He Holds Off Marriage,I Make Him Beg For Code

Today marked the fourth time Joseph Wagner had postponed our wedding. The first time, he offered a polished excuse about the company just going public, begging me to wait until the quarter wrapped up. The second time, he cited his mother's frail health, insisting we hold off until winter thawed. The third time, he claimed rival corporations were watching his every move, warning that a high-profile wedding would make him vulnerable to a corporate ambush. Today was supposed to be our fourth attempt at walking down the aisle. "Adelynn, about the wedding... you'll have to give me a little more time," his voice drifted through the line, smooth and detached. "How much more time, Joseph?" I asked softly. "It's hard to say. Things with Katherine are still up in the air; we haven't ironed out all the terms yet." Before I could utter another word or demand an answer, he hung up with practiced precision, leaving no room for questions. The cold, repetitive drone of the dial tone weighed heavily on my chest, a suffocating ache settling deep within my heart. Pushing down the tempest of emotions raging inside me, I grabbed my coat and stepped out into the crisp air. The city in the dead of night was utterly desolate, the streets stretched out long and empty under the dim yellow streetlights. I slipped into a quiet, twenty-four-hour lounge tucked away in an alley, picked the most shadowed corner booth, and ordered a glass of strong liquor. That was when I heard the familiar voice carrying over from the adjacent section. I had listened to that voice for ten long years; I could recognize its cadence anywhere. Joseph was sitting right there, knocking back drinks with a few of his closest buddies. His voice was loud and boisterous. Even with the plush leather divider separating our booths, every word he uttered sliced right through the air and struck my ears with brutal clarity. "Adelynn has zero family backing," Joseph scoffed, his tone dripping with patronizing amusement. "Without me keeping her afloat, she wouldn't last a day in the real world." His friends chimed in with raucous laughter. "So, are you actually going through with marrying her or what?" "Marry her? Are you insane?" He let out a sharp laugh, laced with utter condescension. "The only woman I'm marrying is Katherine! Katherine is the kind of wife who can open doors for me and expand my business empire! "I only keep Adelynn around out of pure nostalgia. Once the marriage deal with Katherine is sealed, I'll toss her the keys to some apartment and call it square. "She's spent ten years trailing after me; she's far too dependent to ever leave. When the time comes, she'll just have to accept whatever bone I throw her way." One of his companions smirked wickedly. "Aren't you afraid she'll blow a fuse? She did give you ten years of her youth, after all." "She wouldn't dare," Joseph replied leisurely, his words thick with the arrogance of alcohol. "I know her inside and out. The thing she fears most in this world is losing me. Women are simple creatures; when they throw a little tantrum, you just sweet-talk them until they fall back into line." My fingers tightened around the heavy glass in my hand. The crystal was ice-cold against my palm, yet it paled in comparison to the freezing chill spreading through my veins. He was right about one thing: I had devoted ten years of my life to him. I was nineteen when I first crossed paths with Joseph. Back then, he was nothing more than a destitute young dreamer who couldn't even scrape together enough cash for next month's rent. But beneath that poverty lay a fierce, unyielding drive, and whenever he spoke about code and his grand ambitions, his eyes blazed with a brilliant light. At that time, I deliberately hid my powerful lineage, wanting nothing more than to find a true, untainted love. That raw, untamed passion of his touched me deeply, and I fell utterly in love with him. I remembered one late night when we were buried in the university computer lab working on a critical prototype. His train of thought had completely hit a wall, and he sat staring at the glowing monitor for hours in sheer desperation. I sat down beside him, patiently untangling his messy logic step by step and building out the missing framework of the codebase. By the time the code ran cleanly and the bug was cleared, pale gray dawn was already breaking through the blinds. He let out a long breath of relief, turned his head, and looked at me with deep sincerity. Reaching out, he gently took hold of my wrist. "Adelynn, I swear I am going to marry you," he said softly. "Once I build my empire, I'll give you a wedding so grand and spectacular that the whole world will take notice." When exactly did that brilliant light in his eyes die out? Perhaps it was after our very first successful funding round, when he proudly boasted to investors that the technical team was built entirely by his own two hands, while I simply smiled and never exposed his lie. Or maybe it was when he began staying out all night, returning home carrying the scent of unfamiliar perfume, dismissively telling me I was just being overly paranoid. Over the past couple of years, the warmth in his gaze had vanished entirely, replaced by a single, nauseating brand of supreme self-assurance. He was utterly convinced that I could never survive without him. The clinking of their whiskey glasses echoed over the partition. "What if Adelynn finds out about all this?" someone asked. "How could she possibly find out? I'll just spin whatever story I want, and she'll swallow it whole like she always does." I slowly unclasped my hand from the glass, rose from the leather seat, and stepped quietly out through the side exit of the bar. The crisp night wind surged into my collar, sweeping away the stale scent of alcohol. Standing beneath the dim glow of a street lamp, I dialed a phone number I hadn't touched in a decade. It rang just once before the call was picked up. "Father, I lost the wager," I said calmly into the receiver. "I will be back home in three days, right on schedule." A heavy silence hung on the line for two seconds before a deep voice responded with simple authority: "Welcome home, my daughter." When I walked away from my family ten years ago, my father and I forged a binding pact: before I turned thirty, I was allowed to live as an ordinary woman and seek out a modest, genuine love. If I found it, he would grant me his blessing to remain in that quiet world forever. But if I failed, I would return on my thirtieth birthday to assume full command of the entire Calderon family. Across the length and breadth of Marinia's sprawling underworld, every single power broker shuddered at the mere whisper of the Calderon family name. I had once genuinely believed that loving Joseph would serve as my permanent escape from that shadowy syndicate. Reality, however, proved to be far more unforgiving. Now, exactly three days remained until my thirtieth birthday. Upon returning to my apartment, my phone buzzed with an incoming text from Joseph. Joseph: Babe, are you asleep? I have a late business dinner tonight and won't make it home until late. Don't bother waiting up for me. I gave the screen a brief, cold glance before flipping the phone face down onto the nightstand. Laying back on the bed, I stared quietly up at the ceiling, my mind razor-focused on a single truth: in three days' time, the helpless, plain Adelynn would vanish completely from this world. Joseph believed he was discarding a useless burden. What he didn't realize was that he was losing the only winning hand he would ever have.