Chapter 3

Seeing my silence, Chloe whimpered.

"Aria, I know you hate how close I am to Carter, and that's why you're throwing a fit today. But Carter has the right to have friends after marriage!"

"Controlling him like this already! You're being way too much!"

Carter, thinking of his precious freedom, snapped. "Chloe, don't beg her. She’s acting like a crazy, jealous shrew! To think I actually thought she was sweet and gentle!"

The word shrew felt like a dagger to my heart.

We had been dating for a year and a half. Whenever I got slightly jealous before, he would pinch my nose and call me his "cute little jealous baby." Now, he was throwing such vile words at me.

Chloe’s heavy tears hit the floor. "Carter almost cut ties with his parents just to marry you! You know how much he loves you!"

In this relationship, Carter was the one who pursued me.

For a year, he had laid his heart at my feet. He used to be a wild, rebellious playboy whom nobody could tame, yet he was willing to lower himself to cry and laugh with me.

He was the arrogant, bad-boy billionaire, and I was the insecure, poor scholarship girl.

The bad boy turning good for his true love—it was the perfect romance trope, ending at the altar.

But now...

I looked at his arm tightly wrapped around Chloe's waist.

The love I had cherished so deeply was nothing but a joke.

They turned to leave.

But just as they reached the door, Carter walked back to me.

"Aria, you're calling it off, right? Don't forget, everything on you was paid for with my money! Your tuition, this wedding, your mother’s medical bills, and even her funeral! I paid for all of it."

"So what right do you have to say no to me?"

He grabbed my wrist. "And this wedding dress you're wearing—it was paid for with my money. Take it off."

With those words, he ripped away the last shred of my dignity.

He knew exactly where I came from. He knew how poor and desperate I had been. Yet, he chose to expose my deepest wounds to everyone, using them as a weapon to hurt me.

I guess free things are always the most expensive.

Under the mocking stares of the crowd, I reached back and pulled the zipper of the wedding dress down. Carter’s face went pale, and he pinned me to the bed.

"Aria! I just wanted you to bow your head! Why do you have to be so stubborn?"

I slapped his hands away and stepped completely out of the wedding dress.

Standing by the bed in my white silk slip, my voice trembled with a fragile but solid strength.

"Here’s your dress. As for the rest, I’ll pay you back. Every single penny."

Carter froze for a second, looking absolutely livid. "Since you want a clean break, I'll give it to you!"

"You've been with me for so long. Who else would want you besides me? Don't regret this."

He stormed out with his friends. Chloe slowed her pace, lingering behind.

"See? You two were never a match anyway. A girl of your class could never hold him down."

"I suggest you stay far away from him after today."

As she walked away smugly, my phone buzzed with a text message.

[Since he won't marry you, marry me instead.]

[I can give you far more than he ever could.]

I stared at the screen for a long time before typing my reply.

[Okay. I'll marry you.]