Left at the Altar, I Left Him With Nothing

On the morning of the day my fiance, Anton Solomon, and I are scheduled to start our destination wedding trip, he finally rushes to the airport straight from the office.

Just seconds before boarding, he receives an urgent message from his female secretary, Callie Lawrence.

"I'm sorry, honey. A major project just came in, and I need to be there to approve it.

"Could you go ahead and start the trip on your own? I'll join you as soon as I wrap things up in a few days."

Despite feeling a twinge of regret, I understand that work comes first, so I offer him my full support.

After he leaves, I tear up my boarding pass and turn around.

I decide to return to the office and see for myself.

I want to see which blind, brainless company is negotiating a major project with a company I acquired hours earlier at dawn, and how it has the nerve to bypass me, the current CEO. They have chosen to approach a man who is nothing but a CEO in name only.

I followed Anton Solomon all the way to the wedding hotel I had gifted him when we first fell in love. It was worth over a billion dollars.

The massive words on the welcome board nearly blinded me. "Congratulations on your wedding, Mr. Anton Solomon and Ms. Callie Lawrence."

Beside it, a perfectly retouched wedding photo showed Anton in a sharp, tailored suit. In it, he was smiling brightly.

He wasn't holding onto me, the woman he had agreed to marry on a quiet destination wedding today. Instead, it was Callie Lawrence, his secretary, who had just texted him about a huge project.

It all clicked.

No wonder he had said that work exhausted him with its fake pleasantries, and that he didn't want any grandiose ceremony when I brought up our wedding plans. All he wanted was a quiet destination wedding.

It turned out that he had someone else in mind for the wedding photos, ceremony, and even the marriage registration.

Before entering the hotel, I made a phone call, then settled into the seat with the best view just as the ceremony began.

Guided by the emcee's voice, Callie's dad, Peter Lawrence, slowly led her down the red carpet by holding her hand. They stopped right beside me.

From the other end of the red carpet, Anton, who had urgently returned to the office for a "project", walked forward and solemnly extended his hand to her.

Just as Peter was about to place her hand in Anton's and their fingers were about to touch, I decisively drove my heel straight into Anton's shin. He was sent sprawling face-first onto the floor.

Callie was dragged down with him. Her veil slipped off, and her bouquet scattered across the floor.

Sprawled at my feet, Anton was about to start cursing. However, when he looked up and saw me, all the blood in his veins seemed to freeze.

Callie kept screaming for him to help her up, but he dared not even look her way.

Looking down at the flustered Anton, who couldn't manage to get up, I asked, "Why the grand gesture? Are you begging on your knees for a wedding gift?"

At the sound of my voice, Callie snapped her head toward me in disbelief and paled with fright. She instinctively tried to scramble behind Anton, but Peter yanked her back.

With a shrewd, overbearing look, Peter pointed at me and raised his voice to shout loud enough for the entire hall to hear, "You really are persistent, aren't you, you homewrecker?

"I drove you away outside the hotel, so how did you manage to sneak in?"

At his words, all eyes turned to me.

"No wonder she looks like a scrawny little rat. It turns out that she's a mistress."

"Anton is the most responsible man I know and completely devoted to Callie. Anyone trying anything on him is just wasting their time."

"Anton and Callie have known each other since they were kids. They started dating in middle school. As soon as he made it big after graduation, he brought her to the city to live like a queen and made her the female president to run his company."

"Who do you think you are by trying to break them up? Maybe you should take a good look at yourself."

Childhood sweethearts… Started dating in middle school… That sounded interesting, and I nodded along as I listened.

Anton had relentlessly made his advances on me from the start of college. It wasn't until our senior year that I was finally moved by his persistence and gave in to be with him.

Today was supposed to be our destination wedding day. That was when I realized I had unknowingly been the mistress for three years.

It was obvious why he had pursued me when he was supposedly so in love with Callie. I was the daughter of the wealthiest man in Starbury and the queen of pop, so I had more money than I could ever spend in several lifetimes.