Gott Aydin DeMoss ad: 😍🔥🔞Read now to see what happens next👉🏻

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💍“Are you going to wait?” the emcee whispered. 💔💔💔On the banquet screen, our photos cut to live CCTV of my groom carrying another woman into the ER. 🤢 I spent 8 months hand-sewing my dress; he spent our fitting texting her. 😈 So I couriered the ring to his ward, grabbed the mic: “Wedding canceled.” Lawyer’s text: Asset freeze ready. Me: File it. Watch his empire burn 👇 ---------------- Thirty minutes before the wedding reception, the screen in the banquet hall flickered black. A second later, the wedding photos that had been playing on loop were replaced by hospital security footage. Jayden Grant was carrying Sophia West into the emergency room with his jacket wrapped around her. He pressed his forehead against hers, and his face showed a kind of panic I hadn't seen from him in a long time. Over two hundred guests fell silent at once. The emcee gripped the microphone so hard his knuckles turned white. He glanced at me and whispered, "Mr. Grant wants to postpone the ceremony. Ms. Lane, are you going to wait for him?" I looked down at the latest invitation proof resting in my palm. Two names were printed side by side in gold foil. [Lydia Lane and Jayden Grant] This was the ninety-ninth draft, and the ninety-ninth one to be thrown away. I slid the ring off my finger and placed it in a shipping box I had prepared long ago. A note was already tucked inside. [Jayden, the wedding is off. Here's the ring. Throw out the invitations.] The emcee was still waiting for my answer. I lifted my head and smiled at the room full of guests. "I'm done waiting." --- When I said those words, I thought I would cry. But I didn't. The crystal chandeliers in the ballroom spilled light across white floral arches, and a hundred and twenty thousand Ecuadorian roses bloomed in perfect fullness. When they were flown in fresh that morning, Jayden had sent his assistant with a message for me that Sophia was newly back and wasn't doing well emotionally, so I shouldn't take it personally that she needed to see him at the last minute. I had taken it personally. Every single time. The first postponement came because Grant Group was hemorrhaging capital. He held my hand and promised that once the company stabilized, he would give me the grandest wedding the city had ever seen. The second time, it was his mother Lilian's heart. He told me she couldn't handle the excitement, and he asked me to be mature about it. The third time, Sophia was finalizing her divorce overseas. He picked her up from the airport and didn't come home until three in the morning, with perfume on his shirt that wasn't mine. After that, every reason circled back to Sophia. Sophia's depression was flaring up again. Sophia was afraid of the dark. Sophia was having nightmares. Sophia would spiral if she saw anyone else getting married. And I was always the one expected to understand. Always the one who had to be reasonable. I went from sobbing and pleading and trying to hold him back, to standing there calmly, apologizing to guests on his behalf. Everyone in the Grant family was convinced I had been worn down into the perfectly compliant future Mrs. Grant. Jayden thought so, too. Ten minutes ago, his assistant, Alex Cole, had found me backstage. "Ms. Lane, Mr. Grant needs you to keep the guests settled. Ms. West is having an emergency, so the ceremony will be pushed back two hours." I looked at him. "And if he's still not back after two hours?" Alex blinked. He probably hadn't expected me to push back. He fell back on Jayden's usual line. "You've always understood Mr. Grant better than anyone." I stood in front of the mirror, staring at my reflection. I had altered the wedding dress myself and hand-sewn three thousand pearls along the hem. From the first sketch to the final fitting, it took eight months. Jayden came once. He spent the entire time texting Sophia, and when I turned to show him the embroidery on the back, he never looked up. He said, "Looks great. Lydia, Sophia needs me for something, so I'm heading out." After that day, I went through everything again on my own—the timeline, the guest list, the floral contracts, the lighting, the staging, and the menu tastings. Because it was the ninety-ninth time. I used to believe that if I was thorough enough, attentive enough, he would eventually see me. Now I finally understood. When a man didn't want to look, a woman could stand right in front of him and still be nothing but scenery. I sealed the box and handed it to Alex. "Get this to the ER at St. James Hospital." Alex's face fell. "Ms. Lane, that's not what Mr. Grant meant." "I know." I looked him in the eye. "Now it's what I mean." A low murmur rippled through the banquet hall. Lilian sat in the front row, her expression dark enough to curdle milk. She gripped the back of her chair, pushed herself up, and kept her voice low. "Lydia, there are guests here. Don't make a scene and embarrass everyone." I stepped off the stage and held the microphone out to her. I said, "Mrs. Grant, what's embarrassing isn't a canceled wedding. It's a groom who carried another woman to the hospital and left his bride behind to save face for him." Her face went white in an instant, and someone in the crowd gasped. I didn't argue. I told the event coordinator to shut down the ceremony, cut the processional music, and close the champagne tower. My studio's accountant started logging the guest reimbursements right there on the spot, like hotel rooms, flight changes, and gift bags. The emcee turned to me. "So the costs—" "Bundle it all and send it to Jayden." I handed him the signed cancellation form. "The venue contract, the custom florals, the cancellation penalties, and the hotel damages. Don't miss a single line." Lilian couldn't hold back anymore. She walked straight up to me. "Lydia, don't you forget. Without the Grants, your family would have lost every shred of respectability a long time ago." I looked at the emerald bracelet on her wrist. The first year of the engagement, she had lent me that bracelet for a photo shoot and taken it back the second the cameras stopped. A girl from the Lane family couldn't pull off anything that expensive, she said. It would wear her, not the other way around. My eyes had stung, and Jayden told me, "That's just how my mom talks. Don't take it personally." So I swallowed it. I kept swallowing it, all the way until today. I kept my voice low. "I haven't forgotten. And every bit of dignity the Grants owe me, I'm taking back. One piece at a time." Lilian almost laughed. "And what makes you think you can?" I didn't answer because my phone buzzed. It was a message from Michael Hughes. [The dissolution agreement, the breach-of-contract list, and the IP materials are all ready. Say the word, and I file tonight.] I typed back two words: [File it.] The package arrived at St. James Hospital just as Sophia stepped out of the ER observation room. --- Alex told me later that when Jayden opened the box and saw the ring, his first reaction was not panic. It was a frown. He said, "She's throwing a fit again?" Sophia sat on the edge of the hospital bed, her eyes red and swollen, and said, "Jayden, I'm so sorry.This is all my fault. Does Lydia have the wrong idea? I never thought she'd actually send the ring back." Jayden set the ring back in the box and said flatly, "Don't worry about her. She can't live without me. Three days, tops. She'll come back on her own." Sophia dropped her gaze, and her voice came out so thin it could have shattered. "But today was your wedding. Won't she be really hurt?" Jayden was silent for a few seconds before he said, "She'll understand." I had heard that phrase too many times. I would understand that Grant Group kept him busy. I would understand that Lilian was impossible to please. I would understand that Sophia was sick. And I would understand being put last, over and over again. --- I did not go back to the bridal suite the Grant family had prepared for me. I took off my wedding dress and pulled the pearls from the hem one by one, dropping them into a clear plastic bag. They were meant to trail behind me like a river of stars as I walked down the aisle. Now they were nothing but a heavy bag of scrap. It was one in the morning when I walked back into the Lyden studio. The lights by the entrance were still on, and my entire team was inside. Joey Reed, my creative director, looked up when I came through the door. Her eyes welled up the second she saw me. "Lydia." I swapped my heels for flats and switched on the conference room projector. I said, "No crying tonight. We have three things to handle first." I plugged in my laptop. "First, deactivate the joint wedding account under my name and Jayden's. Every sample photo, every piece of copy, and every creative asset comes down and gets backed up. " "Second, send a formal notice to all of today's guests.The only stated reason is that the groom failed to appear, and all compensation falls on Jayden. " "Third, I want the proposal for the overseas couture project in my hands by nine tomorrow morning. Grant Group's wedding division loses access to every template, blueprint, and vendor list we own." The room went silent for two seconds. Joey was the first to nod. "Got it." Someone asked quietly, "Lydia, won't Mr. Grant—" "He will." I stared at the screen, packed with rows and rows of contract numbers. "So starting now, all communication goes through the lawyers." Michael walked in with a hot coffee in his hand. He had been a year ahead of me in college and the first investor in Lyden. The year the Lane family went bankrupt, everyone told me to go beg the Grants for help, but Michael was the one who pulled me away from the bank and asked if I still wanted to build my own brand. I said yes. He told me, "Then don't mortgage your life on an engagement." But I mortgaged it anyway for three years. Michael set the coffee beside me. He didn't offer any comfort and handed me a folder instead. He said, "Draft disengagement agreement. If the Grants refuse to sign, we sue for breach of contract and IP infringement. " Over the past three years, Grant Group's wedding division used eight of your key visual designs, eleven workflow templates, and four exclusive vendor lists. "I've got it all documented." I opened the folder and turned the pages. Every line was precise and clinical, cutting through three years of self-deception like a scalpel. I asked him, "Won't this get ugly?" Michael looked at me. "Lydia, they already did the ugly part. You're just putting a number on it." I picked up the pen and signed my name. Lydia Lane. Not Jayden's fiancée. Just Lydia. The next morning, Jayden didn't come himself. He sent Alex with a message instead. [Mr. Grant says yesterday was a special situation, and he wants you to cool off. The wedding's been pushed to next month, and he'll take care of the hotel.] I was reviewing venue materials for an overseas project at the time. The client was from an independent jewelry brand, and they wanted a castle wedding with no premade floral templates. The entire event had to feel like stepping into a live couture show. I forwarded Alex's message to Michael. Ten minutes later, Jayden received a letter from my lawyer. Three documents hit Grant Group's legal department at once—an engagement termination, a damages claim, and an intellectual property recovery notice. By three o'clock, Jayden finally called. I didn't answer. He called again. I put my phone on silent and went back to revising the design. On the screen, I had turned the castle courtyard into a wash of silver-white light. The bride would descend the stone steps with her veil brushing past the candelabras, and every guest would look up at her instead of waiting for a groom who might walk out at any moment. Joey studied the design for a long time before she said, "Lydia, you put more heart into this than your own wedding." I stopped. My wedding? It wasn't until the ninety-ninth invitation had been voided that I finally understood. It had never been my wedding. It was a networking event for the Grants. It was a trophy for Lilian to prove the Lanes had finally bent the knee. It was a promise Jayden dangled to keep me in line. And I was the only person who ever believed it was home. --- That evening, Jayden was waiting outside my studio. He was wearing the same suit from yesterday, his tie loosened and faint shadows pooling under his eyes. The moment he saw me walk out, he strode over and reached for my wrist the way he always did. I stepped back. His hand froze in midair. "Lydia, are you done throwing a fit?" I looked at him, and for the first time, those words felt foreign. Every time I'd fought with him over Sophia, he had asked me the same thing. He would ask, "Are you done yet?" As if everything I ever felt was nothing more than noise in his life. I said, "I'm not throwing a fit. You got the lawyer's letter." His brow tightened. "Breaking off the engagement? Damages? IP claims? Do you have any idea what you're doing?" "I do." "Sophia was in the ER yesterday." His voice dropped low. "She's sick, and you're still going after her?" I nodded. "She's sick, so you left. You left, so the wedding's off. The wedding's off, so the damages fall on you. Every step tracks." Jayden flinched, as if my calm had cut deeper than anger would have. "Lydia, when did you become like this?" I looked at him. "Around the ninety-ninth time you made me wait." He went quiet. Traffic rolled past on the street, and headlights swept across his face in waves. Something shifted in his expression, as though he'd finally remembered what yesterday was supposed to be, and his tone softened. "I know you feel wronged. Once Sophia's stable, I'll make it up to you with an even better wedding." I almost laughed. "Jayden, do you think I begged you for that wedding?" He frowned. "That's not what I meant." "Then what did you mean?" He had nothing. Because he'd never actually thought about it. To him, a wedding could be postponed, a ring returned and slipped back on, and invitations trashed and reprinted. As long as he was willing to make it up to me, I was supposed to be grateful. I pulled a printed agreement from my bag and held it out to him. "This is the disengagement agreement. Take it home and read it over. If I don't hear back in three days, we move to litigation." Jayden didn't take it. He stared at me, and his eyes went cold by degrees. "You're using Michael against me?" "I hired a lawyer to protect my legal rights." "He has feelings for you." Jayden said it out of nowhere. "Three years he's been by your side. You think I didn't know?" I looked up. So he'd known about Michael all along. He knew that when I was up late reworking proposals, someone sat beside me reviewing contracts. He knew that when Lilian tore into me at dinner, someone stepped in to cover for me. He knew that when I was holding my studio together on my own, someone put up the money to keep it alive. But he never once asked if I was tired. He only turned all of it into my crime when I tried to leave. I said, "Whether he likes me or not has nothing to do with you standing me up ninety-nine times." Jayden's expression darkened. "Lydia, I'm giving you a way out. Don't push this too far." I placed the agreement on the hood of his car. "Save your outs for someone who plans on coming back. I'm done." After that night, the Grants made their move. Lilian called first, and when I didn't answer, she had someone text me. [Lydia, your father owed a lot of people, and the Grants covered for your family more times than you can count. You're really going to turn on us now? You're not worried about what people will say?] I didn't reply. Then she got her socialite friends to post in the group chat, calling me difficult and ungrateful, saying I disregarded Sophia's illness and deliberately humiliated the Grants on the wedding day. It didn't take long for a different story to spread through their circle. The narrative they built was simple. I was a bankrupt heiress who latched onto the Grants, built my wedding brand on Jayden's connections, and bit the hand that fed me the moment I outgrew them. Every project under Lyden had supposedly been propped up by Grant Group resources. Jayden was looking out for an old friend, and I couldn't even show basic decency to a sick woman. When the rumors reached the studio, Joey slammed her phone facedown on the desk. "How can they do this? We built every project from the ground up. Those co-branded deals with Grant Group? They were the ones cashing in on our work." I didn't look up from the payment records. "Relax." Joey stared at me. "Lydia, you're not gonna say anything?" I pulled the ninety-ninth invitation draft from the drawer, its gold-foil edges crumpled from my grip.. "Explaining yourself to people who already believe the rumors only makes them think they have the right to judge you." I slipped the invitation into a folder.. "At the press conference, we let the contracts do the talking." --- By the third day, Jayden still had not seen me come back. He returned to the apartment and found that my fingerprint had been deleted from the lock. The walk-in closet had been stripped of everything that was mine. Only a row of gowns he had bought me still hung on the rack, and I left them all behind. Most of them were chosen to match Lilian's taste, with muted colors and conservative cuts. They looked like uniforms he had picked out in advance for the future Mrs. Grant. A small box sat on the vanity, holding everything he had ever given me. He bought me a necklace for my birthday the first year. The second year, it was a brooch as an apology. By the third, he was handing over jewelry every time he pushed the wedding back again. A note sat on top of it all: [Non-personal gifts. Disputed items depreciated per original purchase records and listed for return.] Jayden stared at the note for a long time, then crumpled it in his fist. He called me. The line was dead. He sent a text and got a notification that he had been blocked. Alex stood in the doorway and said carefully, "Mr. Grant, Ms. Lane has blocked you on everything." Jayden's head snapped up. "Where is she staying?" "No one knows. Her studio said all communication goes through Attorney Hughes now." Jayden let out a cold laugh. "She really thinks she can walk away from the Grant family?" But that same night, three partners from Grant Group's wedding division called one after another, asking whether the copyright dispute was true. Jayden sat in meetings until well past midnight before he finally saw it. The wedding division that everyone credited to Grant Group had been built on Lyden's work all along. The core supplier lists, the workflow templates, the visual concepts, and the high-end client relationships all traced back to Lyden. He had never bothered to look before. Whenever I put a contract in front of him, he always said the same thing. "You decide." I thought that meant he trusted me. I didn't understand until much later. It was never about trust. He couldn't be bothered to show up for my life. On the fourth morning, Sophia posted on Instagram. In the photo, she sat by a hospital window with IV tape still on her wrist. Jayden's jacket was draped over her shoulders, and a bouquet of white roses rested on the windowsill. The caption was a single line. [Some people never leave.] Ten minutes later, someone forwarded me the screenshot. I glanced at it and saved it. Joey was livid and wanted to fire off a public statement. I stopped her. "She wants me to lash out right now." "Why?" "Because the second I do, she's still the victim and I'm the villain." I dropped the screenshot into my evidence folder. "Let her keep posting." Sophia didn't disappoint. That night, she broke down crying at a socialite dinner party, and someone hit record. Her voice was thick with tears in the recording. "I never meant to take Jayden from anyone. I was in a really bad place after I came back, and he was worried about me." "Lydia probably got the wrong idea, but she actually sent her wedding rings to the hospital. I honestly don't know what to do anymore." Someone nearby chimed in. "Lydia's way out of line. The Grants have given her so much. What more does she want?" Sophia lowered her voice. "She's probably scared of losing Jayden. Her brand does depend on the Grants, after all." The recording spread fast. The Lyden account was flooded with comments. [Riding her fiancé's money and acting all high and mighty.] [A wedding planner who can't even keep her own wedding together.] [Sophia has depression, and Lydia's still coming at her this hard? That's cruel.] I didn't delete a single comment. I moved the product launch up three days. Michael asked me, "Are you sure? Once the evidence goes public, there's no turning back with the Grant family." I looked out the window. The studio had moved to a small building in the old part of town, with a big sycamore right outside the door. Morning sunlight filtered through the leaves and fell across my desk like scattered flakes of gold. I said, "Michael, I don't have anywhere to go back to." He nodded. "Then we move forward." Jayden showed up on the day of the launch, and he hadn't told me he was coming. I was standing backstage when I spotted him sitting in the last row, his face stone-cold. Sophia sat next to him in a light-colored dress, her makeup barely there, looking like a breeze could scatter her to pieces. Lilian came too, probably hoping to watch me crumble in front of everyone. The stage lights came on, and I grabbed the remote and walked to the center of the stage. The screen behind me showed no wedding photos, no sentimental highlight reels, nothing but scanned copies of contracts. "Today was supposed to be the Lyden spring couture launch." I looked out at the audience. "But before I unveil anything new, I need to clear up three things." The first document was the business registration filed when Lyden was founded, listing Lydia as the legal representative and Lydia and Michael as the sole investors. It was dated seven months before Jayden and I ever got engaged. The second was three years of payment records. Every single expense, from venue deposits and floral orders to overseas designer fees, had come out of Lyden's accounts, and Grant Group hadn't put in a single dollar. The third was the licensing agreement authorizing Grant Group's wedding line to use Lyden's design templates, with every term, usage scope, and payment schedule spelled out in black and white. But this year, all three of Grant Group's new premium wedding products have used my designs well beyond those authorized terms. A murmur rippled through the audience. ----------------- #NewBeginnings #BetrayalAndDeception #MarriageOfLies #lovestory #soapopera #novel 📚Only a limited number of chapters can be displayed here. Click "Read More" to open the application and continue reading (it will automatically navigate to the corresponding book page).👇👇👇