At my childhood friend's wedding, just as the bride and groom were about to exchange rings, the bride suddenly snatched the microphone and turned to look directly at me. In an instant, a single, blinding spotlight swung from the altar and pinned me in my seat. Every head in the chapel turned. With all eyes on her, the bride, Sophia, walked slowly down the aisle until she stood before me. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and with a choked sob, she thrust her bouquet into my hands. “Amelia, please. I’m begging you.” “Ethan and I are married now. Please, have some sense of decency. Stop using the ‘just friends’ excuse to be so intimate with my husband, regardless of the time or place.” 1 A collective gasp swept through the guests. Those who didn’t know the situation were already shooting me looks of pure contempt. In the distance, I saw my mother’s face fall, her expression hardening like stone. Ethan’s face was even uglier than mine. He lunged forward, his brow furrowed as he tried to grab Sophia’s arm. “Sophia, are you insane? This is our wedding! What the hell are you doing?” She violently shook him off. The screech of microphone feedback pierced the air. Tears streaming down her face, she pulled out her phone. The screen showed Ethan’s social media profile. The background picture was their engagement photo. But the latest post was a picture of Ethan’s forearm, marked with a faint, old bite mark. The caption was what made it damning. “Getting married tomorrow, but I can’t forget you, or the mark you left on me.” “Look, everyone!” Sophia’s voice was a raw scream. “I’ve tolerated you being close with Amelia all this time!” “But to post this, right before our wedding, and set the privacy so only she could see it! Ethan, you tell me, what is this supposed to mean?” The color drained from Ethan’s face. Sophia shot me a cold, triumphant smirk. “Amelia! Since you need him so much, and since he’s so clearly obsessed with you, why didn’t you two just get together? Why keep that intimate bite mark as some kind of secret trophy? Are you both just playing me for a fool?” The stares of the guests felt like a thousand needles pricking my skin. I stood frozen, not out of shock, but out of sheer, dumbfounded exasperation. Me? Need Ethan? When have I ever needed Ethan? And that bite mark… what a joke. Until this very moment, I had always considered it a symbol of our mutual hatred. Ethan’s family and mine were next-door neighbors. Our mothers were best friends. By all accounts, we should have gotten along. But from the moment we could walk, he made it his mission to torment me. Tearing the ribbons from my hair and smearing mud on my dresses were his tamer tricks. The worst was when he threw my kitten into the deep end of his family’s pool and physically blocked me from getting help. I was so frantic, so utterly helpless, that I bit his arm with all the strength my small body could muster. That was over a decade ago. The fact that the scar is still visible is a testament to how viciously I bit him. It was also the day I started taking Muay Thai classes. After that, our dynamic shifted. I was the one pinning him to the ground until he finally learned to leave me alone. I’ve despised him my entire life. If it weren't for our families’ history and the fact that his mother has always been kind to me, I wouldn't have even shown up to this sham of a wedding. As for his social media post… Good lord. I had no idea. He’d always had a flair for overly dramatic, emo nonsense that polluted my timeline. I found it so annoying that I’d muted his profile years ago. With that thought, I opened my phone, navigated to my chat with Ethan, and turned the screen toward Sophia. The setting was clearly displayed: “Mute this person’s posts and stories.” Even our chat history was on silent mode. I scrolled through it. Aside from the occasional spammy link he’d sent, the most recent message was from last week—an invitation to his wedding. I hadn't even bothered to reply. It was a pointless invitation. Given our families, my mother would have dragged me here by my hair if I’d refused. I took a deep, steadying breath. “I have no idea what kind of misunderstanding you two are having, but don't you dare drag me into your mess to play the villain.” I shot a glare at Ethan, my jaw tight. “And for the record, that pathetic bite mark is from when he pushed me too far and I snapped! I wasn't even in elementary school! God only knows why he’d post something so twisted about it.” Ethan, who had been trying to placate Sophia, froze. He looked at me, his eyes filled with a wounded, disbelieving expression. 2 Sophia’s hand, still holding the phone, hung in the air. A flash of surprise crossed her face, but she quickly doubled down, biting her lip. “But you can’t deny the inappropriate intimacy between you two!” “You spend all your time with a bunch of guys, acting like you’re one of them, but it’s all just a cover to stay attached to Ethan! There’s a limit to playing the ‘cool girl,’ Amelia! You have a fiancé, yet you’re still stringing my husband along. Have you no shame?” I let out a humorless laugh and looked at Ethan, who was now pretending to be part of the scenery. Just then, my friend Jake’s girlfriend, Chloe, spoke up with blunt honesty. “Sophia, are you sure you’re not mistaken? I’ve never seen Amelia act out of line.” Sophia faltered, turning her attack to Leo’s wife, Sarah. Sarah just smiled. “Sophia, you really have it all wrong. We’re all friends with Amelia because she’s a genuinely good person. She rarely organizes get-togethers; we’re always the ones begging her to come out.” “The building materials supplier my husband’s company needed? The design team for Jake’s new restaurant? The insider discount on Mark’s new car? That was all Amelia. She made those connections for us.” Leo tried to quiet his wife, but Sarah shot him a look that silenced him instantly. She glanced at Ethan, whose face was growing darker by the second, and added with a sly smile, “Amelia is the reason our group exists. Ethan has nothing to do with it. He only started hanging out with us because he’s her neighbor. We only put up with him for Amelia’s sake.” I silently gave Sarah a mental high-five. The truth was simple. We live in a small city. The business circle is tight. Our crew was solid, but the cornerstone, the one holding it all together, had always been me. My family made its fortune in renewable energy a few years back. I then started my own consulting firm and opened an exclusive bar, accumulating a network of high-profile clients. I became friends with Jake and Leo because our fathers knew each other, and we helped each other’s businesses grow. Ethan’s family ran a small construction supply business that had been failing for years; they were on the verge of bankruptcy. My mother, out of pity, had my father throw them a few contracts to stay afloat and insisted I include Ethan in my social circle. I was against it. I hold a grudge, and I’ve never forgotten the way he treated me as a child. But my mom’s relentless nagging wore me down, and I reluctantly let him tag along. I fixed my gaze on him. “What exactly were you trying to achieve with that post?” Ethan’s face turned the color of raw liver. His lips moved, but no words came out. Sophia’s expression soured, but she wasn’t ready to give up. “You’ve all been fooled by her! She’s just pretending to be above it all, showing off how successful she is to seduce men!” I frowned, my patience finally gone. It was her wedding day. I had been willing to let it slide, to endure the humiliation for the sake of peace. But she was pushing it, determined to smear my name. “Sophia, you need evidence to make accusations like that,” I said, my voice turning icy. “You’ve seen my chat history with Ethan. What more do you want?” She sneered. “If there’s nothing between you, why did he pour so much money into your bar? It’s a members-only club with a ridiculously high barrier to entry. As a woman running a place like that, you must have your methods for keeping wealthy clients around. Ethan recently dropped fifty grand on a membership. Are you going to tell me that’s not suspicious?” The venue fell silent. My mother, pale with rage, rushed to my side. “You say that one more time.” I gently pushed my mom back into her seat and stepped toward Sophia. “First of all, Ethan spending money at my bar is a normal business transaction. I didn’t force him.” 3 “And don’t you worry. I’ll have my manager refund every penny he hasn't spent and post a notice at the entrance permanently banning him from the premises.” What a joke. My bar is a top-tier establishment that would hold its own in any major city. The renovations alone cost millions. My clientele consists of the city’s wealthiest and most influential people. Did she really think I needed Ethan’s chump change? Sophia froze, clearly not expecting me to be so decisive. “Even so, you can’t deny that you call him in the middle of the night! Why does he always rush out to meet you at ungodly hours?” “Last Wednesday, at two in the morning, he told me there was an emergency at your bar and ran out in his pajamas! Are you going to deny that you called him?” Her words even stunned me. I would never, ever contact Ethan. Besides, last Wednesday, my fiancé and I were on vacation out of state. As I was about to refute her, I caught a glimpse of panic in Ethan’s eyes. “Sophia, stop it! It’s all a misunderstanding! We can talk about this at home. Today is our wedding…” She ripped her arm from his grasp. “You need to tell me the truth right now! Is she the only one you love? Did you ever even want to marry me?” “Yes! I didn’t want to marry you!” Ethan suddenly roared, his composure shattering. He glanced at me, a wild, cornered look in his eyes. Sophia stared at him, her face a mask of disbelief. In the next second, all the color drained from her cheeks. “My stomach… it hurts…” Her eyes rolled back, and she collapsed in a dead faint. The scene erupted into chaos. Ethan, terrified, scooped her up and ran for the exit. My mother watched the pandemonium, her voice laced with worry. “Amelia, maybe we should go to the hospital, just to check…” I hesitated for a moment, then nodded, and we followed the ambulance. Outside the emergency room, Ethan was crouched against a wall, his face ashen. My mom tried to offer a few words of comfort to his mother, Wanda, but was met with a cold shoulder. My mom’s expression darkened, but before she could speak, the ER doors opened. A doctor emerged. “The patient is stable. The emotional distress caused a threatened miscarriage. She’ll need to be admitted for observation to ensure the pregnancy is safe.” Wanda’s face lit up with manic joy. She grilled the doctor, and after confirming Sophia was pregnant, she whirled on me, her eyes blazing with resentment. “Are you satisfied now, Amelia? If you hadn’t started a fight with Sophia at her own wedding, would she have almost lost my grandchild? You have a fiancé of your own, so why can’t you just leave my son alone?” She grew more agitated with every word. “Sophia was right! People need boundaries! If you don’t like my son, then stay away from him! Stop pretending to be his buddy while secretly seducing him, keeping one man on the hook while you look for another! You may have no shame, but we do!” “What nonsense are you spouting?” My mother stood up, her face a mixture of anger and disappointment. “Wanda, if I hadn’t convinced my husband to give your family business, you would have gone bankrupt years ago! And this is how you repay us? By slandering my daughter?” Wanda flinched, then changed her tone. “Amelia, dear, please. I’m begging you. You know my son’s… condition. The doctors all said it would be nearly impossible for him to have children. Now that Sophia is finally pregnant, that baby is our family’s lifeline! Just stay away from Ethan from now on, please!” “Mom! Stop it!” Ethan hissed, his face burning with humiliation at having his infertility broadcasted to the world. I scoffed and sent a quick text to my assistant, telling her to dig up Ethan’s recent movements and social media activity. I hadn't called him in the middle of the night. Someone else had. And I wasn’t about to take the fall for it. 4 Just as I sent the message, Ethan approached me, hesitating. “Amelia, I know you’re innocent in all this, but… I’m finally going to be a father. This is so important to our family. For the sake of our childhood friendship, can you please just let this go? Don’t push her any further.” I rolled my eyes. “You should be thinking about what you did to make your wife so insecure in the first place.” He opened his mouth to say more, but was cut off by the sound of approaching footsteps. I turned. It was my fiancé, Liam. For once, his calm demeanor was replaced by a hint of urgency. “I’m sorry I’m late.” He was dressed in a perfectly tailored suit, clearly having come straight from the office. His handsome face was cold as he came to my side, his gaze sharp and commanding. “I’d appreciate it if certain people would conduct themselves with a little more dignity and stay away from my fiancée,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “And stop trying to blame her for your own messes.” Ethan flinched under Liam’s glare, a flicker of jealousy and fear in his eyes. After a tense moment, he turned and scurried back toward the ER. Liam watched him go, then gently smoothed my hair back, his tone softening. “Come on. I’m taking you and your mom home.” It was dark by the time we got back. I had just slipped off my shoes when my phone began buzzing relentlessly. It was my assistant. As I looked at the photos she sent, my eyes narrowed. So that’s why Sophia was so convinced I was the other woman. It was because… Before I could finish reading, a notification popped up on my screen. A trending local news post. “Boycott Local Socialite: Juggling Two Men and a Messy Private Life.” Someone had edited clips from the wedding, cutting out all context, making me look like the villain. The comment section was a cesspool of people calling me a manipulative “cool girl.” Thanks to the algorithm, I didn’t even have to search. A local livestream recommendation appeared. It was Sophia, broadcasting from her hospital bed. The title read: “The Price of Marrying a ‘Devoted’ Man: My Husband’s Affair with His ‘Best Friend’.” I clicked. She was propped up against the pillows, pale and red-eyed, weeping for the camera. “I’m pregnant with twins, and he’s still messing around with another woman. A woman who has her own fiancé but insists on calling my husband in the middle of the night…” The comments were a flood of sympathy. “I’m so sorry, sweetie!” “Girls like that are the absolute worst!” “I heard her family is like local royalty. They’re in business, and she owns some shady bar. What kind of decent woman runs a bar?” I laughed out loud at the absurdity. My mom saw it too, her hands trembling with rage. Liam wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “Don’t let them get to you.” I smirked. “Oh, I’m not angry. I should be thanking them for all this free publicity.” My company was about to launch a new product line. Free press is free press. Half an hour later, I started a livestream from my own account. As soon as I went live, a flood of viewers poured in—half to curse me out, half to watch the drama unfold. I sat in front of the camera with a calm smile. A moment later, a request to co-stream popped up. It was Sophia. I accepted immediately. Her pale, tear-streaked face appeared on the screen. “You really have no shame, do you? Broadcasting after all this,” she sneered. I raised an eyebrow and held up my phone. “I’d invite everyone to take a look at the new video I just posted on my account.” In the next second, the comment feed exploded.
? Continue the story here ?? ? Download the "MotoNovel" app ? search for "384581", and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel