Soulmate On Stage Fiancé No More

Three days before my wedding, my fiancé, Liam, vanished. He was supposed to be in California meeting with investors.

Instead, I found him on a TMZ livestream, crashing his old flame Seraphina's sold-out Madison Square Garden concert to perform a surprise duet.

At the end of the song, Seraphina declared Liam her "soulmate" and pulled him into a passionate kiss as ten thousand fans screamed their approval.

Tears blurred my vision as I watched them locked in an embrace on the screen. A moment later, I wiped them away and called my father.

"Dad, the wedding is off."

"And pull every last cent of our investments from Apex Fintech. I don't want our money anywhere near that so-called soulmate of his."

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1

After hanging up, I didn't bother wiping the fresh tear tracks from my face, letting the cold New York wind sting my skin. My body went rigid, my eyes locked on the screen where Liam was practically glowing.

In the ten years we had been together, he had always been respectful, always considerate. But he had never, not once, looked at me with that kind of fire in his eyes.

In public, he deliberately kept more distance from me than from a perfect stranger, all to maintain his "cool, professional image" as a rising star in the financial world.

But just now, under the gaze of thousands, he’d kissed Seraphina with a fierce abandon, as if he wanted to consume her whole, to brand her as his own.

When the kiss ended, Seraphina, her face flushed, buried herself in his chest.

Liam pulled her into a protective embrace, his hand gripping her slender waist possessively as he pressed a soft kiss to her forehead.

The crowd erupted, their screams mixing with shouts of "So hot!" and "That man is gorgeous!"

Those cheers made me feel like a complete and utter joke.

After all, whenever Liam was intimate with me, he was always perfunctory, almost clinical, barely cracking a smile.

Even if he occasionally hurt my feelings, he would only offer a flat, robotic apology, followed by the excuse that he wasn't good at expressing himself.

So, it wasn't that he was incapable of passion.

All that surging love, that raw possessiveness… it was real.

I just wasn't the one to inspire it.

After the concert, Seraphina quickly removed her makeup backstage and linked her arm through Liam's as they slipped into his car.

That car was a wedding gift from my father, a custom-ordered Bentley.

I sent a text, telling my driver, Frank, to follow them discreetly as they sped toward Seraphina's penthouse in Tribeca.

The same Liam who never bothered to open a car door for me now rushed around to the passenger side, carefully shielding the top of the doorframe with his hand as he helped Seraphina out.

Seeing them walking hand in hand, I could no longer suppress the rage boiling in my chest. I threw open my car door and stormed toward them.

"Liam! Is this what you meant by 'meeting investors' in California?"

At the sight of me, the tenderness on Liam's face instantly froze, replaced by a flash of raw irritation.

He frowned, not a shred of guilt in his eyes, only the pure annoyance of having his perfect evening interrupted.

"Ava, what are you doing here?"

He grabbed my wrist, his gaze sweeping over my tear-stained face without a hint of compassion.

"Didn't I tell you to wait for me at home? What is this, some kind of game? You're being hysterical, Ava."

The sharp pain from his grip made my eyes sting, but the ache in my heart was a thousand times worse.

For ten years, he had never used such force on me, always maintaining his so-called gentlemanly composure even during our worst arguments.

But for Seraphina, all his pretenses had shattered in an instant.

I wrenched my hand from his grip.

"Liam, aren't you tired of playing me for a fool for ten solid years?"

As soon as the words left my mouth, camera flashes exploded around us.

A dozen paparazzi materialized from the shadows, their long-lens cameras aimed squarely at the three of us.

They had clearly been lying in wait for an exclusive on Liam and Seraphina, but had just stumbled upon a far more explosive story.

"Isn't that the Sinclair heiress? Ava Sinclair?"

"Word on the street is she nearly torched her family relationship for some Ivy League scholarship kid. Bet you anything it's this Apex Fintech hotshot."

"Ten years ago, Liam was just a poor student on a full ride. He got into Columbia Business School out of nowhere—the Sinclairs must have pulled some strings for him, right?"

"But he was just on stage kissing Seraphina. So, Ava, does that make you the woman he's been two-timing all along?"