He Shamed Me, I Married the Top Billionaire

It was the night before my wedding, and my fiancé's secretary had dumped every last bottle of wine I'd stocked to serve my wedding guests, replacing them all with milk. My face darkened instantly. I demanded she explain herself, right then and there. But my fiancé, who'd always doted on me before, stepped forward and shielded the secretary firmly behind his back. "This is Elowen's way of being thoughtful. Don't ruin everyone's fun over it." His crew of deadbeat buddies burst out laughing right along with him. "C'mon, don't make a big deal out of this! It's just a few bottles of wine. Don't be such a stick in the mud, yeah?" But I saw the malicious little grins flickering in their eyes, clear as day. Looks like I need to pick a new guy for this deadbeat fiancé spot. Before Caspian could even open his mouth again, his little secretary cut him off, speaking first. and explaining herself to me. "President Ashcroft, I know you're old and can't hold your liquor. I specially prepared this milk just for you." I shot her a sharp, icy glare and snapped coldly, "Shut your mouth. You don't get to speak here." The second the words left my mouth, Elowen cowered behind Caspian, playing the timid little victim. "Caspian, why is President Ashcroft so mean? I didn't have any bad intentions..." At that, Caspian immediately pulled her further behind him for protection, his voice sharp with annoyance when he turned to me. "Seraphine, stop being so unreasonable. Elowen went out of her way to get this milk to take care of you! Even if you don't want to drink it, you have no right to humiliate her like this!" I let out a sharp, mocking scoff, my icy gaze raked over every last person in the room. Every last one of them was wearing that eager, watch-this-disaster-unfold look on their faces. When I didn't say anything back, Caspian thought I'd caved. He immediately put on this fake, magnanimous act. "Alright, this whole party's supposed to be fun, right? If you keep scowling like that, no one's going to have a good time. Just chug this bottle of milk and apologize to Elowen, and we'll call this whole thing even." Staring at his arrogant, shameless face, I was so furious I almost laughed out loud. Who did he think he was? He was acting like marrying him was some huge, once-in-a-lifetime favor I was lucky to get. "I have zero interest in this cheap, childish little stunt. I want no part of this," I said. With that, I snatched up my bag, shot to my feet and turned to storm out. Caspian caught the storm in my tone right away. He leaned over quickly, dropping his voice to a whisper in my ear. "Seraphine, we all need to keep up their reputation in front of other people, right? I do whatever you say all the time, can't you just bite the bullet this once? Do me this favor, yeah?" I froze mid-step and stared daggers at him. "You should know better than anyone that me even showing up today is the biggest act of respect I could give you." Elowen tugged hard on Caspian's arm, her voice warbling with over-the-top hurt. "Caspian, don't fight with President Ashcroft over me, please. President Ashcroft's older, after all. It makes total sense that she doesn't get how we younger folks do things. I'm not even mad at her for how she acted, okay? Don't force her to apologize to me!" Those words were all it took. Caspian, who had been half ready to apologize to me two seconds earlier, immediately puffed out his chest. "See? Elowen's not holding this against you, so we can just drop the whole thing…" I pinned him with an icy, unblinking stare, my tone ice-cold and menacing. "Caspian. Think very carefully about the consequences of how you're acting today."