The Groom Who Wasn't There

My POV: On our wedding day, my groom, Adrian Cole, was nowhere to be seen. The wedding officiant was sweating when the enormous screen behind him suddenly lit up. In the video, Adrian held his childhood sweetheart and watched tenderly as she cut her birthday cake. With a teasing smile, she asked if he had really left his bride on their wedding day. Adrian scoffed. His mocking voice echoed through the deathly silent banquet hall. "She's bloated like a whale. Just looking at her makes me sick. She's an orphan and 6 months pregnant. No one else would want her. She can marry herself for all I care." Everyone was waiting for me to break down and lose control—the way I always had before. Instead, I calmly stroked my swollen belly and turned to the officiant. "Go on. Let's get this over with." Suppressing my nausea, I played along the rest of the charade. He didn't know Eleanor Price had already made me a promise. If he failed to attend the wedding, the entire Cole family fortune would pass into my hands. In 3 hours, once my plane was in the air, Adrian would lose me and his unborn child forever. And the grand fireworks display he'd arranged to impress his childhood sweetheart would make him the biggest joke. ***** "To complete the ceremony, please exchange rings." The officiant's voice trembled. He held out the priceless diamond ring, his palm slick with cold sweat. I ignored the varying looks on the guests' faces. Calmly, I picked up the groom's ring from the tray and slipped it onto my own finger. "That will do." I turned to Eleanor's lawyer, who was standing below the stage. He handed me a thick stack of documents. "Mrs. Cole, thank you for putting the company first and completing the ceremony. You've protected Cole Group's share price today," he said, quietly enough that only I could hear. "We've also verified every account on the thumb drive you turned over to Eleanor in secret last week." My expression unchanged, I uncapped the pen. For more than 6 months, Adrian must have assumed that all I did was sit at home, heavily pregnant, and cry over him. He would never have imagined that, while he spent night after night away with Chloe Lane, I'd cracked the safe in his study and taken the core financial records documenting his misuse of company funds. I'd compiled irrefutable evidence of the three shell companies under Chloe's name that he used to collect kickbacks, along with the $200,000,000 in fictitious transactions Adrian had created to balance the books. Then I'd handed it all to Eleanor, the woman who truly controlled the Cole family. For 6 months, I'd endured and planned. This was the prize I had secured for myself and my child. The lawyer watched me sign the agreement with growing admiration. "Eleanor asked me to pass on a message. She will never hand the company to a worthless man who can't control his temper or keep it in his pants. Since he has unilaterally breached the family's prenup, the Cole family must cut him off completely to limit the damage. Effective today, all his core shareholdings will be frozen. Primary inheritance rights to Cole Group will formally pass to you, the person truly capable of running it, and to the Cole heir you're carrying." I capped the pen and pushed the documents back to him without hesitation. A few seconds later, my phone vibrated in my clutch. A text from the bank confirmed that $100,000,000 had been credited to my offshore trust. A trace of mockery flickered in my eyes as I studied the long string of zeros on the screen. Adrian thought abandoning me at the altar would break me. He had no idea that today's spectacle had handed me everything he owned—with interest. My phone rang. "Are you done making a scene?" His voice came through the phone. He had no idea he'd already lost everything he relied on. "My assistant said you went through the wedding ceremony on your own." I stopped and looked at the overcast sky through the floor-to-ceiling window at the end of the hallway. "I did." "Enough. Don't give me that cold tone." I could hear Chloe's coy laughter in the background. "It's Chloe's birthday. I couldn't leave her alone. You're going to be a mother. Why are you still competing with her for attention?" He spoke with easy familiarity, as though humiliating me in front of thousands of people had been a harmless joke. "I'm not ." I looked at my swollen figure reflected in the glass. "Be good and go back to the house." My compliance seemed to please him, and his tone softened. "Chloe cut the cake. I've saved you a piece of pistachio mousse. I'll have the driver bring you a new designer bag to make up for today. Stop embarrassing me in public." I lowered my gaze. "Adrian." "What now?" he asked impatiently. "The groom's ring was too big. It fell off on the stage." For a moment, the line went silent. He hadn't expected that. "What the hell is wrong with you?" His pretense of gentleness finally fell away. His voice turned cold. "I made you finish the ceremony by yourself to teach you a lesson. Learn your place!" "Are you paying for the wedding venue, or am I?" I ignored his anger and continued evenly. "Mrs. Cole!" he spat through gritted teeth. "Do you think playing hard to get works on me? Let me make this clear. Even if you dropped dead at the wedding today, I wouldn't come back!" "Understood." I hung up and blocked his number. At the end of the hallway, I saw that the rideshare driver I'd booked in advance had already messaged me. Driver: Your ride, plate ending in 7788, is waiting at the hotel's rear entrance. I gathered the heavy, elaborate skirts of my wedding gown and pushed open the doors without hesitation. 'I already have the whole empire. Why would I want his cheap consolation prizes?'