The Billionaire Groom They Humiliated

Right before the vows, Karen Gilbert's young assistant bolted up onto the stage and planted himself in front of her.

Ms. Gilbert, hold on. Let me check first whether the groom's bones are solid enough for you!

Before I could even react, several burly men rushed the stage and pinned me down.

One of them raised a rod and brought it down hard across my left arm.

The arm dropped at a wrong angle, and pain tore through me all at once.

Brendan Fox was grinning ear to ear.

Karen pulled him to her side and, doting, ran a fingertip down his nose.

"Why are you being such a handful? Look where we are."

Then she turned to me, a little put out.

"Brendan's been in a bad mood lately. That's the first time he's smiled in days. Don't take it to heart."

I clenched my teeth.

"He's unhappy, so he gets to send people to break my arm?"

Karen's face darkened at once, her voice going impatient.

"Enough. What are you doing, sulking at a kid like that? Stop being difficult. The only thing that matters right now is the wedding."

"Look at the state of you. Go and deal with it, quickly."

"I'll give you ten minutes. If you can't get it sorted in ten minutes, then Brendan can walk through the whole ceremony in your place."

Something in my chest went tight.

I looked at Brendan, dressed almost exactly like the groom, and let out a cold laugh.

"Don't bother waiting. This wedding why don't the two of you just get married."

...

Karen grabbed my right hand.

"Nelson Swanson, there's a limit to how much of a tantrum you get to throw."

"With this many relatives and friends watching today, you're really going to ruin it for everyone?"

I threw her hand off.

The pain slammed back into me, and the room dimmed at the edges.

"Am I the one making a scene? Karen, look at the state I'm in!"

Brendan ducked behind her and tugged at her hand, all wounded.

"Ms. Gilbert, I really didn't mean it. I just wanted to joke around and lighten the mood."

"I told them beforehand, just give Nelson a little scare, that's all."

"Who knew his bones were so weak that one little tap and he falls apart."

Karen held his hand, then turned to me, her eyes full of blame.

"Brendan meant well. He even left you your good hand. What are you fussing at him for?"

"Besides, if you hadn't refused to let him ride in the lead car, he wouldn't have been in a bad mood these past few days."

I was so angry I almost laughed.

Three days ago, Brendan had in fact come to see me.

He'd said he wanted to be the most talked-about man at Ms. Gilbert's wedding, and asked me to give up my seat in the lead car to him.

He'd even wanted to be the one to carry Karen into the car in my place.

At the time it just struck me as absurd, and I turned him down without a second thought.

I never imagined Karen would use that against me.

I looked at her.

"I'm the groom. Why on earth should I give my place to him?"

Karen frowned, impatience all over her face.

"It's just going through the motions. Do you really have to be this petty?"

"Brendan is my assistant. He represents me. When he looks good, it makes me look good too."

"You're a man. Can't you show a little more of a big-picture attitude?"

I looked at this woman I'd loved for seven years, and suddenly she was a stranger to me.

"I'm the small one here?"

"Having my fiance's male assistant do the groom's job at the wedding, that's called big-picture?"

Karen's patience ran out completely.

"Enough! I don't want to waste breath on this nonsense with you."

"You've got fifteen minutes. Go get that arm dealt with, now!"

I stood there and didn't move.

She lowered her voice and warned me:

"Nelson Swanson, I've already backed down a step. Don't push your luck."

Just then the hotel's on-call doctor came hurrying over.

He took one look at my arm and his face changed.

"Mr. Swanson, this is a fracture. It has to be immobilized right away, then you need to get to a hospital for an X-ray."

"But the splints and straps in the medical room have all been cut up, and the backup medical kit is gone too."

"Several roads nearby are under temporary closure today. An ambulance would take forty minutes to get here at the fastest."

Karen glanced at her phone.

"Forty minutes is out of the question. The ceremony can't be held up."

Brendan covered his mouth, feigning shock.

"Oh no, how did this happen? What are we going to do?"

The next second, as if the answer had just come to him, he clapped his hands, delighted.

"How about this. I've got a good buddy right nearby, and he's amazing at setting bones. I'll get him to come save the day?"

The doctor paused.

"Your friend's an orthopedist?"

Brendan looked smug.

"No, he's a vet."

"He usually treats cats and dogs and such, but his skills are top-notch, honestly."

"He can set a broken leg on any animal, so Nelson's little hand here won't be any trouble."

A wave of laughter broke out around us, and no one bothered to hold it back.

My father shot to his feet, only for several men to block his way.

Karen nodded.

"Fine, tell him to hurry."

I stared at her, hard.

"You want me to get a vet to set a broken arm?"

Karen's face was grim.

"No job is beneath another. Don't look down on people."

"Your fifteen minutes are already counting down."

"If it isn't handled in time, Brendan walks the ceremony in your place."

I nodded.

"Fine."

Her expression eased a little, thinking I'd finally caved.

I turned on my heel, pulled off the groom's boutonniere, and dropped it on the floor.

"This groom I'm not being him anymore."

I walked fast down from the platform. Karen didn't come after me.

Behind me, her voice carried, impatient.

"Don't stop him. Let him cool off on his own."

"Spoiled rotten by his family. Can't take the smallest slight."

My steps caught for half a beat, then kept going.

So in her eyes, being held down in front of everyone and having my arm broken, then being told to call a vet to set the bone, only counted as a small slight.

Only when the lounge door shut behind me did I let go of the strength I'd been forcing.

The pain rolled in, and my forehead went cold with sweat.

My mother came in right after me.

She crouched beside me, hands hovering, wanting to touch me and not daring to, tears falling before she could speak.

"Nelson, does it hurt?"

My father stood in the doorway, pacing back and forth, furious.

"Who does Karen Gilbert think she is?"

"Nelson, you still want to marry a woman like that?"

"Just say no, and I'll have every Gilbert project frozen right now!"

I said nothing.

The hotel doctor had already come up with a few pieces of stiff cardboard and rigged the most basic temporary splint on my arm.

My father saw my silence and grew angrier.

"It's come to this, and you're still hesitating over what?"

The question kept me quiet for a long time.

Ever since Karen confessed to me at our graduation ceremony, she and I had been together seven years.

Back then she was driven, hungry to build something of her own.

Chasing clients by day, ghostwriting project proposals for others by night. In the worst stretch, she'd split a single cup of instant ramen in half and save the rest for the next day.

I couldn't stand to watch her suffer, so I went to my father in secret and asked him to help her.

He agreed.

His one condition was that she couldn't be told who I really was until after we were married.

After that, every time Karen's company reached a critical turning point, the right benefactor happened to appear, right on time.

She always believed it was her own talent that earned all of it.

Later, as the company kept expanding, I'd ask when she was going to marry me, and she'd always tell me to wait, just wait until her career climbed one more rung.

That wait stretched into seven years.

Until three months ago, when she told me, smiling, that she'd hired a new assistant named Brendan Fox.

Young, clumsy, and very endearing.

"His first day, he spilled coffee all over my dress and just froze, completely at a loss."

"Young people these days, they wear everything on their faces."

I'd even teased her about it then, that she used to hate employees making rookie mistakes, and now she'd turned so forgiving.

After that, Brendan's mistakes only piled up.

Booking the wrong flights, sending the wrong contracts, getting a client's dietary restrictions backwards.

Karen never once disciplined him.

She said he was young and needed to be taught slowly.

She said he came from a hard home and deserved a little extra care.

It wasn't that I'd never suspected anything.

But every time I brought it up, she'd wrap her arms around me and tell me I was overthinking it.

Until, the last time I asked, she suddenly proposed to me.

"How can you men be this suspicious too?"

"Looks like marriage is the only thing that'll shut you up for good."

In that moment, I actually felt ashamed of my own doubts.

Looking back now, the truly laughable one had been me all along.

My mother looked at my hand.

"Nelson, just say the wedding's off, and your father and I will handle the rest for you."

I was about to answer when a knock came at the door.

Karen was here.

Exactly fifteen minutes. Not a second more.

She pushed the door open, saw my arm strapped up in that crude cardboard splint, and her brow knotted at once.

"How is this still not taken care of?"

"The guests are all waiting out there. Can't you think about the bigger picture for once?"

I looked past her.

Brendan trailed in behind, meek as ever, and with them came my future mother-in-law.

The moment Sarah Gilbert walked in, she sized me up, then said in that heavy, well-meaning tone,

"Nelson, take some advice from me. Stop making a scene."

"A man takes responsibility once he's married. There's no sense in keeping everyone waiting on you."

Looking at that smug, damage-smoothing face, I felt something cold rise in my chest.

"Take a look at the state I'm in. You call this making a scene over nothing?"

Sarah's mouth twisted, and her tone was already turning impatient.

"Brendan just apologized. Why are you still sulking here?"

"If you ask me, it's your own body that isn't up to it. Looking like this, how am I supposed to feel safe handing my daughter to you?"

Before I could say anything, my mother was already shaking with rage, jabbing a finger right at Sarah's face.

"Do you even hear yourself?"

"Your daughter brought that bastard in, and he had someone break my son's hand on purpose!"

"You don't discipline him, and now you're siding with an outsider to gang up on my son?"

Sarah didn't so much as flinch. If anything, she straightened her back.

"Now, now, let's not put it that way."

"Our Karen is a boss worth hundreds of millions now."

"There are lines of men out there who'd want to marry her. For Nelson to marry into the Gilbert family, he's the one reaching above his station."

"If Nelson goes out there and gets this wedding done without a fuss, he's still my son-in-law."

"But if he keeps throwing this ungrateful little tantrum and it really falls apart, do you two honestly not know who ends up losing?"

My father had had enough. He grabbed the glass off the table and smashed it against the floor.

"Get out!"

"This marriage is off!"

Karen's expression darkened.

"Mr. Swanson, don't throw your weight around as an elder."

"My mother's only thinking of the bigger picture."

She turned to me, her eyes full of that lofty, condescending charity.

"Nelson, the fifteen minutes are up."

"Come out with me now, and I can pretend none of it ever happened."

I found it almost funny.

"You'll pretend it never happened?"

"Karen, I'm the one whose hand got broken. I'm the one they suggested finding a vet to set the bone."

"What gives you the right to turn the page for me?"

Her face went completely cold.

"Nelson, how did I never notice how overbearing you are?"

"Since you want to stay in here, then let Brendan stand in for you."

"It's just going through the motions anyway. When you've come to your senses, you can walk out yourself."

Brendan shrank back, timid.

"Ms. Gilbert, this isn't right, is it?"

"Nelson will be angry."

Sarah shoved Brendan straight over to Karen's side.

"What's not right about it? If you ask me, you suit him better than Nelson does!"

"Come on, let's go out. We're not indulging this nasty attitude of his!"

The door shut again.

Outside, the wedding march started up soon after.

I sat on the couch and heard the officiant say,

"Ms. Gilbert, do you take the man beside you, to have and to hold, for richer or for poorer, in good times and in bad"

Without a second's hesitation, Karen answered, "I do."

Seven years together, made a joke of in that single moment.

My father slammed a fist onto the table and turned to storm out.

I caught his arm.

"Dad, don't rush."

"The higher I let her climb, the harder her fall will be."

Just then, the phone I'd left on the table lit up.

A message from my assistant.

*Mr. Swanson, the check you had me run on Brendan Fox is back.*

An encrypted file was attached below.

I opened the first page. It was Brendan's medical record from six months ago.

When I saw the diagnosis, I finally remembered why he'd looked familiar the first time I met him.

Six months ago, I was in for a checkup at one of the hospitals under my family's group.

A man was out in the corridor, yelling in a doctor's face.

"There's something wrong with your hospital!"

"I just have a normal fever. How can you tell me I have HIV?"

"You people got the test wrong. I'm going to expose all of you!"

Security came running. He shoved past me on his way into the elevator.

That face belonged to Brendan Fox.

My mother went white in an instant.

"Nelson, you and Karen haven't recently"

I knew what she wanted to ask, and I shook my head.

"No. Ever since Brendan joined the company, she's been working late constantly. We've barely had the chance."

Then I laughed at myself.

Fate, apparently.

The doctor had someone bring an ice pack and pressed it to my face for the time being.

My father wanted to take me to the hospital right away.

I looked toward the banquet hall.

"A few more minutes."

"There's something I have to finish in front of everyone."

Inside the hall, the ceremony had reached the exchange of rings.

I pushed open the lounge door and walked out.

Every eye in the room turned to me.

Karen saw me and assumed I'd had a change of heart.

She drew the ring back, a look of relief on her face.

"Done making a scene?"

"Come here. Just apologize to Brendan, and I can pretend none of today happened."

Brendan bit his lip, his face full of reluctance.

"Ms. Gilbert, Nelson is your groom. I'm fine, really."

I stepped up onto the stage without so much as a glance at Brendan.

"Karen, I'm only going to ask you one thing."

"Did you sleep with him?"

The room detonated.

Karen faltered at first, then caught the gleam of gossip on every face below, and her anger quickly swallowed her guilt.

"Nelson, are you insane? You had to ask this today, of all days?"

Brendan's face paled, then, as if he'd made up his mind, he dropped to his knees in front of me with a thud.

"Nelson, this is my fault."

"That day I'd just been dumped. I drank too much and mistook Ms. Gilbert for my ex-girlfriend."

"Ms. Gilbert was afraid something would happen to me, so she stayed with me in the hotel room that night."

"If you have to blame someone, blame me."

"I grew up starved for love. The moment Ms. Gilbert was kind to me, I couldn't control myself."

And of course, Karen's heart went out to him. She hurried to help Brendan up.

Then she rounded on me.

"Are you satisfied?"

"You won't be happy until you've pushed him this far?"

I looked at her.

"So everything he just said is true?"

Karen glanced at Brendan and was silent for a few seconds.

"Yes."

"But it isn't what you think."

"I've been under so much pressure lately. All you ever did was push me to get married. You never understood me at all."

"Brendan is simple. Being around him means I don't have to think so hard about everything."

She took a step closer, reaching for my hand.

"Nelson, I just made one careless mistake."

"We've been together seven years. You can't throw away everything I feel for you over this one thing."

I stared at her.

"When?"

"A little over a month ago."

"Did you use protection?"

Karen's expression turned ugly.

"Can you not ask something like this in front of all these people?"

Brendan cried harder.

"It's all my fault. I'll quit. I'll disappear forever."

"Nelson, please don't blame Ms. Gilbert."

Seeing him like this, Karen's heart ached even more.

"Disappear? You don't get to say that. He hasn't earned the right to drive you out."

Then she turned that cold stare on me.

"Nelson, you've made your point. Rein it in."

"You think you could still live the way you do now if you walked away from me?"

I couldn't help but laugh.

She'd climbed to the top on the steps I'd laid for her, then turned around to ask me whether I could even survive without her.

I lifted my eyes to the big screen in the center of the hall.

"You're right."

"I really can't throw away what you've felt for me these seven years."

Karen thought I was backing down, and her face finally softened.

"As long as you stop going after Brendan, we can go back to how we were."

I took out my phone, opened the file my assistant had sent, and cast it onto the big screen.

"Then let everyone see for themselves whether he's worth protecting."