My Wedding Day, Their Marriage Certificate Chapter 01

My Wedding Day, Their Marriage Certificate Chapter 01

During the bridal party’s pre-ceremony games, my foster sister pulled out a box of condoms and asked Ethan Bennett with a giggle, “Future brother-in-law, when was the last time you got laid?”

I was about to tell her to tone it down.

Then I heard Ethan answer without the slightest hesitation, “Last night.”

I thought he was joking. It was supposed to be bad luck for the bride and groom to see each other before the wedding.

But in the next second, he pulled out a marriage certificate and placed it in front of me.

“We spent all night in the room you decorated for our wedding night. We used up half the box of condoms.”

“We even found time this morning to get legally married, which was why I was late getting here.”

I hurled my bouquet at him, my eyes burning red as I demanded, “Who is she?”

He gave a faint smile and opened the certificate.

“Here. See for yourself.”

The moment I saw the name beside his, my whole body went cold.

My foster sister leaned close to my ear, still smiling sweetly.

“Claire, you can either become a mistress like your mother, or you can hand Ethan over to me. Your choice”

For a moment, my expression went blank. My gaze moved from Ethan’s face to Laurel Hayes.

One of them was the man I had loved for eight years. The other was the foster sister I had rescued from a remote mountain town and helped raise myself.

Yet last night, they had spent the night in the room I had decorated for my own wedding night. Worse, they had legally married each other on the morning of my wedding.

The truth crashed down on me so suddenly that I could barely breathe.

My voice trembled as I asked him, “Do you even know what day it is?”

He nodded, his tone casual.

“I know. It’s our wedding day, and it’s also been eight years since we got together.”

So he knew everything.

I had imagined my wedding with Ethan countless times, but I had never imagined it would end in such humiliation.

He was still kneeling on one knee in front of me, in the exact same posture he had used eight years ago when he shyly confessed his feelings.

Only now, there was none of the old warmth in his eyes.

“Why did it have to be today?”

He carefully tucked the marriage certificate back into his pocket.

The groom’s boutonniere pinned there looked painfully bright and absurd.

“No reason. Laurel wanted it. That was all.”

My lips twitched, and tears slid down my cheeks, landing on my white bridal gown.

Just because Laurel wanted it, Ethan had betrayed our eight years together and trampled my dignity underfoot on our wedding day just to make her happy.

Ethan pulled out a tissue and reached over to wipe my tears.

“Don’t cry. Your makeup will run. Didn’t you say you wanted to be the most beautiful bride?”

The resigned look in his eyes sent a dull ache through my chest.

For a moment, I remembered the days when I had worked part-time as a bridal model just to earn extra money to buy him gifts.

Every time he picked me up after work, he would tell me I was the most beautiful bride.

I had worn so many wedding dresses, but not once had I looked forward to any of them as much as I had looked forward to today.

Now he had turned the wedding I had dreamed of for years into a joke.

I slapped him hard across the face.

“Ethan Bennett, you bastard.”

He clenched his jaw but did not argue.

Just then, Laurel dropped to her knees in front of me as if she were the wronged one.

“Claire, I’m sorry for ruining your wedding, but when love happens, we can’t always control ourselves…”

She looked pitiful on the surface, but the smugness in her eyes reminded me again how wrong I had been about her.

“Laurel Hayes, I raised you for ten years. I was more than your sister. I was the closest thing you had to a mother.”

“When you couldn’t find a job after graduation, I begged my supervisor to make an exception and hire you. I taught you everything by hand. When your biological family tried to force you into marriage so they could trade you off to settle your brother’s debts, I was the one who handled it for you…”

Before I could finish, Ethan cut me off sharply.

“Claire, enough.”

“Laurel scares easily. Do you really have to drag up all those old things just to scare her?”

A flash of tenderness crossed his eyes.

He made no attempt to hide how protective he felt toward her.

“She’s timid? Timid enough to climb into your bed?”

Ethan’s expression stiffened, and he could not help defending her.

“She was innocent. I was drugged back then, and I ended up sleeping with her.”

“I was her first, so I have to take responsibility. I can’t leave her hidden with no place in my life.”

His words chilled me from head to toe.

I stared at him in disbelief for two seconds, then suddenly laughed.

“Ethan Bennett, when you married her, did you ever think about what I was supposed to do?”

He frowned slightly and answered with a serious expression.

“Claire, I did think about it.”

“We’ve been together for eight years. Today’s wedding gives everyone the answer they expect. As long as you don’t say anything, no one will know we never got legally married.”

A crushing sense of absurdity swept over me.

I looked at the man in front of me, so calm and self-righteous, and felt as if I no longer knew him at all.

So in his mind, a wedding and a marriage certificate could be split between two different women.

Laurel spoke timidly, as if making a promise.

“Claire, don’t worry.”

“I won’t compete with you for Ethan.”

Those words made nausea rise in my stomach.

“Don’t call me your sister again.”

“And I’m not marrying him today.”