Chapter 1
Nadine's POV:
"Nadine, wait for me. I'll be right there!"
The voice on the other end trembled with excitement. I hung up and stood on the roadside, burning with humiliation.
My parents were still messaging me, asking me to hurry.
Cars passed one after another. People glanced at me for a second before quickly looking away.
Biting my lip hard, I flagged down a cab and gave the driver my home address.
The driver looked at me in the rearview mirror. "Miss, where's your groom? Why are you out here alone?"
I gripped my skirt. My throat felt dry.
"He's dead."
An awful silence filled the cab.
But I hadn't lied. Whenever Tessa Langford needed anything, Conrad was the first to rush to her side. When I needed him, he might as well have been dead. Whenever I confronted him about it, hurt and unwilling to let it go, he'd give me the same excuse.
"Tessa's 1 year younger than you. She needs someone to look after her. Stop being so jealous."
And now, on our wedding day, he'd actually abandoned me on the roadside for her.
I was still lost in those thoughts when a message popped up in the group chat. Tessa had posted a tearful selfie with the dog in her arms. She had made sure to tag me, too.
Tessa: Nadine, Conrad's coming with me to take the dog in for surgery. We'll make it back by the scheduled wedding time. You don't mind, do you?
Before I could reply, Conrad answered for me.
Conrad: She doesn't.
I stared at the screen. A chill settled over me at his indifference.
Nadine: That's right. I don't.
I'd already made up my mind. I didn't want him anymore. I left the group chat.
The cab stopped outside the house where we were supposed to begin our married life. My parents were already waiting outside. Their smiles vanished the moment they saw me step out of the cab in my torn wedding dress.
After I told them what had happened, my father's face twisted in fury. "How could Conrad do this? He got down on his knees and promised he'd treat you well. That's the only reason I agreed to this marriage. Otherwise, that boy wouldn't be worthy of joining the Ellison family!"
The wedding gifts from my parents included two houses downtown that my father had bought especially for me. He and my mother had even worked through the night renovating the house. He'd spent a fortune hiring a fleet of limos for the occasion, all because he didn't want my future in-laws to look down on me or push me around.
Conrad knew I'd be ridiculed if he disregarded the local wedding tradition. Yet he'd insisted on going with Tessa to take her dog in for surgery.
"Nadine, he's doing this to make things difficult for you. He wants to humiliate you!" My father clutched his chest, his face white with anger. "I'm going to make that brat explain himself!"
I put out an arm to stop him.
My best friend, standing beside us, thought I was still too blinded by love to see reason.
"You... you're going to defend him? You're actually going to forgive him?"
'I'm not defending him, and I'm certainly not forgiving him.'
"I'm not marrying him," I said.
My parents went still, much of the anger fading from their faces. Even my best friend, who had been about to call Conrad and tear into him, froze.
"Nadine, marriage isn't something to take lightly. Make sure you've thought this through."
I had thought about it all the way home. Even if I married Conrad, he would abandon me for Tessa again. There was no point going ahead with a marriage like that.
Someone from the wedding planning company stood a short distance away, looking uncomfortable.
"Miss Ellison, would you still like us to put the photo display of you and Mr. Whitmore back up?"
I looked at the photo, which the wind had blown into the dirt, and planted my foot on Conrad's face in the picture.
"No. A marriage without anyone's blessing was never going to last."
