All Chapters of After the Don Chose To Save the Bridesmaid, the Wedding’s Off: Chapter 1 - Chapter 8

8 Chapters

Chapter 1

“Miss Sutton, the Don says he’s tied up again today. He says you should get an early night and not wait up for him.”“He also wants you to keep up with your recovery. The wedding can’t be pushed back any further.”The maid chattered on beside me, but I just stared out the window, my eyes empty.Ever since the kidnapping, Adrian had kept me in a private hospital for half a month.And in that half a month, he’d come to see me barely two or three times.Once, I couldn’t stop myself from asking. “Why did you save Nina?”Adrian was very calm. “Because the family behind her is powerful. If she’d died because of me, the fallout would have been ugly.”I looked at him. “So you weren’t afraid I’d actually die?”He gave a soft laugh at that. “You’re my fiancée. That fact alone is enough. They’d never let you die.”He said it with such certainty, as if all of it had already been figured into his plans.But the day he came for me, he’d been the one who fell apart.The night they took me, I truly th

Chapter 2

The day I was discharged, Adrian came to pick me up himself.He didn’t take me home. He took me to see the wedding venue.Neither of us said a word the whole way.The car finally stopped near an estate by the sea.A long time ago, I’d said offhandedly that if I ever got married, I’d want the wedding by the ocean.I hadn’t expected him to remember.Too bad I didn’t want to marry him anymore.When we arrived, I’d barely followed him into the hall before I froze.Nina was standing in the middle of the wedding team, a run sheet in her hands, like she’d been waiting for us all along.Adrian explained,“Nina studied event planning years ago. She’ll handle the flow of the wedding for you.”“You two are best friends. Having her plan your wedding should make you happy.”I looked at Nina, and she was looking at me too. I didn’t miss the flash of provocation in her eyes.I swallowed the disgust rising in me and let Adrian’s decision stand.For everything that followed, I offered almost no opinion

Chapter 3

The allergic reaction was worse than I’d imagined.That night my fever wouldn’t break, and an angry rash spread across my skin.The doctor said I needed rest, that I couldn’t be exposed to any triggers for at least a week. But the wedding was only three days away.Once the news made it back to the estate, the Vale family’s people came to the hospital fast.They stood outside my room, voices low behind a half-closed door.“Everyone coming to the wedding is the cream of the city. Looking like she does now, how is Miss Sutton supposed to show her face?”“The Don’s wedding can’t become a joke. Better to postpone it, wait until she’s recovered.”“It’s already been postponed once. She really is nothing but trouble.”I lay in bed listening, and couldn’t even be bothered to open my eyes.Not long after, Adrian came.When he pushed the door open, the room went silent at once.A few of the family elders started to speak, but Adrian swept them with one cold look.“She is my bride.”“Anyone who sa

Chapter 4

Nina’s face stiffened. I looked at her and said it slowly, one word at a time.“You look down on me this much, and yet in the end you still cried in my arms and asked... why you weren’t as good as me.”At those last words, her expression twisted in an instant, and her hand flew up to strike me.But right then, footsteps sounded outside the door.Adrian was back.Nina’s hand froze, and the next second she suddenly turned, grabbed the vase off the table, and smashed it hard against the floor.Without a flicker of hesitation, she dropped to her knees on the shards. Blood seeped from her knees at once.When Adrian pushed the door open, what he saw was Nina kneeling in the broken porcelain, sobbing so hard her whole body shook.“Claire, I never meant to ruin your wedding. It was all an accident.”“You’re my best friend. How could I not want the best for you...”Adrian’s face darkened instantly. He crossed the room in a few strides and lifted Nina up.He raised his eyes to me, and that one l

Chapter 5

Getting away from the wedding went more smoothly than I’d expected.Maybe because everyone was waiting for a beautiful bride, and my rash had been bad enough to hide what I really looked like.I reached the airport and sat in the departure lounge, waiting for my flight to the coast of Portugal.Outside, the sun had climbed to its highest point, and as I watched plane after plane cut across it, a thousand feelings welled up in my chest.Because money had always been tight growing up, I’d spent my whole life longing to travel to a place like that.Now I was really going, not to arrive somewhere, but to escape a relationship that had gone rotten.I’d told Adrian once that I wanted to travel the world.His position meant he couldn’t always be at my side out in the open, but back then he’d loved me.Loved me enough to make a promise: that across all the long years ahead, he’d travel the whole world at my side.Back then I hadn’t believed him, and I’d laughed and called him a liar. For the f

Chapter 6

(Third person’s POV)Adrian gripped that phone, his knuckles white. He stared at her and forced the question out, slow and hard.“What do you mean, the kidnappers told her? And what is this ‘thing’ between you and me?”The color went out of Nina’s face in an instant.“Don, I was just too angry a moment ago. I was talking nonsense.”“And I promised I’d keep what’s between us a secret. No one but the two of us could possibly know...”Her voice grew smaller and smaller, guilt creeping across her face, and Adrian’s eyes turned cold in a heartbeat.“No, that’s not what I meant...”“Enough.”Adrian had run out of patience. He simply pushed her aside.“I’ll get to the bottom of this.”With that, he turned and left....The estate was pitch dark.Adrian didn’t turn on a single light.He sat on the couch, head bowed, running his thumb over the black ring in his palm again and again.The truth was, he knew he might not be able to dig anything up.Because the kidnappers in that warehouse had alre

Chapter 7

By the time I reached the coast of Portugal, the sky had almost gone dark.Because I’d left in such a rush, I had almost nothing on me except the pearl earrings I hadn’t had time to take off.Adrian had won them for me at an auction.He’d said they suited me.I stared at myself in the mirror for a long time, and in the end I took them off and carried them to a local pawn shop.When the appraiser named a price, I stood there stunned for a while.That much money was enough that I wouldn’t have to worry about getting by for a long time.After everything, I was still trading on what Adrian had left behind to buy myself a new life.But this time, I didn’t refuse it out of pride.I just let out a sigh, then used the money to buy a small apartment by the sea.When I pushed the windows open, there was nothing but a wide sweep of blue sea.Life suddenly slowed way down.I’d go to the market nearby in the mornings for flowers, spend afternoons reading on the terrace, and walk along the coastline

Chapter 8

I struggled, but couldn’t break free.He held me for a long time, and at last he let go, reluctantly, then dropped to one knee in front of me.I was caught off guard.The sea wind tangled his hair. From inside his coat he took out a black velvet box.The box opened, and inside lay that black ring, the symbol of the highest power in the Vale family.He was about to speak, but I looked at the ring and let out a cold laugh.“Real ring, or fake one?”Adrian’s face went white in an instant.I paid no attention to his reaction and went on, mocking him.“Real, probably. So this is the one you pulled off Nina’s finger? That really is cold-blooded of you.”“No.”Adrian spoke almost at once.“I have never given this ring to anyone! It was all Nina’s scheming!”Watching him rush to explain, I suddenly reached out my hand.Adrian went still, and a faint light kindled in his eyes almost instantly.He thought I’d finally decided to take it.But the next second, I picked up that black ring, turned, a

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