No Longer Your Bride
On the eve of our wedding, my fiancé Shawn Vance's childhood sweetheart, Wendy Winter, came back.
Wendy used to have everything going for her. Then, an accident left her mentally impaired, and now the only person she recognized was Shawn.
I thought Shawn would no longer get involved with her.
After all, the two of them had hurt each other so badly eight years ago that their relationship fell apart. It ended with Wendy leaving the country and Shawn's mother spending months in the hospital.
Since we got together, Shawn has always put me first in everything he does.
Our friends used to tease him about it. Shawn, who had spent years quietly in love with me, was famously wrapped around my finger.
But now here he was, rushing out the door mid-call to go pick her up, so distracted that he didn't even notice I had come home.
"We don't need to finish setting up the venue. Wendy can't handle me getting married.
"Rory won't make a fuss about it. She loves me so much that she even cut off her own family just to be with me."
Shawn was certain that I would marry him.
What he didn't know was that my dad had always been the type to say one thing and mean another.
Not only did my dad quietly prepare a fortune's worth of assets to help his future son-in-law secure his footing with the Vances, he had also had a fiance picked out for me all along.