I Prepared Our Wedding, For His Another Bride Chapter 03

I Prepared Our Wedding, For His Another Bride Chapter 03

Staff helped me to a seat, using tweezers to pick tiny flower thorns out of my burning, scraped-up face.

The cold metal of the tweezers against my raw skin made me gasp sharply.

Bianca scoffed, clinging to Cyrus’s arm and shaking it back and forth. “Cyrus, you told me she lost a baby last year, right?”

Cyrus froze, his eyes darting to me. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.

Bianca’s eyes glinted, her tone smug and certain. “She’s just staging another miscarriage scene to make you feel guilty, so you’ll cave to whatever she wants. Including canceling my graduation wedding gift.”

She blinked up at him, feigning total innocence.

All the faint remorse that had flickered in Cyrus’s eyes vanished the second she mentioned the canceled venue.

He had no intention of letting Bianca down or disappointing her. “Of course I won’t let her mess everything up for you, don’t worry.”

He shot me a furious glare, patting Bianca’s back to soothe her, then fixed his gaze hard on mine. “Elowen, you’re out of line using what happened last year to manipulate me. I’ve compromised enough for you already.”

Last year, I’d been three months pregnant.

Cyrus used to press his cheek to my stomach every single day, talking to our unborn baby for hours on end.

Then I slipped and fell at home. I dialed Cyrus sixty times from the bathroom floor, and he never picked up once.

It took him a full week to show up at the hospital.

“I’m so sorry, Elowen, this is all my fault,” he’d cried, his eyes bloodshot, tears soaking the hospital sheets.

He’d sworn he’d give me anything I asked for, that he’d love me forever, that he’d take full responsibility for our baby.

But scrolling through Bianca’s Instagram earlier, I’d learned the truth.

He hadn’t been on a business trip that week. He’d been celebrating Bianca’s birthday—she’d promised him her virginity that week.

Every time I thought about the baby I’d lost, a hollow, crushing pain tore through my chest. And Cyrus had taken my deepest, most private grief and turned it into a joke to tell Bianca.

Cyrus stepped closer, tilting my chin up with his fingers to force me to meet his stare.

“I spoiled you rotten, Elowen. I loved you so much I let you walk all over me, and now you weaponize every bad thing that’s ever happened to get your way. I’m so disappointed in you.”

His grip was bruisingly tight. The fresh bandaged cuts on my face split open again, warm blood seeping down my skin.

I winced from the pain, but Cyrus misread my flinch as defiance.

“You couldn’t even carry a baby to term, and now you throw that loss in my face to make me pity you. What do you even have to fight me over?”

“This is the last time I’ll say it—don’t bring up the miscarriage again to fish for sympathy.”

He let go of my chin, wrinkling his nose as he wiped my blood off his fingers with a handkerchief, as if I’d contaminated him.

He pulled Bianca into his side. “I’m not canceling Bianca’s wedding just because you’re throwing a fit. I promised her this day, and I intend to keep that promise. If you still want to marry me, start behaving yourself.”

He didn’t spare me another glance, turning and walking out with Bianca.

I watched their retreating backs, replaying Bianca’s words from the car on loop: Eight years, and he’s totally bored of her.

The ice pack I held to my face numbed my fingers completely. It turned out she’d been telling the truth all along.

At the doorway, Bianca glanced over her shoulder and smiled sweetly. “You’ll come to our wedding, won’t you, Elowen?”