At Twenty-Eight, He Married My Enemy. At Eighteen, He Gave Me a Second Life. Chapter 04

At Twenty-Eight, He Married My Enemy. At Eighteen, He Gave Me a Second Life. Chapter 04

Ethan and Blair’s second wedding went ahead as planned.

It was held at a private lakeside club on Chicago’s North Shore.

There was a sprawling lawn, a glass-walled ballroom, white roses, and a parking lot packed with luxury cars.

Many of Chicago’s rich and powerful were there, including some of the city’s most prominent businesspeople.

“Eileen, Blair’s train is out of place. Fix it for her.”

Ethan glanced at me.

Dressed in my bridesmaid gown, I knelt on one knee and straightened Blair’s train.

When she looked down at me, she couldn’t hide the smug satisfaction on her face.

The wedding was extravagant.

Ethan had invited almost everyone he knew.

He couldn’t wait to tell the whole world that he was finally marrying the woman he truly loved in public.

Quite a few of our former classmates were among the guests.

When they saw that the bride and groom were Ethan and Blair, the two people who had hated each other most in high school, many of them were stunned.

“Wasn’t Ethan always crazy about Eileen?”

“Everyone at school knew what Blair and her mother did back then.”

The moment Blair heard the whispers, her expression changed.

“Why are they still talking about that? Ethan, I’m so sick of this. I’m already your wife. Why do people still treat me like some woman you have to hide?”

Ethan immediately comforted her.

Then he walked over to me and lowered his voice.

“Eileen, get onstage now. Tell everyone I only protected you back then because I thought of you as a little sister. Tell them Blair was the one I always loved, that you and I were never together, and then give us your blessing.”

By the end, Ethan seemed to finally realize just how cruel those words sounded.

He looked away.

“Don’t worry. You’re only saying it for everyone else to hear. Once the baby is born, I’ll give you whatever you want. Just help me this once.”

I tightened my grip on the microphone and slowly walked to the center of the room.

“Everyone, before the wedding begins, there’s something I’d like to clear up.”

The ballroom fell silent.

“I know many of you have been talking about Blair today. You think she came between Ethan and me, and you think her mother destroyed my parents’ marriage years ago.”

I looked at Blair.

For the first time in a long time, my smile came easily.

“It’s all true. Blair did come between Ethan and me. Her mother destroyed my parents’ marriage, and Blair did the same thing to destroy the twelve years Ethan and I had together.”

I looked at Blair as her expression darkened by the second and smiled.

“No matter how many wedding dresses you wear or how many weddings you hold, the truth won’t change.”

The entire ballroom went dead silent.

Everyone turned to look at Blair.

Her face went pale, and she immediately clutched her stomach.

“Oh my God… Ethan, my stomach hurts. What if something’s wrong with the baby?”

Ethan’s expression changed instantly.

He lunged at me from behind and clamped a hand around the back of my neck and shoulder, squeezing so hard I could barely breathe.

“Eileen, what did you promise me? You knew Blair was pregnant, and you still deliberately upset her. Do you hate her that much? You won’t even leave my child alone?”

He shoved me to the floor in disgust.

Then he pulled out his phone and played a video on the ballroom’s giant screen.

The footage was blurry.

It had clearly been recorded many years ago.

But many of our former classmates still recognized the girl in the video.

It was me at seventeen.

Onscreen, the school coach had me pinned down in the equipment room.

But Ethan looked around at everyone and spoke coldly.

“Look carefully. Eileen even seduced her own coach. How could I possibly have loved her? Blair has been my real girlfriend all these years!”

The video kept playing as Ethan raised his voice.

“Blair and her mother never destroyed anyone’s relationship. Eileen and her mother made up all those rumors. They couldn’t keep their own men, so they blamed everyone else.”

Ethan pulled out their marriage certificate.

“Blair and I are legally married! That’s the truth.”

Everyone in the ballroom stared at me. Some frowned, some snickered, and others looked at me with open contempt.

It was no different from everything I had endured at school.

Only this time, there was no boy to pull me out of the crowd.

Because the person who had pushed me into it was him.

I lowered my head and whispered into the phone.

“Ethan. I don’t think I can wait for you to come save me anymore.”

I pulled the knife I had hidden inside my dress.

Then I closed my eyes.

“Eileen!”

Somewhere in the chaos, I heard someone scream my name.

But the pain I had expected never came.

Someone suddenly lunged in front of me.

The knife was torn from my hand.

My eyes flew open.

A boy stood in front of me, one hand wrapped around the handle of the knife now buried in twenty-eight-year-old Ethan’s chest.

Ethan stared at the young face that looked almost exactly like his own, utterly stunned.

“Who are you?”