His First Love or Me—Who Will He Choose? I Refuse Chapter 05
The first screenshot appeared on the screen.
[Owner Tina. Welcome home voice command set.]
The whole room erupted.
Fred’s mom went white. She screamed at the
wedding staff.
“Turn it off! Turn it off now!”
The wedding coordinator was sweating.
“I can’t! Miss Jones has control of the permissions!”
The second screenshot popped up. Fred’s transfer
records to Tina.
Art exhibition sponsorship. Business startup fund.
Down payment on a beach house.
The final total at the bottom drew a collective
sharp breath from the entire room.
The third screenshot was the original draft of his
wedding vows.
[Tina. If you’re willing to come back, I want to give
you all the love I was late for.]
And below it, the edited version. “Tina” crossed out.
“Lydia” written in. “Late love” crossed out. “A
lifetime together” written in.
Someone whispered, “That’s disgusting…”
Fred stood at the end of the red carpet. The color
drained from his face completely.
He suddenly remembered the engagement party.
I’d asked him over and over: Who am I to you?
He’d never given me an answer. I’d waited all those
years for him to say something, and he never had.
Then my face appeared on the screen.
In the video, I wore a simple white shirt.
“Sorry for wasting everyone’s time. The wedding is
off.”
“The reason is simple. Fred has someone else in his
heart. Someone else in our house. Someone else in
our vows.”
“I don’t want to marry a man whose phone won’t
even recognize me.”
The banquet hall went dead silent. I paused, then
continued,
“Fred, you always wanted to save some honor,
right?”
“Today, I’m giving you exactly that.”
The video ended. The screen went black.
Fred’s phone started buzzing nonstop.
Business partners. Board members. Media contacts.
Relatives. Everyone was calling.
His dad slapped him across the face.
“Look what you’ve done!”
His mom slumped in her chair, muttering.
“It’s over. The Fred family is a laughingstock.”
Tina was there too. She stood outside the crowd,
her face pale.
“Fred, I didn’t think Miss Jones would do this.”
Fred’s head snapped toward her.
For the first time, her soft, sweet voice felt like
nails on a chalkboard to him.
He didn’t go to her or comfort her. He just pulled
out his phone and called me over and over.
No answer.
All his Instagram messages showed as undelivered.
Blocked texts.
He finally realized I wasn’t throwing a tantrum,
wasn’t testing him, wasn’t waiting for him to come
say one sweet thing so I’d come back.
I was really done with him.
That day, the Fred wedding became a joke across
the city.
Fred was still wearing his tux in the afternoon.
By night, he got called back to the office for an
emergency meeting.
A board member asked him,
“Mr. Harris, does Miss Jones have more evidence of
the company’s early funding flows?”
Fred was silent. Of course he knew she did.
I’d managed nearly all the company’s books in
those first two rough years.
I’d closed so many clients for him.
I’d rewritten so many contracts for him.
But he never saw that as my contribution.
He just saw me as his woman.
I loved him. So everything I did was supposed to be
for him.
After the meeting, Fred went back to the house.
It was empty. The door lock said,
[Guest Lydia has been deleted.]
He stood at the entryway. Suddenly couldn’t even
change his shoes.
There was no warm soup waiting on the kitchen
stove. No mint plants lining the balcony railing.
Half the closet was bare, stripped clean of all her
clothes and things.
My candles, my hair clips, my skincare, my
pajamas… all gone.
My things had disappeared one by one.
But the house didn’t feel emptier.
It just finally looked like what it had always been.
A place that never had room for me.
Fred sat on the couch. For the first time, he felt
scared.
