He Skipped Our Wedding License 10 Times but Married My Bestie Chapter 02

He Skipped Our Wedding License 10 Times but Married My Bestie Chapter 02

Back home, I didn’t even bother changing out of my ruined dress. I just curled up on the couch, entirely numb, and started scrolling through Saylor’s Instagram.

Saylor and I had known each other for ten years.

She’d dreamed of being an influencer since we were kids. Always said that once she made it big, she’d take me along for the ride.

Her posts went from a handful of likes to millions. She was actually a bona fide star now.

As I kept scrolling, I accidentally stumbled upon a photo from our high school days.

We all looked so young, grinning at the camera. Derrick held my hand, but his gaze was fixed on Saylor making a goofy face, his eyes full of affection.

My heart gave a sharp little twist.

I suddenly felt incredibly stupid for never noticing the silent understanding between them back then.

I had genuinely assumed he just looked at her like a protective older brother.

I used to think the three of us would head off to college together.

But when the SAT scores were released, I, the one who always ranked near the top, somehow did terribly.

When Saylor found out, her eyes swelled from crying, and she tried to drag me straight to the school board to demand a recount.

But I refused.

I knew the score was accurate because I had inexplicably fallen fast asleep during the exam.

After that, Saylor went off to one of the top universities in the country, where she crossed paths with her true love—the mysterious Frost heir.

Meanwhile, with no college future ahead of me, my mother decided to sell me off to a local creep in our small town for an eight-thousand-dollar wedding gift.

During my absolute darkest hour, Derrick showed up with ten thousand dollars and dragged me out of that living hell.

I still remembered my mother wetting her thumb, counting the cash over and over to ensure not a single dime was missing.

She didn’t cast a single glance at me as I lay battered and exhausted on the floor.

From then on, Derrick and I drifted from place to place, scraping by however we could.

True to his word when he first asked me out, he treated me incredibly well.

Whenever I got upset, regardless of who was actually at fault, he was always the first to back down and apologize.

If I got a late-night craving, he would jump onto his beat-up motorcycle in the dead of night just to buy my favorite honey-lavender shortbread.

The only flaw in our relationship was that we never actually got married.

Something always came up whenever we tried to get our license.

It was either a sudden, violent storm or Derrick vanishing because his old rivals were hunting him down.

He claimed that the ten thousand dollars he used to bail me out had come from loan sharks, which was why those thugs refused to leave him alone.

Every time he said that, a heavy wave of guilt would wash over me.

If it weren’t for saving me, he could have lived a quiet, ordinary life.

That guilt drove me to treat him better and better, putting up with everything.

I kept scrolling on the screen.

I reached the post where Saylor first announced her relationship with the Frost heir.

On September fifteenth, she had called me, her voice cracking into soft sobs. “Nevaeh, he finally told me he loves me.”

I laughed and gave her my blessing, every word genuine.

But hearing my response, she only sobbed harder.

“But he has a woman he feels guilty about,” she whispered. “He told me he can only be with me properly once he finishes paying back what he owes her… Nevaeh, what am I supposed to do?”

Hearing that back then, I lost my temper entirely, thinking this billionaire didn’t deserve my best friend.

I even spent several minutes cursing out the woman caught between them.

As I kept cursing, Saylor finally let out a soft laugh, her tone laced with a strange meaning. “Nevaeh, you’re so incredibly clueless.”

“But I know he really loves me,” she added. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t have abandoned that woman and taken a ten-hour flight overseas just to find me.”

I was too busy defending her to catch the real meaning behind her words.

In reality, that exact day had been my second anniversary with Derrick, and he had stood me up.

He claimed a great job opportunity had come up out of town, and I told him to go ahead.

Every single red flag had been right in front of me, yet I remained blissfully ignorant.

Perhaps I was just so desperate to feel loved that I deliberately ignored all the coincidences.

Saylor frequently posted snippets of her daily life with the Frost heir, but he never showed his face in any of the photos.

It was always a glimpse of a collarbone, a sharp jawline, or an eye.

Slowly, I began to piece those fragments together into a very familiar face.

I then looked up information regarding the heir to the Frost family.

He was incredibly low-profile, but the records confirmed his identity as the youngest son of the Frost empire. His name was Derek Frost.

The names sounded almost identical, a hidden detail I had never questioned.

Every piece of evidence pointed to an undeniable reality.

My bad-boy boyfriend was the notorious billionaire of Boston.

A sudden laugh escaped my lips.

It turned out I was a joke all along.

I reached into an old shoebox and pulled out a cigarette I had hidden away.

Since it had been years since my last one, the smoke hit my throat hard, making my eyes water.

Derrick despised women who smoked.

Neither did I, really.

But life had been crushing me, and sometimes I needed one quiet drag just to catch my breath.

Thinking about everything that had unfolded today… every single beautiful memory we shared dissolved into nothing.

I wasn’t a difficult person; if Derrick had simply told me he didn’t love me anymore, I would have walked away without a word.

With that thought, I dialed a number I had kept saved.

“Mr. Whitlock,” I said, my voice tight with nerves. “Does your sister still need my bone marrow?”

“Yes.”

“Alright. But I have an additional condition before I agree.”

“Name it,” he replied, a gentle, reassuring chuckle coming through the line.

“Send me abroad to study.”

“Consider it done.”