My Fiancé vanished before the Wedding

Three weeks before our grand society wedding in London, my fiancé vanished.

I spent six agonizing days terrified that his high-stakes investment deals had finally gotten him killed. I didn't sleep. I didn't eat. I hired the best private investigators in Europe, throwing my family's money at anyone who could find the man I loved.

Tonight, they found him.

He wasn't dead. He was in the freezing Alpine.

The luxury ski chalet glowed with warm, golden light against the dark, snow-covered mountain. I walked onto the wraparound balcony, my heart pounding against my ribs. I was ready to burst through the glass doors, ready to throw my arms around him and weep with relief.

But my hand stopped inches from the frosted glass.

"So, are you actually going to marry her?" a woman’s voice purred from inside, dripping with amusement.

"God, no," Silas sneered, the clink of his whiskey glass echoing through the ajar door. "She’s so suffocatingly proper. Once I finally had her, the thrill was entirely gone."

I froze. The air in my lungs vanished.

"Then why keep up the act?" a man asked. "You've been playing the devoted saint for two years, Silas. You even bought the ring."

"Because of Kaelen," Silas stated simply.

The name sent a cold shiver down my spine.

Kaelen. The man who had obsessed over me for five years. The powerful, ruthless man whose intense, suffocating pursuit had terrified me so much that I ran straight into Silas’s open, waiting arms. I had chosen Silas because he was everything Kaelen was not—safe, gentle, and calm.

"Kaelen treated Vivienne like a literal goddess," Silas continued, his tone sickeningly proud. "He would have burned the world down for her. I only played the perfect, gentle lover to snatch her away from him. I wanted to see the look on his arrogant face when she chose me."

"But you've already won," the woman teased. "Why not just dump her now?"

"Because just breaking up with her isn't enough to crush Kaelen," Silas said smoothly. "I’m going to let her put on that custom silk dress. I'm going to let her walk down the aisle in front of all of London's elite. And I just won't show up."

He paused, letting the cruelty of his plan settle over the room.

"Imagine Kaelen's despair," he whispered, a dark thrill in his voice. "The woman he worships, abandoned at the altar, reduced to the ultimate laughingstock of high society."

The room erupted into laughter.

"Just two more weeks of playing the devoted fiancé," a woman whispered, her voice thick with longing. Her face was hidden in the shadows, but her hands slid up his chest to tangle in his hair. "And then you're finally mine."

"I've always been yours," Silas breathed.

A soft, breathy gasp escaped her lips as his hands gripped her waist with a hungry, desperate possession he had never shown me.

He pulled her flush against him, the sudden, heavy friction of their bodies drawing a low, guttural groan from his throat.

His mouth crashed down on hers in a deep, devouring kiss. Even through the glass, I could hear the wet, frantic slide of their lips and the heavy, sharp intakes of breath as they broke apart only to clash together again.

She arched into him with a soft, needy whimper, their silhouettes melting together in the firelight in a display of raw, illicit heat.

I stood outside in the dark, the freezing Alpine wind nothing compared to the ice in my veins.

I didn't burst through the glass doors. Tears wouldn't give me back my two years.

Instead, I quietly turned away from the chalet's golden light, walked back into the freezing night, and erased all traces of my trip to France.

The next morning, the soft, golden light of the London sun woke me.

The heavy bedroom door slowly pushed open.

Silas walked in.

He was holding a silver breakfast tray. He looked perfectly disheveled—his hair slightly tousled, a shadow of stubble on his jaw, dark circles under his eyes. It was a masterclass in playing the frantic, exhausted lover.

He clearly had no idea that I had been standing on that freezing balcony in Chamonix twelve hours ago.

He saw me awake, and his face crumbled into a mask of absolute, manufactured relief.

"Vivienne," he breathed, his voice cracking perfectly on my name.

He quickly set the silver tray on the nightstand and dropped to his knees right beside the bed. He reached out, taking my cold hands in his warm ones, gripping them like I was his lifeline.

"I am so, so sorry," he whispered, pressing a desperate kiss to my knuckles.

"Where were you, Silas?" I asked. My voice was completely flat.

"I was in the Scottish Highlands," he lied smoothly, his thumbs rubbing soothing circles into my skin. "I drove up there alone. No phone, no signal. I was just... overwhelmed, darling. The wedding preparations, the pressure at the investment firm. I panicked. I needed a solitary retreat to clear my head so I could be the perfect husband you deserve."

"I know I terrified you," he murmured, his tone dripping with gentle devotion. "I am a fool. But I'm here now. I'm never leaving you again. Can you ever forgive me, my love?"

He reached up, his hand moving to cup my face, his thumb gently brushing my cheek.

The sheer, audacious cruelty of his touch sent a violent jolt through my system. The phantom sound of his cruel laughter in the ski chalet echoed in my ears. Imagine Kaelen's despair. The woman he worships, abandoned at the altar.

He thought I was a fool. He thought he could buy my blind obedience with a silver tray and a few soft words, just to set me up for the ultimate slaughter.

I didn't cry. I didn't scream.

I simply pulled my hand from his grasp, raised my arm, and slapped him across the face.