He Invited Me to His Wedding Novel Chapter 3 – The more I spoke, the more the tears came, unstoppable and hot against my skin.
“No one knows better than you how much I’ve wanted a home,” I choked out. “But you’ ve never once cared
how much it hurts me!”
“Now Grace shows up, and she gets-just like that-everything I begged you for! You’ re making me feel like the past ten years of my life were nothing but a joke!”
I’d never lost control like this in front of Ethan before. The fury in my voice seemed to startle him.
“Lily, you’ re overreacting,” he said sharply. “Come on, it’s just a wedding. You know I’m not leaving you’
“And anyway, haven’t I already given you a home? This place-we live here together, don’t we?”
“You know damn well that’s not what I mean.”
His voice rose, matching mine.
“Lily Bennett, ever since you got pregnant, you’ve been acting so dramatic. You blow up over everything!”
“Honestly, maybe I shouldn’t have invited you to the wedding at all. You wouldn’t be making such a scene if
you didn’t know about it.”
“If Grace hadn’t insisted on sending you the invitation, I never would’ ve told you.
Before I realized it, I’d slapped him.
“Ethan Cole, you bastard!”
I didn’t expect him to strike back.
But he did.
The slap rang through the apartment like a gunshot. For a moment, everything went silent.
I stood frozen, the sting on my cheek burning.
“You hit me?” My voice trembled. “I’m carrying your child, and you hit me?”
Ethan’s expression flickered with regret.
“I’m sorry, Lily. I didn’t mean to. I just wanted to snap you out of it.”
But I couldn’t hear him anymore. My chest felt like it was tearing apart.
I swung my arm across the table, knocking over the table, plates shattered, red wine bled across the floor.
“I’m done, Ethan! Enough of your I’ll love you forever bullshit! You said I didn’t need a wedding or a marriage license to be your wife and I believed you! What a joke!”
My gaze fell on the photo hanging on the wall- the one where I was wearing a veil, smiling into his arms.
I’d begged him for weeks to take those engagement photos with me’.
Looking at it now, it was the cruelest thing I’d ever seen.
I climbed onto a chair, ripped the frame from the wall, and smashed it to the floor.
The glass shattered with a sharp crack, scattering across the tiles like the last pieces of my pride.
“Lily, are you out of your mind?!”
“I am out of my mind!” I screamed. “Because only a crazy woman would stay with you for ten years! Only someone insane would carry your child without even a title to her name!”
“You don’t want to marry me, fine. But you don’t get to marry someone else!”
Ethan grabbed his keys and turned for the door.
“You’ re hysterical. Cool off first
– we’ll talk later.”
“Ethan, don’t you walk out on me!”
I moved toward him, and my foot slipped on the broken glass. I lost my balance and fell hard from the chair.
Ethan froze, panic flashing across his face.
“Lily! What the hell-why are you so careless?”
Pain shot through my abdomen.
“Take me to the hospital,” I gasped.
He rushed me into the Silverline S-Class Sedan, muttering under his breath as he drove.
“Thank God you’ re already in the stable stage of pregnancy. If something happened to our baby, you’ d never forgive yourself.”
Through gritted teeth, I whispered, “Why should I be the one to regret it? Shouldn’t you be the one?”
“If you hadn’t lost your temper, you wouldn’t have fallen!”
The pain was blinding now, too much for another word.
“Just drive,” I said weakly.
Halfway to Riverton Medical Center, his phone rang.
“Ethan,” Grace’ s voice chirped through the speakers, sweet and fragile. “The wedding dress I picked doesn’
t feel right. Can you come help me choose another one?”
Ethan’s hands tightened on the wheel.
He turned his head to glance at me-just as I turned to look at him.
And in that moment, the silence between us said everything that needed to be said.