So these are the details you altered? Caleb Lockwood, I need an explanation. Is our wedding still happening or not?]

Caleb Lockwood replied almost instantly: [Wait for me. We're still on.]

'We'd been together for seven years. I couldn't just throw it all away.'

Ten minutes until the ceremony.

Caleb Lockwood rushed in, beads of sweat on his forehead.

'Maybe it was just force of habit, but a pang of concern made me swallow all the questions I wanted to ask.'

"Raina, the wedding will proceed as planned."

Caleb Lockwood's eyes were full of deep, affectionate apology.

I didn't press him. Instead, I turned back to the mirror, quickly dabbing highlighter on my face. "You're back so late, I don't even have time to change into my dress now."

"You don't have to."

Caleb Lockwood's hand rested on my shoulder. "You won't be attending today, Raina. I'll make it up to you."

I froze.

'It's true what they say. Sometimes, when you're furious, you just have to laugh.'

"What do you mean?" I studied him. He wasn't wearing the tuxedo I'd painstakingly chosen for him. This one was similar, but there were subtle differences, from the cuffs to the bow tie.

Caleb Lockwood instinctively avoided my gaze. "The hospital issued a critical condition notice for Evie. Wearing a wedding dress is her final wish. I can't let her pass away with regrets."

Evie Channing was Caleb Lockwood's Unforgettable Flame.

Back in school, everyone knew she and Caleb Lockwood were a couple—the talented scholar and the beautiful belle, a match made in heaven.

But when the Lockwood Family fell on hard times, she went abroad, leaving Caleb Lockwood to face his most difficult years alone.

Then, she returned, just one month before our wedding.

Upon her return, she'd stubbornly refused to contact Caleb Lockwood. It was only when the hospital couldn't get in touch with any of her relatives that they finally called him.

At first, I respected her for her restraint and self-control. I even pitied her—a young woman, gravely ill, with no family in the country to turn to.

Caleb Lockwood repeatedly told me he was only looking after Evie Channing out of sympathy and a sense of duty.

But I began to realize she wasn't as innocent as she seemed when, during the last lockdown, Evie Channing had called Caleb Lockwood, crying, and begged him to come stay with her.

After that incident, however, Caleb Lockwood didn't act any differently.

He also made a point of discussing it with me anytime she called, and he would avoid going to her if he could.

That's why I had been willing to tolerate it.

'But when had they decided to hijack my wedding?'