He Gave Her an Hour, I Chose Another Groom in Seconds Chapter 09
“You want the privileges of an heir but can’t handle the responsibility. You can’t stay faithful enough to be a good husband. The only worthwhile thing you’ve ever had in your life was a brilliant fiancée like Chloe. But you were foolish, ungrateful, and you threw her away.”
Charlie looked down at Silas sprawled on the pavement. “Leave. And don’t make me explain to your parents exactly what their son has cost them tonight. When word gets out, you’ll be the one humiliated, not me.”
Silas ground his teeth together, watching the car pull away, tires humming against the asphalt. He didn’t dare chase after it.
Inside the vehicle, Charlie held the steering wheel with one hand. While waiting for a traffic light, he reached over and covered my hand with his, his thumb brushing my knuckles.
“Shall I assign security to keep him away? I’ll also give the Johnson family a call this evening to make everything clear.”
I shook my head, my voice quieter than I expected. “There’s no need. His ego’s always been brittle. I don’t think he’ll bother me again.”
After that day, Silas never appeared outside my office building again.
Word spread that he’d returned to the Johnson family headquarters and thrown himself into the family business.
But just as Charlie had predicted, his reckless decisions—driven by a desperate need to prove himself—outpaced his actual ability.
At first, he tried to leverage his family’s influence to prove himself. He
—
signed off on multiple projects without consulting anyone,
determined to achieve success to show me what he was capable of.
But reality struck him hard.
Short-sighted choices, chaotic management, and weak connections
led every project to crash, losing massive sums of money.
The Johnson fortune could not sustain his reckless mistakes for
long.
Soon, his voice carried less and less weight within the company. He
sank deeper into despair. The confident glow he once wore faded
completely, replaced by permanent weariness.
Time slipped by, and the day of my wedding with Charlie arrived.
The day before the ceremony, Charlie and I finished our wedding
rehearsal at the hotel and headed downstairs to the restaurant menu
tasting.
We’d barely stepped into the lobby when sharp, harsh shouting drifted
toward us. “…Are you blind? How can you spill red wine all over a
guest? You’re completely useless! Do you think this hotel is a shelter
for dead weight like you?”
The speaker was the hotel lobby manager. The person being chewed
out, head bowed and nodding repeatedly, was Willa.
She wore a uniform hanging loose on her frame, her hair haphazardly
pinned up. Her makeup was thin, with heavy dark circles under her
eyes.
Willa forced a humble smile, repeating nonstop apologies: “I’m so
sorry. It won’t happen again.”
—
Right then, she lifted her head and locked eyes with me.
Her panic flickered, then twisted into something resembling hope.
Ignoring the manager yelling at her, she hurried over and tried to grab
my sleeve. Charlie subtly stepped between us to block her.
“Chloe! It really is you!” Willa’s voice dripped with forced brightness.
“Tomorrow’s your big wedding day, right? Congratulations! I know I
was awful to you before. Don’t hold it against me, Chloe.”
She spoke rapidly, afraid I would cut her off. “Actually, I did you a
favor, didn’t I? If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have seen how terrible
Silas really was. Can’t we just forget the past? Please?”