Chapter 7 - The Bride’s Ultimatum
The double doors swung open again, and Chloe, Nicholas’s brand-new bride, stormed into the ballroom. Her extravagant, multi-thousand-dollar lace veil was trailing behind her, caught on a door handle, but she ripped it loose with a violent yank. Her face was contorted with absolute fury.
“Nicholas! What the hell is going on out here?!” she screamed, her voice echoing off the vaulted ceilings. “My father is having a panic attack in the green room! Half the guests are walking out to their limousines! The caterers are packing up the filet mignon! Are you out of your mind?!”
“Chloe, honey, wait, let me explain!” Nicholas panicked, lunging forward to grab her hands, but she violently slapped him away.
“Don’t touch me!” she hissed, her eyes blazing. “My father paid three hundred thousand dollars for this wedding so you could network with the elite! And you managed to insult the exact people we needed to impress?! Who the hell is Jenna, and why are half the billionaires in the tristate area bowing down to her in the children’s section?!”
Nicholas pointed a trembling, manic finger directly at me. “It’s her fault! She planned this! She’s a saboteur! She pretended to be a nobody just to humiliate me!”
I let out a dry, incredulous laugh, walking out from behind Table Nineteen. I picked up my expensive Italian espresso machine—the one I had bought with two months of rent—and hoisted it securely into my arms.
“I didn't pretend to be anything, Chloe,” I said calmly, looking the furious bride dead in the eye. “Your husband spent the entire morning telling me I didn't fit his aesthetic, banishing me to the kids' table, and forbidding me from breathing near his precious investors. I just sat quietly, drew dragons for Parker, and let nature take its course.”
Chloe stared at me, then looked at Nicholas, whose face was soaked in cold sweat. The realization hit her like a physical blow. The prestige, the high-society status, the lavish lifestyle she thought she was marrying into—it was all a hollow, rotting facade built on stolen credit and monstrous arrogance.
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“We’re done,” Chloe whispered, her voice shaking with suppressed rage. She pulled the diamond wedding band off her finger and hurled it directly into Nicholas’s chest. “Don't call my father's lawyer. Don't call me. Get out of my wedding.”
With that, she turned on her heel and stormed out of the ballroom, her silk train sweeping furiously behind her.
