He Left Me at the Altar, Now He Begs

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Three years into my career as a divorce lawyer, Clark Sanchez forced his way into my office. The closed-circuit monitor overhead was still running the newsHarbor City's richest man had just jilted his bride at the altarand now he sat across from me on the other side of a black desk, head bowed low, the wedding band on his left ring finger catching the light.

Clark tapped the desk. His voice came out low and rough.

I need a divorce agreement drawn up, and an asset transfer agreement.

The divorce agreement is for my wifewe signed the papers, but she never moved in. Her name is Rachel Summers.

The asset transfer agreement gives everything I own to a woman named Vera Fernandez.

Vera Fernandez was me. He hadn't recognized me.

Three years since the breakup. Three years he'd turned this city upside down looking for me.

I checked my mask without thinking, then tugged the brim of my cap a little lower.

I flipped the reception placard on my desk around to face him.

Service declined.

Clark froze. He lifted his head, and his eyes locked onto mine.

In that moment, his whole body trembled.

Vera!

He shot to his feet, voice breaking. This was a man who prided himself on control and restraint, and he was coming apart.

I hadn't said a word.

Then he sank back down on his own, expression darkening, and muttered almost to himself.

No. It can't be her. My mistakeI got the wrong person.

You couldn't be her.

She's been with me since middle school. If she were still in my city, she wouldn't hide from me for three years

I stayed silent. The only giveaway was my hand on the mouse, shaking and shaking.

Clark Sanchez.

That name ran through almost every memory I had of my school years.

The name behind every romantic thing anyone had ever done for me.

For a long time, I was certain the man I'd spend the rest of my life with would be him.

Even after we ended, I assumed that when we met again I'd be the one to lose composure first. Instead I was startlingly calm.

He was the one falling apart.

I tapped the placard again, then pointed at the sign by the door: Private law firm. No appointment, no entry.

He didn't waste words. He pulled a gold-embossed check from his pocket.

His name was on it. The amount was blank. He slid it across the desk.

Name your price. Just get it done.

You saw the news. I walked out on my own wedding. My fiance is looking for me right now. I need this marriage terminated fast.

I glanced at the screen, where the scene was still chaos, then pitched my voice low and asked.

Why did you walk out?

Clark's expression drifted somewhere far away. He was quiet for a long time before he spoke.

I'm willing to give up everything to win someone back. Someone I'll never get back.

He trailed off, lost in thought, his face full of grief.

Whatever last ripple of feeling I had left froze solid into ice.

What kept flooding back was one night a year ago: his birthday, me coming home with a cake and gifts.

I opened the door and found him on top of Rachel Summers, the student I'd been sponsoring.

Facing my hurt and my anger, he laughed.

Honestly, these seven years? You've been so boring in bed.

Rachel's pretty good at it. Maybe find the time to learn from herhow to please a man.

Vera, don't look at me like that. If you can't handle it, leave.

Three days. Give it three days and you'll come crawling back to me.

What Clark Sanchez never counted on was this: once I made up my mind to walk, I never looked back.

So I didn't disappear for three days. I disappeared for three years.

I shook my head and pushed the check back across the desk.

Go out, turn right. The divorce lawyer next door is better than me.

Clark frowned.

I've done my research. Highest win rate on divorce cases in all of Harbor City, and nobody gets it done cleaner than you.

I offered you more than enough money. Why are you turning me down?

More than enough money.

Those words again.

Just like back then,

when Clark Sanchez wasn't yet Harbor City's richest man, just a fisherman's son.

He was so poor his clothes had faded white, and he knelt in front of me to propose.

Vera, I love you. Say yes?

I'll marry you twice in this lifetime.

The first time as Clark Sanchez with nothing to his name. And the second time, as the richest man in Harbor City.

His words hadn't been what moved me.

Back then, I wasn't Harbor City's most successful, most talked-about lawyer.

I was just an ordinary girl visiting family back home.

But I had never seen a man with eyes as beautiful as Clark Sanchez's.

Never seen a man look at me with that kind of searing love.

I nodded, softly, and married him.

Then, the second year after he became the richest man in Harbor City, he pinned the girl we'd been sponsoring beneath him.

The next day, he told me like it was nothing.

That wedding I was planning for you? I'm doing it with Rachel instead.

She's been throwing fits. Hard to manage.

RelaxI'm not filing any paperwork with her. It's just a ceremony. You're still my wife.

He talked about cheating and marrying his mistress the way someone might mention grabbing dinner with friends.

Completely ignoring my bloodshot eyes, the tears I couldn't hold back.

Don't talk to me about promises.

The richest man's weddingthat just means I've got money now, right? I already gave you more than enough!

But Clark never understood. I had never cared about his money.

The memory broke off. I didn't speak.

Instead, I wrote on the paper:

In the past three years, you've held a wedding with Miss Summers every single year, and every single year you've jilted her at the altar.

You're too much trouble. It would damage my reputation. I'm not taking your case.

Clark's brows knotted into a hard line, as if he'd noticed something, and he stared straight at me.

I didn't flinch. I met his gaze and held it.

Before he could say anything, a wail came from behind us.

Clark!

A woman in a wedding dress stood in the doorway.

Rachel Summers.

She had long since shed the shy, awkward look she'd worn when she first came into our home, when Clark and I were still sponsoring her.

What had grown back in its place was something sharperseductive, striking.

The moment she saw Clark, she broke down, voice thick with grievance.

You promised you'd go through with the ceremony this time! Why did you run again?

Clark sat across from me, pressing his fingers against the bridge of his nose in slow, rhythmic irritation, too impatient to explain.

Rachel, how many times do I have to tell you?

Every wedding I held with you was bait. To make Vera come back.

Rachel's expression cracked.

You're still hung up on her? You told me you loved me!

You've held three weddings with me, and she hasn't shown up once!

She doesn't care who you marry anymore. Why can't you just be with me?!

Clark was quiet. When he finally spoke, it sounded less like an answer to Rachel than something he was telling himself.

She cares. She's just being stubborn.

I almost laughed.

Back when he was so certain I'd come crawling back within three days,

Clark hadn't worn this silence. He'd worn a smirk, the expression of a man with a winning hand, amused to see what little splash I could make.

He'd been so sureI'd followed him since I was eighteen, and I would never dare leave.

So even later, when Rachel destroyed my grandmother's bracelet right in front of him and accused me of framing her,

and I had no choice but to go back to Clark within three days,

he didn't even ask me what had happened.

Like a judge on high, handing down a sentence without a shred of mercy.

Vera, if you won't leave, you'd better get along with Rachel.

I don't want fires in my own backyard. You and heryou're both very important women to me.

Hah.

I let out a cold laugh and threw the memory back in the trash where it belonged.

Rachel's expression was hard to hold together, especially after she saw the words on my desk: Divorce Lawyer.

Her face got even uglier.

What are you doing here?

Clark looked at her quietly for a moment, then spoke.

I want a divorce.

And I'm transferring every asset under my name to Vera. All of it. For free.

Have you lost your mind?!

Rachel screamed, disbelief cracking her voice wide open.

She grabbed Clark by the collar and demanded again.

Clark, have you ever once thought about me?

I've been with you since I was eighteen!

Clark answered quietly.

So was she.

I felt nothing. Not a flicker. What surfaced in my mind instead

was what came after: the night I talked to Clark until dawn, the night I got on my knees and begged.

I'd recited every one of our seven years together. Told him I didn't care about any of it, everything that had happened, if he would just come back to me.

He'd been moved. Deeply, visibly moved. He swore he'd cut off all contact with Rachel.

The next day, I caught them in bed again.

I lost it.

I cursed him out, screamed at himwhy was he so disgusting.

He just leaned against the headboard of our bed, Rachel lying in his arms with that taunting look on her face.

Lit a cigarette. Spoke like it meant nothing.

You're calling me cheap? You were in my bed at eighteen.

That moment, the pain cut all the way through.

I'd thought my teenage recklessness was giving myself for love.

Now I knew. In his eyes, I was no different from a whore.

I lowered my voice and coughed twice before speaking.

If you two want to fight, take it outside.

I'm about to get off work.

Rachel glanced up at me. Just once.

Her whole body went rigid, as if she'd seen something impossible, and she jabbed a finger at me and screamed.

Vera?!

Nono, the eyes just look a little like hers. You can't be her.

There's no way she'd still be anywhere near Clark Sanchez!

I met Clark's gaze with flat, empty eyes.

That part, Rachel had right.

I was never going back to him.

The day Clark cheated on me for the second time I caught him

was the same day he'd promised me our second wedding.

The day before the ceremony, he'd had every newspaper in Harbor City run the story.

He was going to marry me again, to thank me for my years by his side.

Our second wedding was held on the rooftop of Century Tower, the most glamorous venue in Harbor City.

Helicopters circled overhead in celebration.

Below, a sea of cameras waited to capture the moment he proposed to me again.

I wore the couture gown he'd designed for me himself, stitched by his own hand, every bead and seam.

I stood there in front of the entire city's envious gaze, waiting for him to appear.

But Clark never came.

The auspicious hour passed. One hour late.

Clark still never came.

The envy in the eyes around me curdled slowly into bewilderment.

And the last thing those eyes held, as they watched me standing there alone, was naked, undisguised ridicule.

Ha, what do you think Harbor City's richest man is up to? Why wouldn't he show?

Let me tell you a little something. He's got a gorgeous young thing at home. His wife isn't exactly getting any youngerhow's she supposed to compete with that?

Ha! All I want to know is, if he never shows up, what's his poor wife going to do standing up there all by herself?

The more lavish the wedding had been, the more enviedthe more wretched I was now, and the louder they laughed.

I stood there white-faced, fingers crushing the fabric of my skirt, while the voices around me sharpened into something vicious, each one crueler than the last, until I'd become the most despicable woman in Harbor City.

My parents called too, screaming at me. Told me I'd dragged their name through the dirt, told me to end this now.

I fled home through the laughter.

When I pushed open the door, he was fresh from the act, Rachel Summers draped in his arms. His voice was flat.

Oh. I forgot we were getting married today. I'll make it up to you next time.

Later it was Rachel who came to twist the knife, to make sure I knew.

Sis, all I did was slip out of my clothes. He wouldn't even put on the groom's suithow is that my fault?

Could youtake off your mask for a moment?

Clark's voice, slightly hesitant, cut through the memory.

I looked up at him. My gaze was flat. I didn't move.

Rachel threw herself between us, sobbing.

Clark, Vera is gone!

She doesn't want you anymore! Why won't you even look at me?!

You think dropping me year after year to chase her is going to make her forgive the nightmare of you not showing up?! Dream on!

The words landed somewhere deep. Clark went still, and something dark and grieved passed across his face.

A long time passed before he stood.

He raised his hand and slapped Rachel across the face.

He didn't spare a glance at her sprawled on the floor, clutching her cheek in disbelief.

He turned to me and said evenly:

Let's continue where we left off. I'd like to retain you to draft an asset transfer agreement for a woman named Vera Fernandez.

I spoke, not hiding my irritation.

An asset transfer agreement requires the recipient to be present. Without her, the document is void.

By your own account, you can't even find the recipient. How am I supposed to draft this?

Mr. Sanchez, I think you should go.

Rachel scrambled to her feet and threw her arms around Clark's leg.

Clark, if hitting me makes you feel better, then hit me! Just don't give her everything!

I'm carrying your child! Our baby needs money too!

She doesn't need it! For all you know, she's left you and married someone better!

That last line struck something in me. Without thinking, my thumb traced the wedding band on my ring finger.

Rachel was right about that much. The thought of the man whose smile always carried that quiet warmth sent a small wave of comfort through my chest.

I had to admit it. After leaving Clark, I'd married well.

But Clark clearly couldn't stomach even the possibility.

He slammed the table, hard.

Shut up! I'll set aside the child's share for you.

But Verashe was mine for ten years. Everyone in Harbor City knows she was my woman. No one would dare want her!

I owe her. I need to give her a reason to come back to me.

The moment I hand her that asset transfer agreement and tell her I'm willing to sign over everything, she'll come back. I know she will!

He said it with absolute certainty.

Never knowing that I was sitting right across from him, listening to every word.

Feeling nothing.

But what happened next, I didn't expect.

Rachel stood frozen, watching Clark with a dark, shifting expression for a long time.

Then she broke.

Her, her, her! It's always her!

I keep telling you she's never coming back, and you spend every waking minute looking for her, seeing her in every woman's face!

Open your eyes and look! Is she Vera Fernandez?!

Rachel lunged at me and ripped the mask off my face.