Left At The Altar, She Became The Bride Of His Arch-Nemesis
Since returning to her family, Evelyn had never truly been accepted or treated as their own daughter.
On her wedding day, her parents chose her adopted sister over her, and the man she was supposed to marry abandoned her on the highway for his true love without even looking back once.
Heartbroken but resolute, she tore off her veil and stood before his rival. "I dare you to steal the bride."
Shane met her gaze. "Why wouldn't I?"
Their impulsive marriage shocked everyone. Her ex later begged, "Give me another chance."
Shane pulled her close, his voice cold. "Too late. She's my wife now."
Chapters
Share
Chapter 3
With a sharp edge in her voice, Sharon lashed out. "Evelyn, you must've been seeing Shane behind Cole's back for a while now. That's why you're in such a rush to replace him with Shane, isn't that right?"
"If you won't call him, then I will." Without sparing her a glance, Evelyn took out her phone and dialed Cole's number.
She put him on speaker, and his irritated voice rang across the silent venue the moment the call connected.
"I already told you, I'm staying with Kendra. I'm not marrying you today. If you keep calling, I'll block you!"
A cold laugh slipped from Evelyn. "Cole, whether you show up or not, this wedding isn't getting canceled."
Taking it as an attempt to corner him, Cole responded in a mocking tone, "Who else would even marry you if it's not me? Go ahead and find someone else. I'd actually appreciate it if you did."
The line went dead, and an odd silence settled over the entire venue.
Overcome with anger, Sharon struggled to breathe before collapsing where she stood.
Meanwhile, a bright smile spread across Evelyn's face. "Thank you, everyone, for attending my wedding with Shane."
As her words lingered, the Ferrari's engine roared, signaling their exit.
Seated beside him, Evelyn turned to Shane. "I appreciate this. You can drop me off here."
Shane kept driving, his hands steady on the wheel. "We're not done yet. There's still something left to handle."
Curiosity flickered across Evelyn's face as she turned toward him. "What do you mean?"
A faint grin tugged at Shane's lips as he met her gaze. "We make it official. I become your husband in name and in record."
By the time they stepped out of the City Hall, Evelyn stood there with the document in her hands, staring at it as if it didn't feel real. She had actually married him just like that.
Before she could process it, the paper was taken from her fingers. Evelyn lifted her eyes to him.
Without a word, Shane slipped it away and turned. "Come on."
Confusion crossed her face as she followed. "Where are we going?"
He glanced back at her, his tone calm. "I did you a favor. Now you return it."
Soon enough, the car came to a stop in front of Gilded Spire, a place known across Slomery where the wealthiest gathered.
Evelyn stepped out and looked at him, surprise clear in her eyes. "I didn't expect you to spend time in places like this."
Shane shut the door and spoke plainly. "I had business here. Marrying you set me back."
"Then I suppose I owe you my thanks." A polite smile formed on Evelyn's lips, though it didn't reach her eyes.
Amusement showed in his expression as he looked at her. "Don't mention it."
Evelyn said nothing.
He really didn't miss a chance to push things further.
Once inside, staff greeted them right away, and one man stepped close to Shane to murmur something in a low voice. A slight crease formed between Shane's brows.
He turned to look at Evelyn, his tone steady. "That dress isn't exactly suited for this place. I'll have someone bring you a change."
"Alright." A small nod came from Evelyn.
After Shane walked off, a staff member guided her toward the casino on the first floor. "Mrs. Bennett, Mr. Bennett asked me to let you know that you're free to play as much as you like. Any winnings belong to you, and if there are losses, he'll take care of them."
The casino floor buzzed with chatter and movement, and heads turned the moment Evelyn stepped in, her wedding dress drawing every eye.
None of it caught her interest. "It's fine. I'll just stay here and wait."
She sent the staff member away, then turned toward the lounge area, planning to sit down, but before she could get far, someone caught her wrist.
A faint frown appeared as she turned to respond, but the words never came when she saw who stood there.
Irritation was clear on Cole's face as he spoke. "Evie, what are you doing here?"
Not far from them, a few voices chimed in with open mockery.
"Cole, looks like Ms. Fowler couldn't stay away. Did she really chase after you in her wedding dress just to find you?"
"Ms. Fowler, Kendra wasn't feeling well, so Cole brought her here to relax. Did you really need to follow him all the way here?"
Kendra stepped closer to Cole and offered Evelyn a soft smile. "Ms. Fowler, showing up here in your wedding dress must be quite troublesome. And Cole, you should've made sure she was taken care of first."
A deep crease formed on Cole's forehead. "Didn't I already tell you to go back home? Cornering me like this isn't going to change anything!"
The situation was so ridiculous that Evelyn almost let out a laugh. He had left her on the roadside without a second thought and skipped their own ceremony, just so he could bring Kendra here to relax.
Only now did it fully sink in for her. She had been fooling herself all along. There had never been a place for her in his heart.
With a swift motion, she pulled her wrist free from his grip. "I didn't come here for you."
Jeffrey Ford let out a scornful laugh. "Come on, Ms. Fowler. There's no need to pretend. You show up dressed like that, and you expect us to believe you're not here for Cole? What else could it be, you came here to gamble?"
Someone chimed in, dripping with mockery, "Ms. Fowler has always been so proper. I doubt she even knows how to do that."
"She's still a Fowler by name, yet she throws away her pride just to chase after him. That's just embarrassing."
Kendra gently tugged at Cole's arm, her expression full of concern. "This is really on me. If I hadn't fallen ill, you wouldn't have had to delay your wedding because of me. I'm fine now. Since Ms. Fowler came all this way to find you, you should go back with her."
Kendra's words seemed to push something in Cole, and his restraint finally snapped. "Evelyn, do you really have to corner me like this in front of everyone? Kendra isn't well! Do you feel better now that you've turned this into a scene? I already said I'll marry you. What does one day even change?"
A reply full of sarcasm was already on Evelyn's lips, but Jeffrey spoke first.
A loud laugh burst from him. "She's scared you'll walk away, Cole! Even her own family wants nothing to do with her. Clinging to you is the only thing she's got left!"
"Once you're married, you might need to keep a lock on yourself, Cole!"
"Is Ms. Fowler planning to keep him on a leash? That'd be something to see!"
Their words set off another round of laughter around them.
Kendra turned to Evelyn with a soft expression. "Ms. Fowler, don't take it to heart. They're only teasing. There's no ill intent."
A frown appeared on Cole's face as he snapped at the group. "Enough."
Without waiting, he grabbed Evelyn's arm and started pulling her toward the exit. "I'll have someone take you back."
She resisted immediately, trying to pull free. "Let go of me!"
His grip tightened, and his voice dropped to a warning tone. "We'll deal with this after I'm done here. Don't make a bigger scene in front of them."
Before they could move any further, someone stepped into their path.
The man stood there in a sharp suit, and Cole recognized him at once as someone connected to the owner of Gilded Spire.
His demeanor shifted right away, and he spoke with caution. "Mr. Gordon, I apologize if we caused any disturbance. I'll take her out—"
Marc Gordon didn't let him finish.
Instead, he turned toward Evelyn and gave a polite nod. "You must be Mrs. Bennett. My boss has asked me to bring you upstairs."
You may also like
7.3
Seven years ago, my fiancé, Don Dante Moretti, sent me to prison to take the fall for my adopted sister, Chiara. He called it a gift-a way to protect me from a worse fate.
Today, he picked me up from prison only to abandon me at my family's estate. His reason? Chiara was having another one of her "episodes."
My parents then informed me I'd be staying in the third-floor storage room, so as not to disturb the fragile girl who stole my life.
They celebrated her "recovery" with a lavish dinner party, while I was treated like a ghost. When I refused to join, my mother hissed that I was ungrateful, and my father called me jealous.
They assumed I couldn't understand their venomous whispers. But prison was my university. I learned Spanish. I understood every word.
It was then I realized I wasn't just a sacrifice; I was disposable. The love I once felt for all of them had turned to ash.
That night, in the dusty storage room, I logged onto an encrypted channel I'd set up years ago. A single message was waiting: "The offer stands. Do you accept?" My hands, scarred and steady, typed back, "I accept."
7.6
To pay for her father's life support, Haleigh sold herself into a marriage with Fabian Blackburn, a ruthless billionaire in a deep coma.
But on her wedding day, she caught her boyfriend cheating with her stepsister, laughing about how they would steal the inheritance the second Fabian stopped breathing. Cornered and desperate, Haleigh secretly underwent IVF using her comatose husband's frozen sperm to secure the family trust.
Weeks later, a miracle happened. Fabian woke up.
But instead of gratitude, he treated her like trash. He threw annulment papers at her face, completely disgusted by the arranged marriage.
"If you try any dirty tricks to get pregnant, I will personally drag you to a clinic and have that bastard scraped out of you."
Terrified, Haleigh hid her positive pregnancy test and desperately tried to hack her way to enough cash to escape. But while using his computer, she accidentally opened a highly classified folder.
Inside was a medical file and a photo of a severely disabled girl who looked exactly like Fabian.
Before she could process it, Fabian walked in. Seeing the screen, his cold mask shattered into pure, unhinged madness. He lunged across the room, lifting her off the floor by her throat, completely ignoring her desperate gasps for air.
"Lock her in the basement," he roared to his guards. "No food. No water."
Curled on the freezing concrete, clutching her newly pregnant belly, Haleigh didn't understand what she had just seen that turned him into a murderous monster.
But she knew one thing: if she didn't escape this terrifying estate, both she and his unborn heir would die in the dark.
9.5
Xander Savage plays with footballs.
Freya Woods plays with hearts.
The other plays to win, one plays for fun.
Xander is the campus football champion, gentle, gorgeous, misunderstood. Everyone thinks he's a player, but he's actually the only good boy in school.
Freya is the campus play girl, bold, wild.
When fate throws them together, sparks fly...Neither knows their souls have met before...long ago, in another life, where they loved passionately and broke disastrously. But this time? They're destined to rewrite their ending...can they actually re write the stars?
LOVE ME LIKE A CHAMPION is a reincarnation campus romance about a boy who loves too deeply and a girl who's terrified to be loved.
9.5
Janet woke up gasping, the phantom fire of a deadly explosion still scorching her lungs. She had been reborn three years in the past, on the exact day her mother forced her into a marriage contract with Gaylord Bradford, a paralyzed and severely disfigured billionaire.
Before she could even process her second chance, her cousin Kandy kicked the bedroom door open, flaunting a massive diamond ring. Kandy, who had also been reborn, smugly announced she had stolen Janet's Wall Street golden boy fiancé, Jax Adler.
"You're going to marry that paralyzed monster," Kandy spat, gloating that she would build a billionaire dynasty with Jax while Janet wiped drool off a rotting corpse. Kandy expected Janet to have a complete mental collapse, completely unaware that Gaylord's own medical team was secretly injecting him with lethal neurotoxins to finish him off.
But Janet only felt a cold, clinical pity. Kandy's "prophetic" memories were a polluted lie. Jax was actually sterile and dying of irreversible kidney failure, while Gaylord wasn't a dying freak—he was a dormant god whose body was merely in a high-dimensional hibernation. Why would Janet mourn losing a doomed fraud?
Leaving her delusional cousin behind, Janet packed her bags and headed straight to Gaylord's maximum-security military cell. She physically tackled his corrupt doctor, drove three bio-electric silver needles into the crippled king's spine to awaken his deadened nerves, and looked him dead in his glacial blue eye.
"Sign the marriage contract," Janet whispered. "I will make you walk again, and we will take back everything."
9.0
Eileen woke up in a trashed hotel room, her head pounding with the pathetic memories of a despised Hollywood actress.
Outside the window, paparazzi were already screaming about her manufactured cheating scandal, but the real nightmare was waiting at her door.
Her paralyzed, billionaire husband, Carlisle Vinson, looked at her with pure disgust while his butler shoved a divorce settlement at her chest.
"Mr. Vinson is offering a severance package of fifty million dollars, provided you sign immediately and vacate the premises."
The original owner had left her an absolute mess.
Her trusted assistant had sold her room number to the press to frame her, and a playboy had scammed her out of her entire two million dollar life savings.
If she signed those papers and lost the Vinson family's protection, the breach of contract fees and her enemies in the industry would swallow her alive in days.
Eileen felt a cold fury override the original owner's lingering panic.
Why should she take the fall and be thrown out on the streets while the parasites who set her up lived out their wealthy fantasies?
She had died once, and she wasn't about to waste her second chance playing the victim.
Eileen slammed the heavy divorce folder shut right against the butler's chest.
"I'm not signing," she said with a terrifying, absolute calm.
She stepped behind her husband's wheelchair, ready to shield him from the cameras, secretly cure his dead legs, and make everyone who betrayed her bleed.
9.5
How far are you willing to go for your family's company?
Eloise Jane Lopez is the one true child of the Lopezes, and due to her sick father's wish, she needs to marry a man she doesn't know to keep the company her parents manage in order. And the man she will marry is none other than Cosmo Dominguez, a multi-billionaire, whose supposed fiancée was Eloise's step-sister but got pregnant, leaving Eloise with no choice but to be the substitute bride.
After the wedding, Cosmo laid out another agreement with Eloise, that the marriage would only be temporary, and that they would have to separate after two years.
Can they uphold the signed agreement until the end, or can they stop the feelings forming between them?