Replacing My Cheating Bride

I pulled out my phone and dialed my mother. "Mom, I've decided to come back and take over the family business. And the wedding is off. Don't bother preparing anything on your end." My mom had originally planned to throw a grand reception abroad after my ceremony here. She had lived overseas for years and constantly urged me to return and inherit the estate. For Lauren, I chose to stay behind in this city. I genuinely thought I had found true love, never realizing I was just playing the fool in her twisted game. "I'm glad you finally see clearly. That girl was never right for you," my mom said before hanging up. "I'll be waiting for you in a month." I stood in the living room and smoked an entire cigarette. At some point, Lauren came walking down the stairs. She pinched her nose, looking at me with pure disgust. "Didn't we agree there'd be no smoking in the house? Luke, that smells revolting." Her very first words were full of blame. She didn't even attempt to offer an excuse for leaving me stranded at the altar. "And what the hell is wrong with you? Why did you buzz all your hair off?" She marched over, her voice shrill and grating. She gave me a rough shove, visibly agitated. I shot up from the couch, brushed her hand away, and glared straight into her eyes. "What's wrong? Don't look enough like him without the hair?" A mocking sneer crept onto my face. "Lauren, aren't you going to explain the random guy in our bedroom?" "Don't you dare talk about Mason like that!" Lauren snapped defensively, demanding I apologize to him. "Mason got into a car accident! I only ran off because I was worried sick about him. Keep your voice down; he finally just fell asleep." She went on about how Mason was a light sleeper with severe anxiety, and how he needed rest after such an exhausting flight. I laughed out of sheer disbelief. The woman in front of me felt like a complete stranger. She used to be so gentle and thoughtful. Whenever I worked late, she would leave out warm soup for me, and she’d drop by my office with home-cooked lunches because she worried takeout would upset my stomach. She even hand-stitched details onto my casual shirts and designed matching couple accessories for us to wear. For seven years, she had showered me with what looked like pure devotion. She claimed she understood the trauma from my broken childhood home and swore she would never let me down. "Why him?" My voice was dead calm. Seven years of commitment, reduced to ashes in a single night. The ache in my chest was unbearable. I had loved Lauren with everything I had; I would have ripped out my own heart if she asked for it. Why did it have to be Mason? The very man who had shattered her into pieces in the first place? "Mason had his reasons back then! When he stayed with his ex, it wasn't because he still loved her—it was out of obligation and guilt! Can't you understand that?" When I first met Lauren, she had just broken up with Mason. She told me she had unknowingly been "the other woman," discovering too late that Mason had kept a steady girlfriend back in the States. Back then, Lauren was pregnant with his baby, only for Mason to abandon her callously at the train station. Desperate to catch up to him, she tripped and fell, losing the pregnancy. I was just the good Samaritan who rushed her to the hospital. That night, she wept in my arms, saying she knew being the side piece was shameful and that she never meant for it to happen, but Mason had insisted he had no feelings left for his girlfriend. She told me that the unloved person was the only one who truly didn't belong. Still, Mason left her behind and went abroad. For a long time after that, Lauren kept bringing up that scumbag. Eventually, she seemed to recover, even moving into my apartment under the pretense of paying me back for saving her life, insisting on taking care of all my meals and daily routines. I turned her down at first. I was used to living alone. But Lauren was relentlessly attentive. She would drive across town just to pick up a specific shirt she thought would suit me, or pull countless strings to hunt down niche accessories. I was deeply moved back then. No woman had ever gone to such lengths for me; no one had ever treated me like I was the center of their universe. Looking back now, that whole transformation was just a calculated effort to mold me into Mason's spitting image.

"Alright, stop being so petty," Lauren said, softening her tone as if doing me a favor. She claimed she only took pity on Mason because he had no family around here. "He's already married, Luke. Stop getting jealous over nothing." I stayed completely silent. Lauren added that she would make it up to me with another wedding, promising she’d explain everything to her parents personally. "Whatever you want." "Then it's settled. We'll do it in a month. Mason will be free then, so he can even be the witness for our vows." I barely registered anything else she said after that. The moment she finished speaking, she bustled off to the kitchen to simmer sweet dessert soup for Mason, fussing over his jet lag and swearing her homemade recipe was the ultimate cure. I quietly packed up my personal belongings around the house. On the desk, my gaze fell on the calendar where today's date had been circled in bright red ink. The day I marry my princess, Lauren. Marrying her had been my greatest wish. I had spent months planning every detail of this ceremony. Her bridal gown was custom-made by a renowned haute couture designer my mother personally pulled strings to book. Yet Lauren couldn't have cared less. She kicked it into a pile on the floor, treating it with the exact same careless disregard she had for our entire relationship. Whatever didn't meet her fantasy was discarded like trash. Early the next morning, Lauren took Mason out, claiming she didn't want him to feel lonely in a familiar city. I asked her casually how the new wedding preparations were coming along. "Let's just have an intimate dinner with close family. We can just sign the marriage certificate. You know I never really cared for big, flashy weddings anyway." She wrapped her arms around my neck. "Babe, you're not upset, right? You'll compromise for me, won't you?" "Sure," I replied softly. "Whatever kind of wedding you want is fine with me." After all, there wasn't going to be a groom waiting for her that day anyway. It just stunned me that she wouldn't even pretend to put in the bare minimum of effort for me. My eyes wandered over to the wedding binder sitting on the counter, its pages crumpled. Though the groom's name had been left blank, every single detail—from the venue styling to the floral arrangements—reflected the grand dream wedding Lauren had always envisioned. She had never shared any of those dreams with me. My phone chimed twice. Just as I unlocked the screen to look, the message was instantly recalled. A quick follow-up text popped up with an apologetic emoji: Sent by mistake! Too late. I had already seen the picture. It was Lauren and Mason standing on a bungee jumping platform, strapped together for a tandem jump. The caption read: Checking off thing #99 on our bucket list with the love of my life. A dull ache throbbed in my chest. Whenever I had suggested theme parks or roller coasters in the past, Lauren always claimed she had debilitating vertigo and couldn't handle any thrill rides. Turns out, it wasn't the rides she couldn't handle. It was experiencing them with me. I tossed my phone aside. There were still loose ends to tie up at the office before my flight. I was leaving, and I had no intention of looking back.

Lauren didn't come home until late that night. She carried a massive thousand-piece puzzle box, smiling brightly as she walked over and tried to throw her arms around me. I leaned back, dodging her touch. "Babe, aren't you a puzzle master? Come help me with this." She dumped the pieces onto the coffee table. There was no reference poster, just a pile of fragmented cardboard. Before I could decline, Lauren pressed on, "It's a little surprise I had custom-made for you." She urged me to assemble it to see the final image. As she walked around the living room, she finally noticed the subtle changes in the house. "Wait, didn't we have decorative sculptures here? And where did the reading stool go? It feels so empty in here." "Didn't you say you disliked clutter? I hauled them over to my old apartment. It's better with more space." I offered a careless excuse and sat down to work on the puzzle. I had always been good at this sort of thing; within an hour, the outer frame and main silhouettes began to take shape. Lauren brought over some midnight snacks and leaned in to kiss my cheek. "I knew my man was the smartest." "Whose picture is this?" I asked, looking her dead in the eye. A flicker of panic darted across her face, but she quickly masked it with a playful pout. "Who told you to buzz all your hair off? You can't even recognize yourself anymore? Silly." If this had been the past, I would have convinced myself that the silhouette was indeed me. The haircut and the jacket were styles I used to wear, and from the side profile, the resemblance was uncanny. Until I spotted the small mole on the earlobe. It was Mason. I didn't bother calling her out. I quietly finished putting the puzzle together for her. From that night until the rescheduled wedding day, I didn't see Lauren once. Having finalized the handover of my local responsibilities, I stood at the departure gate with my suitcase, looking down at our chat log. The most recent message was still the accidental photo she had hastily deleted. In her world, I had always been entirely expendable. Just before boarding, right as the scheduled family dinner was about to start, my phone rang. Lauren's voice came through, frantic and rushed. "Where on earth are you, Luke? Dad said he wants that vintage wine you brought last time. Mason couldn't find it anywhere in town. Make sure you bring a couple of bottles when you come over!" She fired off demands without catching her breath. That vintage was an exclusive reserve from my mother's private vineyard overseas. Of course Mason couldn't buy it anywhere. "Got it." I gave a noncommittal response. In the background, her father's grating, displeased voice cut through the speaker. "Luke is so damn unreliable! Making us all sit here waiting! Shouldn't the wine have been delivered hours ago?" He went on grumbling that now that Mason was back, Lauren should reconsider her options anyway. The call abruptly ended. No need to reconsider. I wasn't showing up. Since we never registered a marriage license, Lauren and I weren't legally tied in any way. Last time, she had abandoned me in front of hundreds of people just because Mason dialed her number. Now, I was simply stepping out of the way to grant her wish.