Married To The Wrong Cole

Mia's POV I took the stairs two at a time, the envelope pressed against my chest, my heart pounding with excitement instead of the climb. The final wedding payment. After weeks of doubled shifts and five hours of sleep a night, I finally had it. Three more weeks, and I'd be Mrs. Ethan Brooks. I'd skipped lunches, turned down every invitation, and let my feet ache through double shifts at Hotel Ricardo. Ethan joked that I'd earned a medal. I laughed, because well, laughing was easier than asking why he never offered to carry any of it or help out. Plus I didn't want to lose him I pushed the door open. The apartment smelled like his cologne and the candle I'd bought for our first month here. Then I stopped. A pair of red heels sat beside the entrance. My smile faded. Why were Sofia's shoes in my apartment? A low laugh drifted from the bedroom.Then another one, and this time I knew the voice. Ethan. "No," I whispered. My fingers went cold around the envelope. I crossed the living room, each step heavier than the last. The envelope suddenly felt too heavy for something that had made me so happy five minutes ago. I reached for the bedroom door. My hand shook so badly I almost missed the handle. I opened it. Ethan was on the bed. Sofia was with him. My sister and my fiancé, half-naked in the sheets I'd paid for. For a few seconds, nobody moved. Sofia saw me and pulled the sheet to her chest. Ethan scrambled upright, eyes wide. "Mia..." "How long?" My voice came out strangely calm as I stared at them. "Mia, baby, listen…." "How long?" Sofia rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. She was going to find out eventually." Ethan's jaw tightened. "Sofia, shut up." "No. Why should I?" Her eyes slid down my body, then back to my face. "You were never going to be enough for him." I felt that one. She knew exactly where to hit. Ethan didn't defend me. That hurt even more. Months of his "jokes" came back in a rush: “maybe skip dessert before the dress fitting”, the little laugh whenever I said I was hungry. I always laughed along. Maybe that was the part I hated most. I had noticed things. I had just kept finding reasons not to look too closely. The late nights. The phone he suddenly kept face-down. The way he'd started needing more space whenever I asked where we'd been heading. I'd told myself wedding stress was making me paranoid. Now I wished I'd been paranoid. I turned to Ethan. "You’ve been sleeping with her?" He looked away. That was my answer. "Three weeks," I whispered. "Our wedding is in three weeks." "I know, but..." He grabbed his shirt off the floor. "You're never here, Mia. Every time I needed you, you were working." I stared at him like he'd grown another head. "I was working for us." "I never asked you to." "The wedding has payments. My family has debt. Who did you think was covering it?" He rubbed his face. "I was lonely." "And Sofia fixed that?" "It wasn't supposed to happen." "Then why did it happen more than once?" Silence. Sofia's gaze dropped to my hand. "What's that?" The envelope. The final wedding payment, crumpled where I'd been gripping it. I walked to the dresser, and Ethan's eyes followed me. I slid off my engagement ring and set it down. His face changed. "Baby, don't." "Don't what?" I picked the envelope back up. He didn't deserve a single cent of it. For months, I'd imagined handing that envelope over and finally breathing again. Instead, I was standing in my own bedroom, my heart hurting. I turned for the door. Sofia scoffed. "You're seriously leaving?" "What do you want me to do? Stay and clap?" Ethan caught my wrist. "Mia, please. I made a mistake." I looked down at his hand until he let go. "A mistake is forgetting an anniversary," I said. "This was a choice." "I love you." "Then you have a terrible way of showing it." My voice cracked on the last word. "And you chose my sister." I walked out. Behind me, Ethan's voice drifted into the hallway, low and laced with snide. "You'll find someone, Mia. Just... maybe don't wait too long." I didn't cry until I hit the stairs. I sat on the bottom step with the envelope in my lap and my whole life stuffed in a hallway above me. I'd spent years fixing things for everyone else. Now I didn't even know where to start. My phone rang before I reached the street. Mom. I wiped my face and answered. "Hello?" "Mia, where are you?" "Outside. Why?" "You need to talk to Sofia. She called me." Of course she did. "Mom..." "She explained everything." My throat tightened. "She explained that she slept with my fiancé?" A sigh. "Sofia didn't mean it. She's young." "She's twenty-five." "Don't make this worse than it already is." I stopped walking. "Worse?" "Ethan is angry. Sofia said you walked out." I almost laughed. "He cheated on me." "Mia, you know how men are." I couldn't breathe for a second. My own mother. "Three weeks before our wedding, Mom." "And what are you going to do about the family debt?" "What?" "The payment is due Friday. You promised you'd handle it." For a moment, I forgot about Ethan and Sofia Ah of course, the debt. There was already another problem waiting for me, like nothing had happened. My thumb brushed the empty space where my ring had been. My phone buzzed against my ear. I ended the call without saying goodbye and opened the message. Ethan: Your things are in the hallway. I changed the locks. My hands went numb. Another message appeared. Ethan: Don't come back. Beneath it was a photo. My bags sat outside the apartment door, and in the background of the shot were Sofia's red heels.