Chapter 4
The engagement banquet was set in the grand penthouse ballroom of a luxury downtown hotel.
The venue was heavily decorated that night.
A massive crystal chandelier hung suspended from the vaulted ceiling, casting brilliant light across the room.
The long banquet tables were draped in pure white linens, overflowing with white roses flown in overnight and hundreds of bottles of expensive champagne.
Nearly every influential politician, business tycoon, and socialite in the city was in attendance.
Mia arrived right on time.
She had dressed up meticulously, wearing an exquisite champagne-colored haute couture gown. Around her neck and wrists hung the highly valuable jewelry she had blatantly borrowed from my collection.
She wove through the high-society guests with the confidence of royalty, holding a champagne flute and engaging in skilled, effortless conversation—behaving entirely as if she were the hostess of the ball.
Prior to this, Sebastian had executed our plan perfectly. He sent her a brief text message, explicitly promising that halfway through the engagement banquet, he would display all the photos from her USB drive onto the main screen.
Mia believed this promise with absolute, unwavering conviction. She couldn't mask the triumphant excitement of a predator about to secure its victory.
At 8:30 PM, the ceremony reached its absolute climax.
The ballroom’s background music softened into a slow melody.
The master of ceremonies took the microphone and formally invited the bride’s "best friend" to the stage to deliver a toast.
Mia lifted the hem of her gown, smiled radiantly, and gracefully ascended the steps to the central stage.
The bright spotlight immediately hit her face.
She played the part of an absolute angel, her expression incredibly innocent and overflowing with emotion.
Holding the microphone, she swept her gaze across the hundreds of high-profile guests below and began speaking. "Good evening, everyone. As Chloe's best friend since childhood, seeing her finally find true love tonight leaves me truly moved."
She paused, letting her eyes turn slightly red as though fighting back tears.
"To express my deepest blessings, I’ve carefully prepared a very special gift. It’s a documentary photo slide containing so many of our precious, heartwarming memories together. I wanted to use this beautiful occasion to give it to Chloe as a profound surprise."
Holding a tall flute of champagne, I stood silently in the shadows cast by the dazzling light, watching her perform exactly like a clown.
At my wedding in my previous life, she used this exact same script and phrasing.
That day, the giant screens suddenly flashed those traumatizing photos of my assault in the hotel room.
As the entire crowd erupted in horrified gasps, Mia immediately clapped her hands over her mouth, staggered backward, and let out a fake, shrill scream. "Oh my god! How could those pictures be up there?!"
Seconds later, Julian stormed over and violently slapped me across the face in front of hundreds of people.
He viciously accused me of deceiving him, declaring that he was the one who released this evidence of my supposed promiscuity.
He loudly announced he did it to teach me a lesson, screaming that I was fundamentally shameless.
He then canceled the wedding right on the spot, abandoning me entirely to face the horrific maelstrom of public scandal.
Through that flawlessly executed trick, Julian gracefully exited the stage as the heartbroken, victimized fiancé who was tragically deceived by an awful woman.
And Mia? She cleanly maintained her act as the innocent, pure best friend who knew absolutely nothing.
I knew damn well she was preparing to run the exact same play tonight.
Once those fabricated, scandalous photos of me were projected on the screen, she would logically shift all the blame completely onto Sebastian. She just had to feign total ignorance to keep her own hands perfectly pristine.
I took a slow, measured sip of champagne and turned my head.
Sebastian was standing directly at the main audiovisual control console on the side of the grand hall.
Wearing a sleek black formal suit, he rested one hand lightly on the equipment panel. His sharp gaze elegantly cut through the dense crowd, instantly locking onto me.
We exchanged a silent, absolute stare of mutual understanding across the room.
Basking under the brilliant spotlight, Mia had absolutely zero clue that the images about to be blasted onto the giant screen were actually hard evidence against her—evidence Sebastian and I had seamlessly swapped out.
Onstage, Mia was becoming more immersed in her own performance by the second, even lifting a finger to delicately dab a fake tear of joy from the corner of her eye.
She took a deep breath, raised the microphone high, and eagerly announced to the massive crowd.
"And now, please direct your attention to the main screen."
At that exact second, at the side control console, Sebastian's long finger pressed down hard on the play button.
Click.
Every single section of the massive crystal chandelier in the grand ballroom instantly blacked out.
In the sudden, tense silence of the absolute dark, the gigantic LED screen covering the back wall powered on, erupting with a blinding flash of stark white light...
