He Gave Our Wedding to His Secretary,I Gave My Future to His Boss

Ten years together, and the wedding I kept waiting for finally happened. Just not with me. Les Sanchez handed it to his little secretary.

I made it to the venue, pointed at his secretary Constance Summers, who stood there in the gown I had designed with my own two hands, and demanded through stinging eyes:

"Is she the reason you wouldn't marry me?"

Les didn't even flinch. He smiled and confessed, like he had every right to.

"Cora, you weren't clean anymore. You shouldn't have stood in the way of my chance at a woman who's completely mine."

My whole body shook. My head snapped up. "...What did you just say?"

He only reached out and wiped my tears away.

"Three years ago, I saw it. For the sake of my future, you walked into that man's office of your own free will."

"I was standing right behind the glass. I watched the two of you with my own eyes—"

He closed his eyes for a moment.

"But that's all in the past now."

"Cora, I'm grateful for what you did for me, so I'll register the marriage with you. But you can't keep me from finding real love."

"Which is why this wedding belongs to the woman I consider my true wife."

I watched the two of them clinging to each other like they couldn't bear an inch between them.

And honestly? I felt relieved.

He should have said so sooner. My ex had chased me three separate times, dangling an entire castle, begging me to take him back.

Well, this made things easy. No more agonizing over how to turn him down.

——

There was something I'd never told Les. The reason I walked into that man's office.

Because he was my ex.

He had schemed his way close to me, going so far as to become Les's superior.

Then he'd used that position to back me into a corner.

"You don't want your boyfriend finding out, do you?"

"Cora, just come back to me, and I can make that broke little boyfriend of yours rich."

"But if you say no, he's finished. Every door slams in his face."

I had every intention of refusing him to the bitter end.

But Les had hit the wall of his life back then. His mother was gravely ill, and the medical bills were piling up fast.

He hadn't slept for days, sick with worry.

He was out drinking and schmoozing deep into the night, desperate to land that one contract.

He came home drunk and threw up all over me.

And he kept murmuring the same things, over and over.

"What do I have to do to land that contract? Are ordinary people like us just doomed to never rise?"

"Cora, I'm so afraid I won't make it through this time."

"I'm sorry. I can't give you the life you deserve. I'm not even a man!"

Watching him cry, watching him break, I wiped my own tears dry, and the next day I steeled myself and went to my ex.

What I never imagined was that behind that one-way glass, Les was watching every move I made.

But for the sake of his future, for his business, he never stepped forward to stop me.

He never even said a single word against it.

He just watched the whole thing, agonized and silent, swallowing it all.

And he hid it from me for three full years.

Just when I thought his business was soaring, that we were finally about to live the good life, he'd been keeping a little secretary on the side.

No wonder. Ten years, countless times I brought up marriage, and he always had some excuse.

It was because he thought I was dirty.

It was because he had a younger, prettier option.

He saw me standing frozen in place, my face cycling from white to sickly green.

Les suddenly spoke.

"Cora, stop making a scene. Today is my wedding with Constance. I only kept it from you because I didn't want to upset you."

"Now that you know, just have a glass of wedding wine and go."

He waved his hand, signaling the bodyguards to seat me at the groom's relatives' table.

I bit down hard on my lip and didn't move.

The whispers and laughter around me rose until they nearly drowned me.

"Isn't that Cora Henson? The groom's girlfriend of ten years?"