I Let Him Marry Me So I Could Expose Him At The Wedding Chapter 01

I Let Him Marry Me So I Could Expose Him At The Wedding Chapter 01

A few days before the wedding, I was lying awake in the middle of the night when I stumbled upon a post from self-described a groom-to-be.

[I’ve fallen for someone else. Would it hurt her less if I called off the wedding now, or went through with it and filed for divorce afterward?]

The comments were ripping him a new one.

Everyone was calling him a scumbag, telling him not to ruin some poor woman’s life and to disappear before he did any more damage.

Only I stared at my phone, expressionless, and typed one line.

[If she loves you enough, give her the wedding. Let her have the dream.]

Less than ten seconds after I posted it, he replied.

[Thank you. We’ve been together for seven years. I’ve decided to go through with the wedding.]

I set my phone down and smiled faintly.

After all, without that wedding, how was I supposed to blow up my fiancé’s affair with my maid of honor in front of the whole world?

***********

I first realized Miles Whitaker had fallen for someone else on an ordinary afternoon.

Serena Vale and I had just stepped out of the bridal boutique.

Miles had missed my fitting because of a last-minute meeting, so he was leaning against his car outside, waiting to pick me up.

We had only taken a few steps when a bucket of soapy water suddenly came splashing down from an upstairs apartment.

It fell straight toward our heads.

Serena was my college roommate, my close friend of many years, and the maid of honor set to stand by my side.

Instinctively, I shoved her to the side.

But someone moved faster than I did.

A broad shoulder brushed past me, and in the next second, Miles had wrapped one arm tightly around the waist of the woman beside me.

Before I could even register what was happening, he had already shielded her completely, keeping every drop of dirty water off her.

And I was drenched from head to toe.

For several long minutes, everything seemed to go still.

During those minutes, some pathetic, naive part of me tried to make excuses for him.

Maybe Serena and I had been standing too close, and in the panic, he had mistaken her for me.

Maybe he was only being polite. Serena was a guest at our wedding, after all. He didn’t want her to be humiliated.

Maybe…

Forget it.

I could not think of another excuse.

Because really, what kind of innocent mistake ended with two people holding each other like that?

I refused to be stupid enough to lie to myself, but I kept my expression unreadable.

When Miles finally seemed to remember that I was still standing there, he slowly removed his hand from Serena’s back and walked over to me.

Calmly, almost too calmly, he took off his suit jacket and draped it over my shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Serena is your friend. I didn’t want you to feel responsible if she got hurt.”

I nodded and smiled.

“I know. I won’t misunderstand.”

Serena seemed to recover at last. She slipped her arm through mine in that sweet, clingy way of hers.

Then she deliberately leaned her delicate face against my shoulder, right against the black suit jacket still carrying Miles’s scent.

“Elena,” she said, her voice soft and playful, “Miles loves you so much. The two of you are almost too perfect. I’m honestly jealous.”

After she said it, I noticed Miles’s eyes flick briefly toward the jacket.

Something in his expression shifted before he looked away.

My heart tightened, but I forced another smile.

“Then you should hurry up and marry your boyfriend too,” I said. “Give me a reason to be jealous.”

On the drive home, while we were stopped at a red light, Miles did something rare.

He fished out the pack of cigarettes he had supposedly quit two years ago.

Quietly, he lit one between his fingers.

Over the past few years, as his company had grown into an empire, there had been almost nothing left in his life that could make him turn to cigarettes to ease whatever was weighing on him.

But today, all it took was one joking comment from me.

And his heart had wavered.

A few soft coughs came from beside me.

Miles did not speak. He did not even turn his head.

But he immediately crushed out the half-smoked cigarette, then rolled down the window on Serena’s side of the car.

One tiny act of preference after another.

That was enough to force me to admit the truth.

Miles was gone.

And that was when I decided I would call off the wedding.

But that very night, after Miles once again used work as an excuse to sleep in the study, I lay in bed scrolling through my phone, plotting my revenge.

And that was when I accidentally found his post.

The one from the groom-to-be.