“Hazel, please answer me.”
Roman Woods' voice came through the speaker, strained with panic instead of the confidence of the CEO that usually defined him.
“I know what those photographs look like, but I swear they don't tell the truth. Please don't cancel our wedding before you hear me out.”
Hazel Brooks stared at the screen on her laptop in silence.
The photographs had already spread across every social media platform. Roman lay asleep in a hotel bed while Mandy Carter smiled beside him wearing his white dress shirt, and every image looked convincing enough to destroy years of trust.
Hazel didn't know who Mandy was, but the post immediately went viral due to the affair of CEO of Woods corporations before his wedding. Beneath the post, the comments multiplied by the second, each one more cruel than the last.
“Hazel?” Roman pleaded when she still refused to answer. “Please say something.”
She finally drew a slow breath, although it did nothing to ease the burn in her chest.
“What exactly do you expect me to say?” she asked quietly, her voice trembled. “Should I pretend those photographs don't exist, or should I congratulate the woman who decided to announce your affair the night before our wedding?”
“I never had an affair,” Roman insisted, and she could hear him pacing as he spoke. “Mandy got me drunk after the charity gala. I blacked out, and when I woke up she was already gone, I don't even remember anything. Hazel, I never cheated on you baby please!”
Hazel closed her teary eyes for a moment.
Roman had never given her a reason to question his loyalty before today, and that was what made the betrayal hurt even more. She wanted to believe him with every part of herself, but the entire country had already seen the evidence, and she had nothing except his word to fight against it.
“You're asking me to ignore something the whole world has already seen,” she replied, struggling to keep her voice steady.
“I'm asking you to trust the man you've loved for three years.”
“I want to trust you,” Hazel admitted, her eyes filling with tears despite every effort to remain composed. “Please, Roman... tell me you have something that proves she framed you because I need a reason to believe this isn't real.”
The silence stretching across the line answered her before he finally spoke.
“I don't have proof yet,” he confessed quietly. “But I'll find it.”
Hazel lowered her head and sobbed.
The hope she had been clinging to slipped away the moment those words left his mouth.
Before Hazel could gather her thoughts, the bedroom door opened and her sister Olivia stepped inside carrying a tablet and another phone that had not stopped ringing since dawn.
“Hazel, I'm sorry to interrupt,” she said gently, placing the tablet on the bedside table. “The venue manager has called six times, the florist needs an answer before they begin setting up, and reporters have gathered outside the apartment building. Someone leaked the story overnight, and every news station is waiting to hear whether the wedding is still happening.”
Hazel looked toward the window.
She could not see the reporters from her bedroom, but camera flashes occasionally reflected against the neighboring buildings, reminding her that the worst day of her life had already become someone else's headline.
Roman's voice broke through the silence before she could respond.
“Please don't make a decision while you're angry,” he urged. His breathing sounded uneven, as though he had not slept all night. “Give me one day, Hazel. I'll find Mandy, I'll find the hotel staff, I'll prove she planned this.”
“You're asking me to not postpone a wedding that starts in less than twenty-four hours because you might find proof,” Hazel replied, her voice cracking despite her efforts to stay calm. “Do you even hear how impossible that sounds?”
“I know how it sounds, but it's the truth.”
“The truth should have reached me before those photographs did.” Hazel gritted her teeth.
Roman fell quiet for only a moment before speaking again, his voice softer and tired than before.
“I love you, Hazel. None of this changes that.”
A tear slipped down her cheek, and she brushed it away before it could fall onto the engagement ring she was unconsciously twisting around her finger.
“I loved you enough to trust you without question,” she answered. “Now every person who was supposed to celebrate our wedding tomorrow has already seen those photographs, and I don't know how I'm supposed to stand in front of them pretending nothing happened.”
Olivia lowered her eyes, giving Hazel as much privacy as the moment allowed, but she quietly unlocked the tablet and turned it toward her.
“I think you should see this before you make any announcements.”
Hazel reluctantly looked at the screen.
Every major news outlet had picked up the story.
Roman's photograph appeared beside hers beneath headlines questioning whether one of the city's most anticipated society weddings had collapsed overnight. Comment sections overflowed with strangers dissecting their relationship, while entertainment pages replayed Mandy's post as though it were breaking political news.
Then Hazel noticed something that made her stomach drop.
Someone had shared the scandal on the official page of Brooks Weddings.
The comments were even crueler there.
Several clients demanded refunds before anyone from her company had the chance to respond.
Others questioned whether they should trust a wedding planner whose own wedding had fallen apart on the eve of the ceremony.
Years of hard work, sleepless nights, and countless successful events were disappearing beneath thousands of opinions from people who had never met her.
Hazel stared at the screen until the words blurred together.
This was no longer only about her broken engagement.
Everything she had spent years building was beginning to collapse with it.
She slowly slipped the engagement ring from her finger and closed her hand around it before looking up at Olivia.
“Please call the venue,” she whispered. Although tears continued to gather in her eyes, her decision no longer carried any hesitation. “Tell them the wedding is cancelled.”
Olivia searched Hazel's face, silently hoping she might change her mind, but all she found was heartbreak. She nodded once before leaving the bedroom to make the call, while Roman's voice echoed desperately through the speaker.
“Hazel... please don't do this.” He kept begging and pleading.
Hazel disconnected the call and searched for the contact that had been pulling her out of this mess for years. When the call connected, she heaved a sigh and voiced out.
“P-please can you arrange an urgent appointment with therapist Reeve before I do something stupid?”
There was silence for a moment.
“Yes, Dr. Reeve is available right now.”
