All Chapters of The Wedding He Never Thought I’d Cancel: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

While clearing out the bedroom, I pulled an old charging cable from behind the nightstand.Six months ago, Adrian’s phone had been charging in that exact spot.That was the first time Mia had ever become the reason for a real fight between us.It was after one in the morning. Adrian had gone to shower when his phone screen lit up.Mia.Good night, Adrian. Try to get some sleep.A few minutes later, he came out of the bathroom, glanced at the message, and replied as naturally as if there were nothing strange about it.Good night, Mia. You too.I looked at him.“Do you two always text like this at night?”“Saying good night to each other at one in the morning.”Adrian lifted his eyes.“Mia is my assistant. We were working late tonight.”“Does she still need to remind you to sleep after the work is over?”The patience in his expression faded.“Claire, it’s one message.”“If a man texted me like that at one in the morning, would you be fine with it?”That night, we had our first serious fi

Adrian stared at the message for several seconds before calling me, but the call went straight to a recorded voice.“The number you have dialed is no longer in service.”He frowned and tried again, only to hear the same thing. By then, the room had gone quiet.Luca lowered his glass. “She changed her number?”Adrian didn’t answer. He called a third time, and when nothing changed, he grabbed his keys from the counter.Mia stood up. “Adrian, maybe she’s just angry. Give her some time and she’ll come back.”But he was already heading for the door.When Adrian reached our old apartment, the lights were off. He unlocked the door, stepped inside, and called my name, but no one answered.The moment he entered the living room, he stopped.The four boxes he had seen that morning were gone, along with my shoes by the door, my coats from the closet, and the books and work files I had kept on the shelves. My side of the wardrobe was empty, and there was nothing left in the bathroom that belonged t

San Francisco, eight in the morning.Morning light poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the conference room as I clicked to the final page of my presentation.“That’s my overall revision for the hotel’s public spaces.”“Thank you.”The room stayed quiet for two seconds before applause followed.The man at the head of the table closed the file in front of him.Julian Hayes.Founder and design director of the international architecture firm, and the man who had personally recruited me from New York.“Very good.”His attention returned to the screen.“Especially the lobby circulation. You improved the visual impact without sacrificing how people actually move through the space.”I set down the remote.“Thank you.”Julian handed the file to the project manager beside him.“We’ll move forward with Claire’s version.”No one questioned me because I was new.No one took my work, polished it under someone else’s name, or expected me to spend my nights fixing problems I would never rec

Three months later, rain poured over San Francisco.The design summit had just ended, and I was leaving the hotel with several colleagues when a man suddenly came through the rain toward me.Security stopped him before he reached the steps.I stopped walking.It was Adrian.His black coat was soaked through, his dark hair plastered across his forehead. He looked nothing like the Moretti Don I remembered, the man who was always composed and always in control.“Claire.”His voice was rough.I didn’t move.Adrian stared at me for a long moment. Then he pulled free of the security guard and crossed the remaining distance.The next second, he dropped to his knees.Everyone around us went quiet.“I was wrong.”Rain ran down his face.“Mia doesn’t work for Moretti anymore. Whatever she did, the lawyers are handling it.”“I changed the locks at the Tribeca penthouse too.”His eyes were already red when he looked up at me.“Claire, come home with me.”“You can look through my phone whenever you

The weather in San Francisco was beautiful on our wedding day.The ceremony was held on the top-floor terrace of a hotel overlooking the bay. White flowers lined the aisle, and the breeze coming off the water lifted the edge of my veil.My mother walked with me to the entrance.Julian was already waiting at the other end.From the moment I appeared, he never looked away.When I reached him, he took my hand. His palm was warm.Julian kept his vows simple.“Claire, I will never make you guess where you stand with me.”“If you feel uncertain, ask me. If I hurt you, tell me.”His fingers tightened gently around mine.“You will never have to prove that you deserve to be loved by seeing how much you can endure.”For a moment, the terrace went quiet.My eyes burned.Adrian had spent years convincing himself there were too many things about me that needed to change.Ask less.Care less.Need less.Every time I told him something hurt, he pushed the boundary a little further until I finally lea