The Billionaire Bride They Mocked at the Altar

On our wedding day, my mother-in-law had a gift envelope of ten thousand and one dollars ready for me.

But back in our hometown, there's a rule. Before the new bride takes the money, she isn't allowed to say a single word, or all the good fortune scatters away.

I opened my mouth to speak, and she clapped a hand over it at once.

"Just hold it in a little longer. We'll all be one family soon."

At the tea ceremony, Antony Swanson's secretary knelt down beside me with a smile and called out that first sweet "Mom" in my place.

My mother-in-law beamed so wide she couldn't close her mouth.

When it came time to exchange rings, the officiant asked, "Bride, do you take him?"

I had barely lifted my head before one of Antony's female friends stepped forward first.

She gave me a helpless little smile. "You can't speak right now, so let me say this one for you."

"I do."

The whole hall broke into thunderous applause.

At the part where the groom kisses the bride, Antony's sworn sister suddenly looped her arm through his, her face flushed as she looked at me.

"You can't open your mouth right now, or the good fortune's gone."

"So this last step... let me do it for you."

The words had barely left her when Antony actually bent down and kissed her, and the two of them didn't part for a long, long time.

My mother-in-law clapped in delight.

Only after the ceremony ended did she, thoroughly satisfied, press the red envelope into my hand and prompt me, her face full of expectation. "Quick, say a few auspicious words."

I kept my face perfectly earnest. "Then I wish the four of them a wonderful life together. Nothing could be better."

The instant the words left my mouth, Meg Lambert's smile froze, then her face dropped like a stone.

"Cecily Fox, what's that supposed to mean?"

She snatched the red envelope right out of my hand.

"All we asked was for you to keep quiet for a bit. Was that really so much?"

"They just walked through the ceremony for you. It's not like they stole your husband."

"And if your man really can be led off by someone else, then that's your own fault for not being able to hold on to him."

"Besides, you're an orphan, a jinx with no father or mother. My Swanson family being willing to marry you is more good karma than you've earned in eight lifetimes."

Antony's brows were drawn tight too, his voice thick with impatience.

"Cecily, apologize to my mother."

"The thing I valued most about you was that you knew your place and did as you were told."

"In front of all these people, how dare you humiliate my mother like this?"

I was so angry I laughed out loud.

So in the eyes of Antony and his family, I was nothing but a girl with no one to lean on, an orphan they could squeeze however they liked.

Too bad they'd guessed wrong.

I had no parents, but money was the one thing I did have.

At eighteen I'd inherited everything my parents left behind, and over the years those assets had multiplied more times than I could count.

Everything Antony had scraped together in ten years of grinding wasn't even what I earned in one.

I'd meant to wait until the ceremony was over and give him a dowry that would stun the entire room.

Now, though, it looked like the surprise was about to turn into a shock.

I looked at Antony and smiled. "Apologize?"

"You had three women stand in and finish my wedding for me, and now you want me to apologize?"

"If you can't bear to let them go, then just marry all three of them."

Antony's face darkened.

"Cecily, when did you get so impossible to reason with?"

"Everything my mother did, wasn't it all for our own good?"

"And if I weren't so popular with women, how would I have found three people today to help you get through the whole ceremony?"

"How can you have so little gratitude?"

At that, the secretary stepped forward, her eyes rimmed red.

"Ms. Fox, Mr. Swanson and I are only boss and employee."

"To help you today, I called someone Mom in front of all these people."

"If it ends up affecting my chances of marriage and children down the road, don't you owe me some kind of answer?"

The words had barely finished when the female friend beside her curled her lip too.

"Exactly."

"Antony and I have been thick as thieves since we were kids, I've seen him bare-bottomed more times than I can count, but I just exchanged wedding vows with him. It gives me the creeps, and you owe me compensation for that."

The sworn sister looked even more wronged, her eyes turning red.

"I've never done anything that intimate with him in front of so many people."

"For the wedding to go smoothly just now, he took my first kiss. You can't just let me suffer that for nothing, can you?"

The three of them went back and forth, one line after another, as though they were the ones who'd truly been cheated.

Meg Lambert immediately pulled all three of them behind her, her face full of pity.

"Good girls. You've really been through so much."

Then she spun around, seized my wrist, and forcibly wrenched the gold dragon-and-phoenix bracelet off my hand.

Before I could even react, she reached out and yanked at my diamond earrings, and a searing, burning pain shot through my earlobes.

"Without them, you wouldn't have gotten married at all today!"

"From now on, they're the ones you owe."

"Every bit of the bride price my Swanson family gave you, pay it all back to them!"

"And that's not all. From now on, every holiday, you'll come to their door with gifts to thank them."

Meg Lambert divided up the spoils. One by one, she pressed the jewelry she'd torn off me into the hands of the other three women.

It almost made me laugh. "I come here to get married, and not only do I end up with three extra brides at my own wedding, now I'm supposed to be grateful to three benefactors too?"

Across the ballroom, a middle-aged woman dripping with jewels curled her lip.

"See that? This is what happens when a toad thinks it can eat swan meat."

"This gold-digger clawed her way into the Swanson family, and she's still got the nerve to throw a tantrum at her own wedding."

A relative beside her jumped in at once.

"Men, you know. They can't hold out against a woman who won't let go."

"She must've cried and screamed until Mr. Swanson agreed to marry her. And look, he wouldn't even go through the ceremony with her."

"If I were her, I'd have crawled off on my own by now. Save myself the humiliation."

Someone at another table laughed.

"Three women taking turns for her. That says Mr. Swanson really doesn't want to touch her."

"Maybe she's got some kind of disease."

Antony rubbed his temple, wearing the look of a man cleaning up my mess.

"Cecily, how do you have no sense of the bigger picture at all?"

"These three helped you get through your wedding today. By any measure, we owe them compensation."

I froze. "What are you saying?"

"My good buddy spoke your vows for you today. That was a lot to put you through." He was speaking to Charlotte. "So the master bedroom in my wedding home, you take it."

He handed the keys to the childhood friend. She grinned and elbowed Antony.

"Good boy. Daddy didn't dote on you for nothing."

Then she arched a brow at me on purpose.

"But I'll say this up front. I'll live in the master bedroom, sure, but don't go crawling into my blankets the way you did when you were little, sweetie."

Antony shot her a look and laughed. "Everything worth seeing, I saw ages ago. And now you play shy?"

"I'm warning you, once you're living at my place, keep your underwear on. Don't get carried away."

Something roared in my head.

"Antony, that home. We spent half a year running back and forth to settle on it."

"I watched over the renovation for ten months. I picked out every last tile myself."

"You give her the master bedroom, so where do I live?"

Antony frowned.

"Don't be so petty."

"There are plenty of rooms. What does it matter which one we take?"

Then he turned back to his sworn sister.

"There'll always be a room in this house for you. The south-facing one gets the best light. That'll be yours from now on."

"Cecily's always saying she can't stand the heat, isn't she?"

"The north side's cooler. It suits her better."

Something tightened in my chest, again and again.

That south-facing bedroom was the nursery I'd prepared for the children we'd have.

Every piece of furniture in it, I'd had custom-made myself.

And now, with one line about it being for my own good, he'd handed it to another woman.

Antony went on arranging things as if he hadn't seen my face at all.

"As for Secretary Pruitt, Cecily's Panamera is yours from now on."

"That way it's easier for you to drive me to and from work every day."

My fists clenched hard. That was the new car I'd only picked up yesterday.

When I collected it, Antony had held my hand and announced to everyone in the dealership,

"From now on, no one rides shotgun in this car but my wife."

I'd smiled and nodded back then.

And now he was letting another woman drive my car to ferry him to and from work.

I stared at him, hard.

"Antony, that car was your third-anniversary gift to me."

Antony looked utterly unbothered. "Be generous about it. You can still have the passenger seat."

I let out a cold laugh.

"In that case."

"This is a marriage I stopped wanting a long time ago."

And with that, I tore the white veil off my head and threw it on the floor.

"Cecily!"

Antony's face changed in an instant. He crossed the space in a few strides and clamped a hand around my wrist.

"What the hell has gotten into you?"

I lifted my head and looked at him, spacing out each word.

"Marry him whoever wants him. I'm done waiting on you people."

Antony clenched his jaw, fury burning in his eyes.

"You did this on purpose, didn't you?"

"You just had to make me lose face in front of all these relatives and friends?"

Then he suddenly bent down close, dropping his voice against my ear.

"Cecily, you've been with me for three years."

"If you dare call off this wedding today, let's see what man out there will ever want to take on another man's leftovers."

My heart dropped hard.

Before I could get a word out, the little sworn "sister" beside him clapped a hand over her mouth in an exaggerated show, staring at me like she was scandalized.

"Isn't a girl's reputation the most important thing she has? You really have no self-respect at all."

The childhood friend next to her, on the other hand, let out a scoff.

"Ugh, you're so old-fashioned."

She crossed her arms, her whole face careless.

"Antony and I go back years. There's nothing we haven't done."

"Two adults, both willing. What, I sleep with him and suddenly I owe him something?"

My head snapped toward Antony.

"What is she talking about?"

There wasn't a trace of guilt on his face, only impatience.

"We're all close. Just helping each other take care of a need, that's all."

"It's not like we were sleeping around. Do you really have to blow it up like this?"

The childhood friend suddenly smiled.

"You'd better think this through, sis."

"If you really dare to call it off today, these photos won't just be sitting in our old friends' group chat."

As she spoke, she lazily raised her phone.

One glance was all it took. The blood went cold through my whole body.

There on the screen were the private couple photos Antony and I had taken back when we were together.

I stared hard at him, my voice shaking.

"Why does she have those photos?"

Antony didn't so much as lift an eyelid.

"We're all family here. Just posted them in the group as a joke."

"Do you really have to make such a fuss?"

Quite a few guests were already crowding in closer.

Meg Lambert swept a look over the photos, and instead of any anger, her face twisted with disgust.

"Tsk. No shame at all."

"No wonder all she thinks about is luring men in."

With that, she actually snatched the phone away and forwarded the photos straight into the wedding guests' group chat.

"Wanted to call off the wedding, didn't you?"

"Then I'll let everyone see exactly what kind of trash you are!"

The next second, phone alerts went off one after another all across the banquet hall.

Guests were zooming in on the photos, their looks at me turning more and more blatant.

I clenched my fists tight, my voice trembling with rage. "Meg Lambert, unsend those photos right now!"

Just then my phone buzzed once.

The screen lit up with a message.

*Ms. Fox, the ten-million-dollar wedding gift you ordered has arrived at the hotel entrance. Shall we bring it into the banquet hall for you now?*

I opened my mouth to answer, but Meg knocked the phone out of my hand.

"You fatherless, motherless little stray, no manners at all, just as I'd expect!"

"Today, in place of your good-for-nothing dead parents, I'm going to teach you how to be a decent person!"

The words were barely out before she raised her palm and swung it hard at my face.

I seized her wrist right back, my voice cold, without a trace of warmth.

"Meg Lambert, up till now I've respected you as an elder."

"But that doesn't mean you get to keep pushing your luck."

Meg's face twisted with pain as she thrashed to get free.

"You little slut! Let go of me!"

Antony saw it and rushed over at once, wrenching my hand off her by force.

Meg staggered back a couple of steps and jabbed a finger at me, vicious.

"Oh, so now you'll raise a hand to your elders!"

"Let me tell you something. The Swanson door isn't one you walk through and walk out of whenever you please!"

"The wedding's done. Alive, you belong to the Swansons. Dead, you're a Swanson ghost!"

She threw out her arm.

"Somebody, hold her down for me!"

Two guards charged in immediately, clamping down on my arms, one on each side.

I fought hard, but they pinned me in place.

Only then did Meg smile, satisfied. "That's more like it."

She walked up to me and looked down at me from above.

"Starting today, you're up at four every morning to cook."

"Antony, me, your father-in-law, and these three women. You wait on every one of us."

"Until we've picked up our forks, you don't come to the table."

"Until we've gone to sleep, you don't rest."

"From now on, whatever we tell you to do, you do it."

Just then the sworn sister suddenly covered her mouth, bent over, and gave a dry heave. Her face flushed a bashful pink.

"Big brother just kissed me. Do you think I'm pregnant?"

Meg wore the look of someone who understood everything, and broke into a grin that wouldn't quit.

"Good! Good!"

She turned her head toward me.

"This child is going to be the eldest grandchild of the Swanson family. You will wait on him as if he were your own!"

I said coldly, "Dream on."

Meg's face went dark in an instant. "Still talking back?"

She let out a cold snort and dragged an iron chain out from under a chair.

"A daughter-in-law who won't obey."

"Chain her up, keep her a few days, and she'll fall in line."

She came at me, step by step.

At the very moment the chain was about to loop around my neck, dozens of black-suited bodyguards strode into the banquet hall.

The one at the front lunged forward and kicked Meg in the back of the knee.

Caught off guard, she went down hard, crashing to the floor.

The rest moved in fast, ringing Antony and the others in on every side.

The lead bodyguard turned and came to stand before me, bowing his head respectfully.

"Ms. Fox, the wedding gifts you ordered have all been delivered."

"How would you like us to handle them now?"

I gave Antony and the rest a light glance.

"Untouched."

"Send every last one of them back."