Chapter Five - Edward

I am panicking.

I can feel it rising from my gut. My chest feels tight. My mouth is dry. I want to speak, but my tongue won’t cooperate. I even want to shit myself. Properly. Right here, in this overpriced rented suit.

The murmurs won’t stop. The crowd keeps shifting in their chairs, heads turning, voices rising like static in my ears. I can feel the heat from the cameras. I know the paparazzi are waiting just beyond the hotel entrance, possibly hiding behind decorative shrubs, ready to photograph me as I walk down the aisle with my bride. My bride. That word feels dangerous now. This was supposed to be clean. A win. The moment that softens a public image. Edward Laine, the golden boy of Coastal Legends FC, settling down with his soccer agent. A wedding is like a press strategy. Respectable. Romantic. Just perfect..

But nothing about this feels perfect.

I turn and spot my coach near the fourth row. He says nothing. He doesn’t need to. His eyes say enough.

Disappointment... utter, quiet, cold disappointment.

I look back at Fiona. Her expression is unreadable. That makes it worse.

I reach for her hand, just to settle things, just to steady us. Maybe even to say sorry.

She jerks her arm back as if I burned her. My inner panic turns to dread. No, no, no, no. This cannot be happening. Everything was supposed to be under control. She wasn’t supposed to know. No one was supposed to know.

The whispers are louder now. I hear one woman gasp. A man mutters my name and leans toward his wife. My stomach twists as if someone is physically wringing it out.

I keep hearing my mother, who is acting like someone slapped her, held at gunpoint and is demanding for her to hand over her cash and jewellery.

“Edward!” she shrieks, her voice cracking. “How could you? With your cousin? Your own cousin?”

My father does not yell. He just looks at me. His arms crossed. His jaw clenched. I would take screaming. I would accept impact upon my jaw. But that silence cuts deeper than anything else.

Despite that, Fiona says nothing. She lifts her hand and snaps her fingers once. The sound slices through the air, sharp and deliberate.

Six hired ushers enter the garden from its far end. All dressed in black. Moving in sync like dancers. Each of them holds a stack of what looks like glossy brochures.

I frown.

The ushers hired for the wedding hand them out, aisle by aisle.

The guests take them hesitantly. Some quickly view the cover, becoming ashen. Others open them. One woman lets out the loudest gasp I have ever heard... People are flipping through the brochure in shock.

“Fi,” I breathe, “what the hell is this?”

She does not look at me. She just smiles. The smile of someone who had waited, anticipating the perfect instant to activate.

“Oooh,” she says softly, “just a little something for you and your boys. I made sure the paparazzi waiting at the entrance also received their copies.”

My pulse spikes.

I leave the altar and rush to grab one brochure from a nearby guest and open it.

And my soul leaves my body. There I am on page one. Naked... everything on display. With another one of my side partners on top of me. My back, my tattoos, the curve of my body, all caught in perfect, high-resolution detail. Another photo depicts me in a hot tub with a pair of individuals from training camp, intoxicated, plus a blurred girl performing inappropriate actions within a public spa.

My chest turns to ice. The next page is worse.

There are screenshots. W******p messages. Chats between me and the boys. Explicit sex talk between my cousin and me. Me and three of my other side pieces and there’s another section on me bragging, calling Fiona “a beautiful and sexy safe pick” and “good for brand image... hitting the jackpot.” I was just showing off to my colleagues. It’s common in our world.

My world tilts. The guests are all staring now. One man shakes his head and tosses the brochure on the floor like it burns his hand.

“Attention, everyone,” Fiona says, her voice echoing over the mic she picks up from the side of the pew. Calm. Elegant and so cruel.

“You don’t need to leave just because the wedding is off. Please join us at the reception. There’s food, music, and champagne I paid for. We might as well enjoy it.”

She pauses. Then she turns toward me one final time.

“As for you, Edward,” she says, her voice steady, with no trace of kindness left, “I hope you loved the ‘Fiona dodged a bullet’ gift. It was easy to do. Promised someone tickets to your next game against the Inter Miami Kings, and they worked so hard last night to get this done. So you can take your lies, your hotel room p**n, your fake apologies, and your pathetic excuses... and you can go fuck yourself loooonggg and hard.”

She smiles. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Then she turns her back to me and walks away without a single glance.

I want to run. I want to disappear. My wish right this minute is to wake up in a different realm. But my feet do not move. My legs feel heavy, rooted to the ground like they no longer belong to me. I stand in the centre of everything falling apart, the weight of the silence pressing into my skin.

The noise returns. My mother pushes through the guests, her face red with fury. She grabs the sleeve of my suit and shakes it hard.

“Are you proud of yourself?” she shouts. “You destroyed this. You humiliated her. You humiliated all of us.”

My coach storms up next. He does not shout right away. He just looks at me, eyes filled with something more cutting than anger. Disgust.

“I stuck my neck out for you,” he says through clenched teeth. “You were supposed to be the example. You were supposed to be clean... we talked about this habit of yours.”

The groomsmen also gather around, their voices loud and pissed. Two of my colleagues are in the brochure, and their hands are rough on my arms and shoulders.

“Are those screenshots real?” My mate from school asks, pushing a folded brochure against my chest.

“Why would you drag us into this?” another growls. “What the hell were you thinking?”

Someone jerks my jacket. Someone else swears in my face. All of it blurs together. Words. Movements. Heat. But none of it matters. Through the chaos, one thought settles deep in my chest and refuses to leave. I just lost the best thing that ever happened to me. I loved her. I really did. But I also loved the lies. The attention. The women. The game. And now, the only woman who ever loved me completely is walking away from it all.

I have to win her back. I have to make this right.

A wave of black shirts and camera straps pushes forward past the staff and security. The paparazzi come flooding in, eyes locked on me, cameras raised, flashes bursting.

“Edward Laine!”

“Edward! Is it true you slept with your cousin?”

“Is this the end of your career with Coastal Legends FC?”

“Edward, did your fiancée call off the wedding?”

“Was the girl in the video your relative?”

“Edward, how long have you been having these affairs?”

They shout over each other, jostling for position, cameras shoved in my face, microphones brushing my cheek.

“Edward, are you facing suspension?”

Jenna’s voice comes from somewhere behind me.

“You lying, rat-faced idiot.”

Before I can turn, her fist connects with the side of my face... hard.

Blinding pain explodes across my jaw. My head snaps sideways. I stumble back, everything spinning. I taste blood. The sky tilts. The crowd gasps. Flashes go off. The world rushes in all at once before I succumb to darkness.