The Same Wedding Dress, Two Different Brides Chapter 01

The Same Wedding Dress, Two Different Brides Chapter 01

Elliot Prescott and I had been together for seven years, but everyone thought I was some desperate woman who couldn’t take a hint and refused to leave him alone.

I’d been slapped before and called a homewrecker.

One of the very few friends who knew the truth finally couldn’t stand watching it anymore and called Elliot.

“Are you seriously going to let Elena Walsh take all the abuse while you keep her hidden forever?”

Elliot was silent for a long time before answering quietly.

“Vivian Hale’s husband died saving me. Her parents want me to take care of her for the rest of her life. After what he did for me, I can’t turn them down.”

“Elena loves me for me. I can let Vivian be the one everyone sees as my fiancée. Elena won’t care.”

His friend still couldn’t bear to see me treated that way.

“But I heard you and Vivian are actually having a wedding. Elena’s five months pregnant. What if she finds out and can’t take it…”

Elliot didn’t hesitate.

“Elena will understand.”

I stood in the fitting room, staring down at the white wedding gown I was wearing. For a moment, none of it felt real.

Elliot was the one who had once promised I’d be the most beautiful bride.

Now he was also the man helping another woman choose her wedding dress.

Standing there alone, secretly trying on a gown of my own, I looked like a fool in the mirror.

Elliot had been wrong.

I wasn’t going to spend the rest of my life with a man who always expected me to be the understanding one.

…

Outside the fitting room, Vivian had chosen the exact same gown.

She stood in front of the mirror and smiled at Elliot. “How do I look?”

Elliot nodded, looking at her with open admiration.

“You look beautiful.”

A sales associate glanced at me through the gap in the door. “Would you like to come out and take a look? You’d look every bit as stunning in it.”

I closed the door.

“No, thanks,” I said softly.

It was the same dress. One of us in it was enough.

As I changed out of the gown, Elliot called.

“Elena, have you had lunch yet?”

I could hear a sales associate complimenting someone and a woman’s soft laugh in the background.

Before I could answer, he went on.

“Sorry I couldn’t spend our anniversary with you today. Something urgent came up with Vivian, and I couldn’t get away. Don’t be mad.”

I stood in the cramped fitting room, staring at the stark white gown in front of me.

“So the urgent thing you couldn’t get away from was helping Vivian try on dresses for your wedding?”

“What?” He sounded like he hadn’t expected me to know.

My voice stayed calm. “Elliot, what did I ever do to deserve this? What gives you the right to treat me like this?”

The other end went silent.

After a long moment, I heard footsteps, followed by Elliot’s lowered voice.

“You found out?”

He took a deep breath. “Elena, it’s just for show—a ceremony, nothing more. You know what happened better than anyone. I owe Vivian’s family. Her parents aren’t in good health, and this is the one thing they’ve asked of me. I can’t say no.”

He said it like the whole thing was perfectly reasonable, as if my feelings had never entered the equation.

“What about me?”

Elliot was silent for two seconds before answering more quietly.

“Don’t make this more complicated than it is. Even if I go through with the ceremony with her, you’re still my girlfriend. Nothing between us changes.”

“Really?”

He seemed to hear something in my voice, because when he answered again, he sounded tired.

“What else would happen?”

“Elena, I’m already caught in the middle here.”

“Can you stop making such a big deal out of this?”

“A big deal?”

I repeated the words softly.

My chest tightened until it was hard to breathe.

There were so many ways Elliot could have repaid what he owed Vivian’s family. He’d chosen the one that humiliated me most.

It was his debt to repay, yet I was the one paying the price.