The Aisle I Walked Away From

"I'm not signing anything today."

My voice was flat. The smiles on both sets of parents froze.

Tamsin Rigby's hand, still holding the paperwork, hung in midair. A few seconds later, her eyes turned red and her voice shook as she grabbed my sleeve.

"Gage, what do you want from me? Six years ago, your family threw 20 million at my parents to force me to leave Chase and marry you. I put up with it for six years and finally agreed to go through with it, and now you're backing out? Do you think this is some kind of game?"

I glanced down at her reddened eyes, and for a split second, all I could see was the smug expression from my previous life.

I pulled my wrist free. "My family never forced you into anything."

"Never forced her?"

Tamsin's mother, Lorraine Fairfax, was the first to explode. She slammed the envelope of cash the Coulters had given as a wedding gift onto the ground.

"Gage! My daughter spent six years breaking things off with her first love just to be with you. She wasted the best years of her life on you!

"Now you're standing at the courthouse door telling us the wedding's off? You're doing this on purpose, aren't you? Either you walk in there and sign the papers, or pay us five million for wasting her youth.

"Otherwise, I'll go straight to the press and tell them how the Coulter Group bullies people into marriages and then backs out. Let's see what that does to your stock price!"

I looked at her and said nothing.

Six years ago, it was her parents who had shown up at my father's office, crying and kneeling at his door for three hours. They owed 20 million to loan sharks and said the loan sharks would break their legs if they did not pay up.

If I agreed to marry Tamsin, the debt would disappear.

They even said Tamsin had been secretly in love with me for years and would never feel mistreated.

In my previous life, I figured it did not matter who I married. Tamsin seemed quiet, harmless. I shrugged and said yes.

I did not even know she had a first love at the time.

"Gage! What are you standing there for? Say something!"

Dad's expression had gone dark too. He walked over with a deep frown and grabbed my arm.

"Can't this wait until we're home? People are watching. You're embarrassing yourself. Six years ago, the Rigbys came to us and asked for this marriage. You said you didn't care either way and agreed to it, but now you’re pulling this stunt? Where does that leave your mother and me?"

After we signed the papers in my previous life, I handed her everything. My bank accounts, every key to the house, even administrative access to the company. Whatever she wanted, I gave. I never said no.

What I got in return was 20 years of slow poison and a father left paralyzed from a stroke.

Everything the Coulter family owned ended up in the hands of Tamsin and Chase Jennings.

This time, I slipped the paperwork into my pocket.

"There's nothing to discuss. I don't want to get married, so I'm not getting married. If you think I wasted Tamsin's time and want compensation, talk to my lawyer."