Bride Number Ninety-Nine: My Groom Married Her First Chapter 04

Bride Number Ninety-Nine: My Groom Married Her First Chapter 04

Grant didn’t push her away.

The kiss lasted five seconds.

My heart was flayed alive for those same five seconds.

The ballroom erupted in applause.

When Hazel pulled back, her face was burning red, and she stammered:

“Everyone kept egging us on, I just—I wasn’t thinking.”

Grant pressed his lips together, then instinctively looked at me.

“It was nothing. Just a peck.”

I stared at the lipstick smudged on his collar, my chest splitting open as if by a dull blade.

“You promised me she wouldn’t take the vows.”

“Plans changed at the last minute.”

“You also promised the ring would only ever be on my hand.”

“You have it back now.”

“And that kiss?”

Grant’s patience finally ran out completely.

“Eleanor, how long are you going to keep picking apart every little detail?”

“Haze doesn’t have a father. She’s never had a wedding, never even thought about getting married. Today, I’m just giving her one memory.”

He looked at me like it was all perfectly reasonable.

“You already have me. What are you even competing for?”

My mouth opened, but no sound came out.

So even my own husband kissing another woman in front of everyone was just another meaningless detail to him.

Hazel suddenly grabbed his sleeve, tears falling without warning.

“Grant. Today really did feel like a dream.”

“But once the dream ends, I’m nothing.”

She pulled off her veil as she spoke and turned to leave.

But the dress train caught her foot. She stumbled.

Grant caught her almost by reflex, pulling her steady into his arms.

“Don’t.”

Hazel suddenly clutched his collar and looked up at him.

“If I actually wanted to get married—would today’s bride have been me?”

Dead silence swallowed the room.

Every pair of eyes slid past the two of them and landed on me.

I gripped the broken ring and walked toward Grant, step by step.

Blood slid down my palm, dripping from between my fingers.

“Grant Calloway.”

My voice was quiet, but it cut through every whisper in that room.

“Don’t you dare!”

If only he’d kept up the lie, this farce of a wedding could have kept its last shred of dignity.

But Hazel was sobbing in his arms, trembling.

After a brief pause, he tightened his arms around her instead, holding her closer.

“Yes.”

One word, and seven years of my love were crushed to powder.

My palm was still bleeding, and somehow I couldn’t feel the pain anymore.

Hazel’s tears rolled down, and finally, she smiled.

Grant wiped the tears off her face, and his next words sounded like comfort for her—and an explanation aimed at me.

“It’s only hypothetical.”

“Eleanor, don’t take it seriously.”

I looked at him and nodded slowly.

When the last flicker of hope goes out, even pain feels beside the point.

“Fine.”

He seemed satisfied with my compliance. Reached his hand out to me.

“Come here.”

“The show’s over. Now it’s your turn.”

I didn’t walk toward him.

Instead, I unpinned the flower from my chest, laid the broken ring at its center, and handed it to a server.

“For today’s luckiest bride.”

Grant’s brow dropped low.

“Leanor. Don’t start again.”

Seeing me turn, his voice went suddenly cold behind me.

“If you walk out that door, don’t come back!”

I didn’t look back.

Step by step, I walked out of the ballroom.

Behind me, the lights stayed bright, the music stayed loud.

But from now on, whoever the bride was, none of it had anything to do with me.

…

At one in the morning, once the last of the guests had gone, Grant finally came back to the honeymoon suite, smelling like liquor.

Before he even opened the door, he told the housekeeper:

“Have the kitchen warm up a bowl of lobster bisque.”

“She didn’t eat anything today. Her stomach’s gonna hurt.”

Then he turned on the light.

And the haze of alcohol slowly drained from his face.