Wedding Day He Wanted My Friend, I Married His Enemy!

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The night before the wedding, Bryce Gilbert sat in a private room with his buddies, working out how to stop me from reaching the wedding so my best friend could marry him in my place.

One of them was stunned. Bryce, are you saying the one you want to marry is Tilda Finch? If that's it, just tell Eva Henson!

Bryce gave a bitter smile. "The one I love is Eva. But Tilda is my regret, and I don't want to go through life carrying regrets. That's why I came up with this."

"All you have to do is drive the wedding car somewhere else so Eva can't get back in time. Then I pretend to be angry and marry Tilda instead, and there's nothing Eva can say."

"Besides, I'm only playing around for a few days. Once the regret is gone, I'll end the game."

His eyes were set, certain, daring anyone to get in his way.

His buddies only roared with laughter and started scheming right along with him.

Standing outside the door, I finally went cold on him. I turned and walked out, and I called his sworn enemy.

"You hate me because I love Bryce Gilbert, don't you? Well, you can stop hating me now."

"Get ready. Tomorrow I'll drive the wedding car and marry you."

...

"Bryce, careful you don't take it too far."

"If Eva ever finds out, you'll be chasing after your wife with nothing left to chase."

Bryce lazily picked up the cup from the tea table and swirled it. "As long as none of you talk, and I don't talk, how would she ever know?"

"Fine. We'll help you."

"Tsk. You really know how to play, and how to feast."

"Tilda or Eva, either one's a stunner."

"Wedding day, you'll probably drag Tilda straight into the bridal suite before you can wait, ready to go a few hundred rounds."

The words had barely landed, filthy and grating, filling the whole room.

Tilda came in from the balcony, tucking her phone away as she walked. She must have stepped out to take a call.

"What were you all just saying?"

I clenched my fists, wishing with everything in me that Tilda knew nothing about Bryce's plan.

The next second, she sat down beside him and leaned straight into his arms.

The others whooped. Something in me went hollow.

By now, what was left to not understand?

My phone buzzed. I hurried toward the door.

When I answered, my mother's voice came through, threaded with a cough.

"Evie, Mom has finally lived to see you get married."

Her health was poor. My father said she'd been holding on by sheer will, refusing to go.

The reason was that she hadn't seen her daughter married. With that wish unfinished, she'd been clinging to one last breath just to stay alive.

I didn't want her chained to her illness, so I'd pushed Bryce to set a date seven times. He only agreed on the eighth.

Only now did I understand. He never wanted to marry me. All those refusals came because Tilda wasn't in the city.

Now that she was back, Bryce suddenly agreed.

And behind that agreement was another plan entirely.

In that moment, all I felt was the ache in my chest, and a bottomless disappointment in Bryce.

After a few quick words with my mother, I hung up.

I didn't expect Bryce to call right after. "Hey. Evie."

"Where are you?"

I was right next door to him. He would just never know it.

"Home."

"Ha. My Evie is such a good girl. Not like those other rich girls who run off to party."

"Hey, Bryce, what's that supposed to mean? You're dragging all of us into it."

The line was loud with noise. Bryce only told me to hurry over and find him, then hung up.

I didn't rush. Instead I took out the vows I'd prepared for tomorrow and tore them apart, slow and deliberate.

If he wanted me there right now, there had to be something waiting to sicken me.

Sure enough, when I got close, I heard the jeering start up again.

"Bryce, remember to lose to Tilda on purpose later, so Tilda can kiss you right in front of Eva. That'll be thrilling as hell."

"You are all so awful!"

The moment I pushed the door open, the laughing and joking in the private room went silent.

Tilda Finch and Bryce Gilbert were still pressed close together. I acted like I hadn't seen it.

Someone talked too fast and let it slip. "The cheated-on bride no, I mean, Eva's here!"

Realizing he'd nearly said the wrong thing, he hurried to correct himself.

Of course I knew every person in that room was laughing at me inside. But I'd be married to someone else soon, and that mocking title would come off with it.

Bryce shot the guy a cold glare, then stood and came toward me.

"Evie, you made it."

As he got close, that perfume that was uniquely Tilda's drifted into my nose.

Just how much had gone on between them, for one person's scent to soak all the way into another's body.

I only smiled coldly on the inside. My face stayed blank.

"We're getting married tomorrow. Why call me out this late? You should be home resting too."

My schedule never slipped. When it was time to sleep, I slept.

Bryce stuck out his tongue at me and put on a coaxing little act.

"I'm too nervous to sleep. I just wanted to get out for a bit before the wedding to shake off the jitters."

"Right, Eva. What you should be doing right now is being understanding with Bryce. Keep him company, talk with him."

"After all, once you're married, you'll be husband and wife, and he won't get to come out and play in the middle of the night anymore."

Meaning I was petty, that I couldn't give Bryce even a little slack.

I stayed calm and even, my tone light. "Then go ahead and have your fun. I won't hold it against you."

"Perfect!" Bryce threw his arms around me, laughing, thrilled.

"I knew my Eva loved me best."

The others traded looks, passing secret signals with their eyes, and every glance they gave me dripped with contempt.

I didn't care about their strange looks anymore. What was there to admire about people who'd back someone like Bryce?

"All right then, tonight we play something really exciting."

"Whoever loses a round of rock-paper-scissors has to give the winner a French kiss, that's the rule."

"Whoa, isn't that a bit much?"

"Anyone who won't play is a coward. You've never been abroad? Just treat it like foreign etiquette, problem solved."

Bryce looked at me like he wanted to say something and stopped himself. I pretended to be gracious and told him to go play.

The game started. Having never played anything like it, I was naturally among the first to lose.

To help Bryce get his wish, they'd rigged it all in advance.

Sure enough, Bryce lost to Tilda.

Tilda looked at me a little awkwardly. "Evie, this, this"

"This what? Kiss her!"

"We agreed beforehand. No changing the rules at the last second."

"Right!"

The others egged him on, urging Bryce to kiss Tilda.

The two of them were clearly delighted inside, yet they had to put on a show of being torn about it because I was there.

I was the first to raise my hands and clap. "It's fine. It's just a game rule, isn't it?"

"Kiss her!"

Bryce's eyes went wide, and he stared at me like he couldn't believe it.

He didn't understand why I was being so gracious. It was because after overhearing his secret, I was completely done with him.

"See? Even Eva's on board."

"So quit dragging it out. Kiss already!"

The mood turned suggestive in an instant, and the music had been cued up ahead of time too.

The moment it started, Bryce looked like he was eighteen again, pulling Tilda into his arms and kissing her deeply.

The crowd cheered. My fingertips went white, little by little.

I lifted my glass and poured drink after drink down my throat. Some of them thought I was faking my indifference, hiding away to grieve in private.

Only I knew that these few drinks were a toast to one fact: the love that had tugged back and forth between Bryce and me was dead.

Hearing someone laugh that I was a spineless pushover, and Bryce so certain I couldn't leave him.

I set the glass down, didn't spare him another glance, and was getting ready to leave.

"Eva, don't go!"

"We've still got a second game we haven't played yet!"

"We won't play anything too explosive this round, since everybody's got a boyfriend or girlfriend now, right?"

"Then what are we playing?"

"Bryce is so nervous about tomorrow's wedding, isn't he? So let's give him a little early rehearsal tonight."

"That way we cure his cold feet and have some fun ourselves."

"Same rules as always. Whoever loses gets married to the final winner right here."

"And the wedding night?"

"That one's pay-per-view."

"Ha, you're wicked. You said nothing explosive, but this is more explosive than a French kiss."

I truly wanted to leave, but they blocked my way and flatly refused to let me go.

They dragged me back down into a chair to join the game.

I lost, as always, and Bryce lost too, right on cue, going down to Tilda in the final round.

At once the group shoved Bryce into Tilda, laughing. "Marry her, marry her, marry her!"

Bryce smiled, all shy and coy, then walked over to me with his face flushed.

"Evie, take the wedding ring off and give it to me."

I fixed my eyes on him, hoping to read in his face some sign that he'd stop before it went too far.

There was none.

He'd designed that ring himself, and its meaning was one life, one lifetime, two people as one, never to part, never to abandon.

The vow he made the night of our engagement, when he slid it onto my ring finger, was still in my ears.

And now all of it had become nothing but passing smoke.

I reached to slip the ring off, but it had gone on easily and would not come off easily.

The bone in my finger ached until I frowned, and Bryce, who had always cared so much about me, had no interest in my expression now. He only wanted me to hurry up and get it off.

"Bryce, you designed this ring yourself. You should know it goes on easily and comes off hard."

"But nobody here has a wedding ring, and without one we can't play the marriage game."

His words made it click for me all at once.

This so-called game had been aimed at the ring on my hand from the start.

Bryce wanted Tilda to put it on and go through a wedding ceremony with him.

He'd really gone to a lot of trouble, laying all this groundwork.

He'd run out of patience. He grabbed my hand and yanked hard, until the skin around my finger went red with pain.

For a moment Bryce hesitated, until one of his friends said something.

"You only get one wedding in a lifetime. Of course you can't leave any regrets!"

That line filled him with a must-have determination, and he set out to pull the ring off my finger no matter what.

Finally, Tilda stood up.

"Don't make it hard on Eva. Can't you see how much pain she's in?"

"If you really want it off, I have a way."

With that, she took a bottle of lubricant out of her jacket.

Every single person there knew exactly what that thing was for.

Someone was more than happy to stir the pot.

"Whoa, Tilda, you're single and you keep this stuff in your pocket?"

"Please, maybe Tilda's had someone in her heart for a while now and just won't say who." Tilda smiled, delighted, and kept sneaking glances at Bryce. "I have a boyfriend." "We were just being sweet on each other a minute ago." "Ha, and what kind of sweet were you two being?"

"Quit being naughty. You know exactly what I mean."

The room burst out laughing again, and when their eyes turned to me, the mockery in them was almost impossible to hide.

Tilda said nothing more. She even picked up the lubricant and gave it a sniff, which set Bryce beside me stirring restlessly.

When Tilda came at me holding that lubricant, the smell rising off it was exactly the same as the smell that had clung to Bryce.

For a moment I just froze, unable to react. In my mind, the Bryce who had only ever had eyes for me rewound fast, and at the end there was nothing left to remember at all. Every face around me carried the same strange look. Some bit back laughter. Some looked at me with pity.

The moment the lubricant touched my finger, Bryce yanked the ring off in one hard pull.

It scraped the bone of my knuckle, but I didn't make a sound.

Only the wave of nausea rushing up jarred my nerves, and I dropped every last sneer behind me and bolted for the restroom.

I scrubbed my hands until they went red, then kept running the water and scrubbing again.

I don't know how long it went on before I finally went quiet and looked at the woman in the mirror with her red-rimmed eyes.

"It's fine. After tomorrow, she and I become complete strangers."

"Evie, are you okay?"

By the time Bryce walked in, I had my composure back.

"I'm fine."

"But something's come up. I need to go."

With that, I didn't care what he was saying to me. I had only one goal, to get out of this disgusting place as fast as I could.

Back home, I got a call from a friend.

"Evie, there's something I have to tell you."

"Your fiance just went off with your best friend to get a hotel room."

My hand tightened around the phone. By now, everyone who knew us probably knew Bryce had betrayed me before the wedding.

I reached up, took down our wedding photo, and dropped it in the trash.

Everywhere I looked, this place held too many memories of him and me.

I'd thought we would grow old together. Who knew it would end in only the third year.

"Hello? Evie, are you still there?"

The line was still open. I let out a sigh.

"You don't need to ask anything. Just come drive the wedding car for me tomorrow."

"What? You still want to marry him?"

"I'm the one getting married, but you'll find out who the groom is when the time comes."

Bryce wanted to play games, didn't he? Have the driver take the wedding car far off course, so I couldn't get to the ceremony on time and marry him?

Then I'd give him exactly what he wanted. I'd stay far, far away from him.

I put the phone down and went to shower. When I came out, Bryce was calling on video.

On the screen his hair was a mess, his face worn out.

He'd clearly been doing something before this.

"Evie, when you left tonight, you seemed unhappy."

How generous of him to think of my feelings only now, when his own lust had run so far ahead of me.

However much he cared about how I felt, he still had to get his fill of Tilda first.

All that so-called devotion. Every bit of it was fake.

"I'm not unhappy. I'm just thinking about tomorrow's wedding schedule and the details, because something's suddenly changed."

"Changed?"

"Mm. I'm going to give the man I love most an even grander wedding."

Bryce broke into a smug smile. Then a small hand suddenly slid into frame, right where I could see it clearly.

Bryce caught the danger too, and quickly told me to get some rest before hurrying to end the call.

This time, I actually felt at ease. Not the slightest ripple in my heart.

Early the next morning, the wedding began.

My family had all rushed to the venue to help set things up. Bryce kept me on video while he directed the scene.

He poured out a stream of sweet, loving words. I didn't take in a single one.

When it was time to leave, I got to the wedding car and realized something.

Aside from the driver, who was my friend, everyone else was Bryce's man.

"Eva, let's go!"

"Bryce couldn't wait to see you, so he sent us to bring you over!"

How hard he must have worked at this. Afraid I'd reach the ceremony on time, he sent his good brothers to keep watch over me.

I gave a small smile, got into the wedding car, and kept my eyes closed the whole way.

Every one of them watched me with a curled lip and contempt. Only one shook his head, his face showing pity.

Once the wedding car set off, we hit heavy traffic on the road.

We kept having to change routes, driving further and further the wrong way from the venue.

Kathleen Fox, my friend behind the wheel, looked thoroughly annoyed, right up until the wedding car pulled up outside a luxury hotel so dreamlike and lavish that everyone envied it.

"Stop!!"

No one understood.

I opened the door and stepped out. "Anyone interested is welcome to come in for a drink. No gift money needed."

"And if you don't feel like drinking, go back and tell Bryce that today I'm marrying Ethan Farley."

The words had barely left my mouth when Ethan Farley walked out in a groom's outfit worth a fortune, bodyguards at his side.

"Little Evie, you're here!"

Bryce's brothers panicked in an instant. "Holy crap! Hurry, call Bryce, Ethan Farley's stealing his woman, hurry...!!!!"