Chapter 3

This wedding had three months of hype behind it.

Pretty much every important relative on the groom's side showed.

I looked around, taking in every detail.

White rose waterfall by the windows, crystal beads hanging from the vaulted ceiling...

Even the font on the place cards was custom designed.

Liam was like that—when he did something, he went all out.

Chasing me was like that, planning this wedding was like that too.

He turned this wedding into the talk of the town, made it the dream of every girl...

Hell, even his cheating was that extreme.

No wiggle room, no excuses.

In his twisted logic, treating someone right and destroying them never conflicted.

And me? I only had one option: suck it up.

In the dressing room, my best friend Lily flew in from Australia to be my maid of honor, pissed as hell.

"Is Liam out of his damn mind? Running off to get the license with another chick on his wedding day? Is his brain broken?"

She huffed and dropped into the chair next to me, yanking at her bridesmaid dress.

"I thought he was full of shit, but even if... why today?"

Her voice burned with that secondhand rage.

"When you guys planned this wedding together, he hit up every flower shop in the city just to pick your bouquet, and when you tried on dresses his eyes got misty before yours did."

"I was so jealous back then I went home and smacked my useless boyfriend!"

She paused, voice dropping. "Who could've seen him pulling this?"

I didn't answer, just scrolled my phone.

Ivy just posted on Instagram.

Picture showed men's dress shirt and women's lingerie all over the floor.

[Someone said he'd only stay ten minutes but couldn't leave~]

She geo-tagged it on purpose—wasn't Clerk's Office.

Mutual friends already commenting: [Ivy, who are you trying to piss off?]

Ivy replied: [Whoever's in a wedding dress waiting on nobody!]

I screenshot it, face blank.

"Aria, stop waiting!" My friend snatched my phone. "Look at these trash people!"

"You came running back from England right after graduation for him—you know how pissed your parents were?"

"Liam was a nobody back then and you had the nerve to bet ten years with your parents! Now you've lost everything."

"If it weren't for you busting your ass all these years doing his proposals, pulling investors, quietly flexing your shipping heiress status to get his projects funded, would he even have what he has today?"

"And he turns around and screws the investor's daughter!"

"I had no idea he could fake it this good, kept the act up right till the night before the wedding to finally let you catch him cheating!"

The more she talked the madder she got, eyes going red. "Aria, stop waiting. Live for yourself for once!"

"Thanks for flying out today. As for my parents, after this wedding's done, I'll go home and take the L."

A bet's a bet.

Today's the day I pay up for losing.