Wedding Cancelled, Empire Reclaimed

When I married a divorced man, everyone warned me that being a stepmother was a thankless, impossible role. I refused to believe them. I poured ten years of my youth into raising his daughter, pulling her back from the edge of deep emotional withdrawal. Until her wedding day. Standing in her bridal gown, my stepdaughter turned toward me, flashing a brilliant, mocking smile. "Vivian, thank you for looking after my dad and me all these years on my mom's behalf." "Now that she's back, you can leave." My husband hung his head, silent. Her biological mother stood up from the front row. "If it wasn't for you, we never would have broken up in the first place." My stepdaughter linked arms with her real mother, beaming at me. "Vivian, my mom is right. Besides, I won't ever need your money again. I have a rich husband now. Stop intruding on our family." In that instant, everything clicked. No wonder her attitude had done a complete 180 over the past six months. No wonder she had the nerve to betray me openly at her own wedding. She genuinely believed she had married into high society and had finally outgrown her stepmother. What she didn't know was that this entire marriage had been brokered by me. Six months ago, billionaire CEO Arthur Lin had approached me, desperate to negotiate a massive business partnership. I gave him only one non-negotiable condition: his only son had to marry my stepdaughter. I had never breathed a word of this arrangement to her. I didn't want her to feel pressured. I didn't want her to think of her wedding as a corporate transaction. I didn't want her to overthink things. I simply wanted to secure her a grand, privileged future. I calmly set down my teacup, stood up, and walked over to the groom. "Mr. Lin, I owe you an apology." "I was blind. The wedding is off. But our business deal still stands." My stepdaughter hurried over in her high heels, dragging her designer train behind her, the triumphant smirk not yet wiped from her face. "Vivian, what the hell do you mean by that?" I looked directly into her eyes. "It's simple. Your marriage to the Lin heir was negotiated by me." Her expression twisted, and she froze dead in her tracks. "What did you say?" "Six months ago, Mr. Lin came to me begging for a partnership. I set one condition: his only son had to marry you." My voice was entirely devoid of emotion. Her knuckles turned bone-white as she clutched the fabric of her wedding gown. "You're lying! Lucas told me himself that he loves me!" "This wedding has nothing to do with you!" Lucas, who had remained silent the entire time, finally spoke. His tone was as cold as ice. "I only approached you because my father ordered me to. Personally, I never felt anything close to love for you." With that, he took a step back, widening the distance between them as if avoiding something utterly repulsive. Chloe whipped her head toward him, her lips trembling violently. "Lucas, you're lying, right? You treated me so well for the last six months! You promised you'd give me a real home!" Lucas tugged loose his tie, a look of sheer impatience crossing his face. "Those were polite pleasantries. You didn't actually buy into that, did you? I've been playing along with your little act for half a year. I'm exhausted." He turned to me, bowing slightly with utmost deference. "Ms. Vance, my father said everything is up to you. If you say the wedding is off, I'm leaving right now." Without another word, he spun on his heel and walked away, not hesitating for a single second. Chloe lunged forward like a madwoman, grabbing his sleeve. "No! You can't leave! We've been together for six months—don't you feel anything for me at all?!" Lucas glanced down at where her fingers clutched his cuff, his brow furrowing in disgust. "You want the truth? Absolutely nothing." One by one, he peeled her fingers off his arm. "You are too fake. Just watching you exhausts me." "On every single date, you were calculating. Calculating my family's wealth, calculating my parents' network, calculating what you could squeeze out of me. Did you really think I couldn't see through you?" Her hands were pushed away, falling limply to her sides. She stood there as if her spine had been violently ripped out. Right then, Chloe's biological mother, Brenda, charged over from the head table, her high heels pounding loud against the floor. "Fine, walk out if you want! But if the groom walks, the bride price stays! Eight million dollars, not a single penny less!" Her voice was shrill and deafening. The entire ballroom fell dead silent, every pair of eyes turning toward our spectacle. Lucas turned back, looking at her as if she had just told the most ridiculous joke on earth. "A bride price? The wedding never happened. What bride price?" Brenda's face flushed a furious scarlet, and she shoved her finger right in Lucas's face. "The Lin family sits on a multi-billion-dollar empire! What's eight million to you?!" "Your family proposed this match! Now you want to call it off just like that? You owe us compensation!" Lucas scoffed, not even deigning to answer her. He cast an apologetic glance in my direction. "Ms. Vance, I'm sorry you had to witness this circus." Seeing Lucas ignore her completely, Brenda whipped around and aimed all her venom directly at me. She stormed up until her finger was inches from my nose. "It's you, isn't it?! This is all your dirty work! Over ten years ago, you tore me away from my daughter, and now you come here to ruin her wedding! How can a woman be as vile and vicious as you?!"My hand holding the water glass paused for half a second. Then, I slowly set the glass back on the table. I stood up. I was half a head taller than Brenda, and I looked down at her coldly. "If you want to drag up what happened ten years ago in front of all these people, I'd be more than happy to clear the air." Brenda took a step back, her aggressive bravado shrinking visibly. "Back then, you looked down on David for being broke. You thought he had no future, so you abandoned your ten-year-old daughter and ran off with a sleazy building contractor." My voice wasn't loud, but every crisp syllable carried effortlessly across the silent ballroom. "The day you walked out, it was pouring rain. Your child had a burning fever, but you didn't even spare her a single glance before you grabbed your luggage and fled." "David rushed her to the emergency room, sitting outside the ICU on the cold hospital bench all night long." Brenda's face drained of color. "You're lying! That's not how it happened at all—" "I'm lying?" I cut her off, taking a step forward. Brenda instinctively stepped back again. "That was the year I launched my company. David was my very first employee." "He worked for me by day and hauled bricks on construction sites by night, killing himself working two jobs." "When your daughter needed to be picked up from school, I picked her up. When she had parent-teacher conferences, I showed up. When she got her very first period and cried her eyes out in sheer terror, I was the one who held her hand and taught her how to use a pad. And you? Where the hell were you?" Brenda opened and closed her mouth, completely speechless. I turned away from her and shifted my gaze onto Chloe, who stood paralyzed beside us. She looked as though she had been struck by lightning. Her bridal makeup was ruined, smudged beneath bloodshot, terrified eyes. "You're twenty years old today. When I first met you, you were barely ten." My tone suddenly dropped into a quiet, chilling calm. "Do you remember what kind of state you were in back then?" Tears instantly welled in Chloe's eyes, spilling over and streaming down her cheeks. "You cowered in corners. You refused to speak, refused to make eye contact. Your teachers warned us you were slipping into severe clinical withdrawal." "Every morning, I sat with you through breakfast. Every night, I read you bedtime stories. Every weekend, I took you to Central Park, patiently teaching you step by step how to interact with the world." Chloe clamped a hand over her mouth, her shoulders trembling violently. "From childhood until now, every single cent of your private school tuition, your violin lessons, and your elite tutoring came out of my pocket." "On your eighteenth birthday, I transferred ten percent of my company's shares into your name. You promised me then that you would always love and honor me, that you would treat me just like your real mother." I paused, staring straight into her tear-soaked eyes. "All those words... did you completely forget them?" With a loud thud, Chloe dropped to her knees on the floor. "Mom—" She choked, sobs ripping through her throat. She collapsed forward, reaching out a trembling hand to grab the hem of my trousers. Beside her, Brenda panicked, rushing over to drag her back to her feet. "Why are you kneeling to her?! Get up! Have some self-respect!" Chloe violently shoved Brenda's hands away with so much force that Brenda stumbled backward. "Get away from me!" Chloe screamed at Brenda through her tears. Brenda froze, utterly stunned. "Why did you have to come back?! Why did you have to show up at my wedding?!" "For the past six months, you kept whispering in my ear that stepmothers are all fake, that only biological mothers truly love you! You told me to squeeze all her money out of her and kick her to the curb!"Chloe's voice shook uncontrollably. She pointed an accusing finger at Brenda, her words cutting like jagged blades. "And I actually listened to you. I was stupid enough to listen to your damn lies!" Every drop of blood drained from Brenda's face. Her lips twitched, but she couldn't form a coherent sentence. Chloe crawled forward on her knees until she gripped the bottom of my slacks, looking up at me with eyes so bloodshot they looked ready to bleed. "Mom, I was wrong. I was so, so wrong." "When she came back, I lost my mind." "She told me she regretted abandoning me, that she wanted to be a real mother to me again. I thought she genuinely loved me. I thought..." She shook from head to toe, sobbing so hard she could barely catch her breath. "I'm sorry. Please don't throw me away. I'm begging you... you're my only real mother." Brenda lost her temper completely, lunging forward to violently yank Chloe by the shoulders. "What the hell are you saying?! Didn't we plan all of this together?!" "Didn't you promise we'd bleed her dry of all her wealth so our real family could live the high life?! Are you stabbing me in the back now?!" Her voice was a razor-sharp screech, echoing wildly across the cavernous ballroom. Chloe violently slapped her hands away, her gaze burning with pure hatred. "Our real family? Who the hell is your family?!" "You dumped me like trash ten years ago! Now you come crawling back the second you see I'm rich! You don't deserve to be my mother!" Brenda's face flushed red, then pale, then red again. After stammering for words, she whipped around and glared at me with sheer malice. "It's all you! You brainwashed her! You stole my daughter from me!" Looking at her, I felt a sudden urge to laugh—and a dry chuckle actually escaped my throat. "I stole your daughter? How do you even have the shameless audacity to say that out loud?" Brenda's jaw dropped, utterly speechless. It was only then that David finally stepped out from the crowd. He had been hiding in the shadowy corner the entire time, keeping his head down, not uttering a single word. He walked over to me, lifting his head. His eyes were horrifyingly red. "Vivian, that's enough humiliation for one day. Let's just go home." He reached out to take my arm. I took a deliberate step back. His hand froze in midair. "David, I want a divorce." His hand slowly dropped to his side. It looked as if he had been struck square in the chest by a sledgehammer; his shoulders caved in, his spine bowing. He remained silent for a long, agonizing moment before finally nodding. "I know. I failed you." His voice was so quiet it was barely audible. "Whatever you want, I'll agree to it." "You will leave with nothing. The company shares, every asset under your name—I am taking everything back." At those words, David's body swayed slightly, but he didn't argue. He looked at me deeply one last time, then hung his head. "Okay." He agreed without a fight. Beside him, Brenda shrieked in horror. "Are you insane?! Leave with nothing?! Then what's going to happen to you and me?!" David turned his head toward her, his gaze as frigid as if he were looking at a complete stranger. "That has nothing to do with you. Our family's affairs are none of your damn business." With that, he turned and walked away. Chloe was still kneeling on the marble floor, her sobs weakening into whimpers. I walked straight past her without casting a single downward glance, heading directly for the heavy double doors of the ballroom. Behind me, the weeping erupted once more, sharper and more desperate than before. "Mom! Mom, don't leave! Please, I'm begging you!"By the time I returned to the estate, it was already late afternoon. I lingered in the foyer for a moment. As I bent down to change into my slippers, my eyes caught a framed drawing still taped to the side of the shoe cabinet. It was a yellowed piece of paper Chloe had drawn as a little girl. Three stick figures stood side by side beneath crooked lines, with words scrawled in crayon: *Daddy, Mommy, and Me.* I stared at that drawing for a long time. Then, I reached out, peeled it off, tore it cleanly down the middle, and tossed it into the trash can. "Martha." Martha, the housekeeper, hurried out of the kitchen, flour dusting her hands. Seeing the icy look on my face, she froze. "Ma'am, why are you home so early? Isn't the wedding..." "Pack up every single belonging of the young lady and Mr. Miller. Leave nothing behind. Do it immediately." Martha stared in shock, her mouth opening as if to protest, but one look at my expression made her swallow her words. She turned around to fetch storage bins right away. I walked up to the second floor. Passing Chloe's bedroom, my footsteps paused. Her door was wide open. The room was decorated like a fairy-tale princess suite—blush pink curtains, a white vintage vanity, and a neat row of designer plushies I had bought for her lining the headboard. I stepped inside, standing in the center of the room to look around. The walls were covered in framed photographs spanning from when she was ten to twenty years old. Every single one had been taken by me. As I turned to leave, my gaze swept across the walk-in closet. The door was half-open, revealing a bespoke red designer dress hanging inside. She had worn that to her college graduation; I had specially commissioned an overseas designer to custom-make it for her. She had taken countless photos in that dress, posting them to Instagram with the caption: *The best mother in the entire world.* That Instagram post had featured a selfie of the two of us smiling together. Yet, six months ago, she had begun to change. She stopped answering my calls, left my messages on read, and made up endless excuses whenever I invited her out to dinner. I had assumed she was simply too busy falling in love, and I was genuinely happy for her. Now I finally understood: by that time, Brenda had already sunk her claws into her. And I had known nothing. I had spent those months moving heaven and earth to organize her dream wedding, thinking only of how to give her a life of luxury and prestige. I turned and walked out of the bedroom, running into Martha at the threshold. "Ma'am, most of the things are packed." "Move everything into the garage. Tell them to pick it up within three days. If they don't, throw it all in the dumpster." Martha nodded, carrying the heavy boxes downstairs. I headed down to the living room and sat down on the leather sofa. Just then, frantic footsteps echoed from the foyer. "Mom! Mom!" Chloe burst through the front door. "Mom, I was wrong! Please forgive me, please!" "I was tricked by that woman! She told me she was sorry, that she wanted to make it up to me, that she wanted her daughter back. I was an idiot and believed her!" She sobbed hysterically, gasping for air. "In my heart, you've always been my real mother! I just lost my mind for a second. I know I messed up, please don't abandon me!" I shifted sideways on the sofa, deliberately putting distance between us. "Martha has already packed your things. Move them out within three days."