Nine Rejected Marriages, I Wed My Ex's Rival

Amelia sat alone at the City Marriage Bureau, watching the clock tick down to closing time.

Fifteen minutes before the doors shut, a phone call shattered her last flicker of hope. Her fiancé, Kayson, wasn't coming. He had abandoned their wedding registration because Kamila-her stepsister-had twisted her ankle.

It was his ninth broken promise.

When Amelia returned home, there was no comfort. Her biological mother sneered at her humiliation, shielding the stepsister while ordering Amelia to apologize to Kayson.

"Who would she marry without Kayson?" her mother mocked. "Let's see how long she survives out there without his money."

Meanwhile, Kayson arrogantly dismissed her absence. Finding out she had vanished, he just laughed it off with his assistant.

"It's just a tantrum to force my hand," Kayson smirked. "She still can't live without me."

After nine years of absolute devotion, she was nothing but a convenient placeholder to the man she loved, and a worthless joke to her own family. The suffocating weight of their betrayal finally snapped something inside her.

She packed a single suitcase, threw away nine years of anniversary gifts, and permanently blocked Kayson's number.

Standing in the freezing wind, she pulled out her phone and dialed the private number of Kayson's biggest, most ruthless rival.

"Mr. Thornton, what you said seven months ago... does the offer to marry me still stand?"

Ten minutes later, a sleek black Maybach pulled up to the curb.