“Being with Millicent was never about love. She could get me investors. She could help me build the studio.”
“I never had feelings for her. Not once. But I'll give her this: she was useful. Five years of playing boyfriend? Consider the debt paid.”
Hope ducked her head shyly and nestled against Ronald's chest.
The lounge erupted in cheers.
The bottle spun again and landed on Ronald a second time.
“Truth again!”
“Dude, how is your luck this bad? That's three in a row.”
Ronald laughed, pulling Hope closer by the waist, and pressed a kiss to her cheek.
“I used up all my luck a long time ago.”
“Spent every last bit of it meeting Hope.”
“Ohhh!!”
The whole room screamed.
“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”
Over the deafening chant, Ronald tilted Hope's chin up and kissed her.
They kissed like no one else existed, slow and deep, neither willing to pull away.
Hope's hand slipped beneath the collar of his shirt.
His fingers traced lazy circles on the small of her back.
The energy in the lounge climbed higher and higher.
Someone whistled. Someone else pulled out a phone and started snapping pictures.
I stood outside the door, frozen to the bone.
Like the ground had opened and swallowed me whole.
So that was what five years of love meant. Five years of giving everything I had.
To him, it was nothing but a transaction he could exploit.
The love I thought we shared had never existed. Not from the start. Not for a single day.
All of it was a one-woman show, and I was the only one in the audience.
I turned and walked out of the bar without a sound.
The clock struck midnight.
On the morning of the wedding, Ronald was up by seven.
He called me over and over. Every call went straight to voicemail.
Then he started calling my family. My friends.
No one knew where I was.
He paced in circles outside the hotel entrance, panic setting in.
Everyone was mobilized, searching every corner of the hotel for me.
Floor by floor, from the lobby to the twenty-third story, from the guest rooms to the kitchen.
Not a trace.
Ten minutes until the ceremony.
The officiant was drenched in sweat：
“Mr. Harding, what do we do? Every guest is already seated.”
Ronald's face went white.
He knew that if this wedding fell apart today, he would become the laughingstock of the entire city.
And every investor who had come to Harding Studio because of the Pruitt name would pull out for good.
That was when a hotel attendant came running over.
“Mr. Harding, I saw Ms. Pruitt!”
Ronald seized the man's arm：
“Where?”
“She's……she's in the ballroom next door.”
“There's another wedding happening today, and the bride looks like Ms. Pruitt!”
“What?”
Ronald couldn't believe what he was hearing.
He shoved the attendant aside and tore down the corridor toward the next ballroom.
Hope and the others scrambled after him.
The ballroom doors were shut.
Ronald drew a sharp breath and threw them open.
