Nodding back at Alice, I pulled my arm away and said with an impassive expression, "Got it."

As I turned to head back to the bedroom, I caught a flash of relief in her eyes. The anger in my heart intensified.

The moment I entered the room, I saw a friend request from someone with a familiar profile picture. She'd also sent a short message. "Submitting my application to be your bride."

Without warning, my heart missed a beat.

It was her—Vanessa Langdon.

We'd broken up due to a misunderstanding some years ago, and we hadn't had any contact since.

I hadn't expected her to enter my life once more in this manner. I stared at the request, my fingertip hovering over the option to accept it, but I couldn't click on it.

Was this just a coincidence or…

I tossed and turned in bed, unable to fall asleep. My chest felt all clogged up, so I decided to get out of bed for a glass of water.

The living room was completely dark. Only a faint bluish glow seeped through the crack of the door to the study. After a pause, as if possessed, I snuck over to the study.

Alice was sitting at the desk, the light from her laptop screen illuminating her flushed face.

Playing on the screen was that video of the "assault" she'd endured, the one that had caused me great agony. As she watched the video, she kept mumbling Cole's name while digging her fingers deep into her body.

"Cole… Cole… You feel so good…"

It felt as though something inside of me snapped. My heart turned to ice.

With trembling fingers, I ended up accepting Vanessa's friend request.

I slept poorly that night. All kinds of scenes kept flashing through my mind, like some sort of movie.

When I woke the next morning, the sunlight outside the window was bright and warm, but I had a splitting headache.

After emerging from my room, I saw two people in the dining room.

Cole sat at the table, his body almost touching Alice's. The two seemed to be carrying on a conversation with such intimate expressions that it looked as if they were alone in the entire world.

In the past, he had always dropped by the house to accompany Alice, claiming to be her "best male friend".

I'd long felt that the closeness they exhibited crossed the line, but out of consideration for Alice's so-called trauma, I just put up with the discomfort I felt.

However, it was now painfully obvious that I wasn't just reading too much into it.

"You're up, Luke," Cole called out after he spotted me.

He picked up a bowl of beef stew and handed it to me with a grin. "Alice tells me you like stews. Here. Try the beef stew I made. Alice loves it."

"That won't be necessary," I declined with a frosty expression. "I'm allergic to beef."

Cole's smile stiffened, and he swiftly put on a look of feigned hurt. "Are you looking down on me, Luke? Or are you just looking down on my cooking?"

Before I could say anything, Alice's expression darkened as well. She grabbed the bowl of piping hot beef stew and flung it all over me. "What's the meaning of this, Luke? It's one thing for you to turn your nose up at me, but are you even turning your nose up at my friends, too?"

The boiling soup soaked through my shirt, scalding my skin. As I gasped from the pain, I had the instinctive urge to try to appease Alice. As it was, in the past, I would always give in whenever she threw a tantrum.

But this time, out of the corner of my eye, I caught the way she'd smirked in smug delight for the briefest moment. It was like a bucket of cold water that put out the spark of concern that had ignited in me.

I was able to stop myself before I said anything.

There was no way Alice didn't know about my beef allergy. But lately, she constantly used the most trivial of things to force me into submission. She would only be satisfied when I humbled myself to apologize and beg for her forgiveness.

Well, I no longer wanted to be the fool who catered to her every whim anymore. The sight of her now inspired nothing but repulsion in me. "If that's how you want to see it, there's nothing I can do about it."

Alice, who looked all fired up, now froze as if her brain had short-circuited. She didn't seem to have expected me to react like that this time.

Upon seeing this, Cole started berating me, "How can you treat Alice like that, Luke? You're being too cold toward her. She's in a fragile state right now. Why can't you just show her more patience and indulgence?"

I turned to Cole and eyed him with undisguised mockery. "If you care so much about her, Cole, why don't you take care of her yourself? Why bother putting on a show here instead?"

"What the hell are you trying to imply, huh, Luke?" Alice shrieked hysterically. "Don't even think for a second that I can't live without you! You know what? I'm not going to be a part of this wedding! It's over between us!"

She acted as if she truly had nothing to lose and had made up her mind to end our relationship. Even though her voice was shaky, there was a hint of exhilaration in it as well.

The fact that she'd spat out that ultimatum with such careless indifference completely chilled me to the bone. In her eyes, our impending marriage was something so insignificant that she could cast it aside without a care in the world.

"Fine." I calmly nodded back at her. "Since you're so unwilling to be with me, you can move out of the house right away."

Alice's breathing hitched. My unusual reaction made her uneasy. But in the end, out of spite, she grabbed her handbag and stormed out of the house without looking back.

As I stared at the mess on the floor, I felt completely drained.

Just then, Vanessa texted me, "Meet me at the bridal studio at 1:00 pm this afternoon."

…

Despite arriving at the bridal studio, I sat in the car, unable to bring myself to head in. My mind was in chaos as I stared at the glass doors.

Vanessa and I had broken up because she saw me accompanying my cousin, who had secretly gotten involved with someone and had to get an abortion once she got pregnant.

After misunderstanding the situation, Vanessa left the country without even giving me a chance to explain. Many years had passed since then, but I didn't know if she was still upset with me.

Just then, my phone buzzed. I looked down and saw a call from Alice. I thought she was calling to get back together with me. She did storm out of the house without taking anything with her.

But when the call connected, I heard her breathing heavily. Her voice was unusually hoarse as she asked, "Luke, can you give me the wedding gift you promised me in advance?"

What was she doing right now?

I frowned. In the background, I heard Cole's low voice ring out, his tone lewd. "Go on, babe. Say more…"

Hit with a belated realization, I figured out what the two of them were doing right now. My stomach churned, and my other hand gripped the steering wheel tightly.

Alice's voice abruptly shot up several octaves, and I heard a muffled moan at the end. "I'm out jogging right now. I'll talk to you later!"

After she frantically ended the call, I tossed my phone to the side and took a few deep breaths.

When I looked up, I saw the glass doors to the bridal studio opening.

Vanessa stepped out. Standing in the sunlight, she seemed to glow. She was still as beautiful as ever. It was as if time hadn't left a mark on her at all.

When she stopped me, her eyes flickered, but there was a hint of exasperation in them. She came up to me and said, "Why aren't you heading inside, Luke?"

Alice's call ended up dispelling most of my nervousness.

Without saying anything further, Vanessa hauled me into the bridal studio. She swiftly picked out a wedding gown for herself before urging me to change into a new suit.

"You should change the decor and all the other arrangements for the wedding ceremony as well," she said briskly while handing me a folder filled with brochures and samples.

I glanced at her while remarking nonchalantly, "You're making it seem like it's a real wedding."

Vanessa paused and looked me straight in the eye. "How can a wedding be fake?"

After a pause, her voice turned colder. "Are you starting to regret this?"

I met her gaze and swallowed hard, but I stubbornly retorted, "Why should I regret this? What's there for me to be afraid of when you're not afraid?"

As I looked around out of habit, my gaze swept over the display wall on one side of the bridal studio. A photograph from a wedding photoshoot caught my eye.

Alice was dressed in a white gown, smiling radiantly as she leaned into Cole's arms.

Scoffing, I got my phone out and snapped a picture of that before sending it to Alice. Three minutes later, I got an audio message from her.

In a haughty and overbearing voice, she snapped, "What the hell is wrong with you, Luke? I only took that photo for fun. Don't be so petty! I'm about to marry you tomorrow anyway!"

She'd gotten dressed in a wedding gown and taken a wedding photo for fun, huh?

I couldn't be bothered to respond, so I stuck my phone back inside my pocket.

Later that night, I'd just slipped off my shoes when a soft body pressed against me from behind.

"Luke, you're finally back," Alice said sweetly, her tone coy and flirtatious.

She wrapped both arms around my waist and rubbed her cheek against my back. "Let's stop fighting. The wedding ceremony's tomorrow. I admit I made a mistake, okay? I shouldn't have done that photoshoot with Cole. He was the one who insisted on taking it with me anyway.

"I'll spend the night with you today, hm?"

When she noticed that I wasn't reacting, she came from behind and stood in front of me. Rising on her toes, she tried to kiss me on the lips.

My stomach lurched with a wave of nausea. I recalled the way I heard her getting it on with Cole on the phone. Seeing the way she was pretending to be all innocent and was trying to make it up to me now, I felt nothing but mocking irony.

I moved away to avoid the kiss and turned on the lights in the living room.

Alice pouted in displeasure when she ended up bounding right into nothing but air. When she turned toward me and threw herself at me again, I raised my phone and quickly snapped a picture of us together.

The shot had been taken at the perfect angle with impeccable timing. Our figures basked in the romantic glow of the light as she draped herself over me, her clothes hanging loosely off her.

It was the perfect example of an "intimate" photo.

I sent it to Cole without any hesitation.

Almost the instant the photo was received on the other end, the phone in Alice's pocket started vibrating incessantly.

Her expression stiffened. Flustered, she fumbled for her phone.

After casting me a panicked glance, she looked away evasively and ran to the balcony with her phone.

"Hey, Cole… No, it's not what you think. Let me explain!"

I watched as she paced across the balcony, my expression cold.

When she came back inside, she had plastered a smile on her face again. "I have to step out for something, Luke. I'll get ready for the wedding at our future marital home tomorrow, okay? Come pick me up there."

I couldn't believe she and Cole were planning to use the home I prepared for us to have their final farewell. What a disgusting pair. They were a match made in heaven.

"That won't work," I said as I tugged at my tie with an expressionless face. "The house was only recently renovated. It needs to be aired out a little longer before it can be lived in."

It was a flawless excuse.

Alice's expression fell at once, her eyes flooding with disappointment and frustration.

She was probably upset that I, her actual fiance, couldn't even be of service to provide a fancy house for her and Cole to indulge in one last night of wild debauchery.

"In that case, I'll just wait for you at the hotel!" she said before grabbing her handbag and rushing off without waiting to hear my response.

Her hurried footsteps seemed to convey just how eager she was to go meet whoever it was she was meeting.

As I stood in the empty living room and watched as she disappeared into the night, the corners of my lips slowly curved.

I couldn't wait to find out how Alice was going to react when she arrived at the hotel, only to find that she wasn't listed as the bride.

The next day, before leaving the house, I instructed my butler to ship all of Alice's belongings to Cole's house. "Also, have all the locks to the properties I own changed before the day is over."

"Understood, sir."

Once I settled all the arrangements, I changed into the suit I picked out yesterday and headed off to Vanessa's home with my groomsmen at my side.

Meanwhile, after a night of frenzied indulgence, Alice overslept. By the time she finally woke up, she had to scramble to grab a cab to the hotel.

The car radio was playing the local news.

"Breaking news! Luke Shelton, the heir to Shelton Group, will be marrying Vanessa Langdon in a grand ceremony at the Carlisle Hotel today. This union between two people of equal social standing proves to be a highly anticipated one. Let us all offer our warm wishes to the newlyweds…"

Alice's eyes widened in shock. "What was that?"

Had she misheard the news report?

The cab driver, a warmhearted middle-aged man, thought she hadn't heard the news clearly. "You're attending Mr. Shelton's wedding, right, miss? It's the talk of the town today. The bride is such a gorgeous woman. I heard she's Mr. Shelton's first love!"