Title:The Contract Bride's Secret Heir
Genre: Romance / Drama / Modern Billionaire
Opening Scene:
The groom doesn't show up at the altar—but the bride does. Alone. In front of cameras, reporters, and a scandalized high-society crowd.
The Contract Bride's Secret Heir
Chapter 1: "You May Now Humiliate the Bride"
The bouquet slipped from her hands.
It landed with a dull thud on the marble floor of the cathedral, petals scattering like broken promises around her white heels.
Whispers erupted behind her, venomous and hungry.
"Where is he?"
"Was this some kind of joke?"
"Left at the altar… poor girl."
Elara stood beneath the towering stained-glass window, spine straight, chin raised, heart bleeding. Cameras flashed like lightning in a storm, and the reporters—God, the reporters—were already angling for statements, smelling scandal like sharks in water.
She didn't blink. Not once.
Instead, she turned slowly, deliberately, facing the crowd that had come to witness a wedding—and instead found a public execution.
"Ladies and gentlemen," she said, her voice slicing through the hush like a blade, "I regret to inform you that the groom has… decided to postpone."
A scoff rang out. Someone in the back laughed bitterly.
"Elara," a voice hissed from the side. Her mother, already storming down the aisle, heels clicking, voice low and sharp. "What are you doing? Do not speak to them. This is a disaster—we can still salvage the story."
"I'm tired of stories," Elara murmured.
And then louder, louder than the shame, louder than the headlines already being typed—
"I'll make a statement."
"Elara, no—"
But she stepped away from the altar, veil trembling in the drafty silence. Her hands were ice. Her throat was sandpaper. And yet, her eyes burned with something fierce. Something final.
"To everyone watching," she began, "this was never a love story. This was a business arrangement. A contract. And apparently, contracts are easier to break than hearts."
A gasp, a ripple, a hundred cell phones raised higher.
She kept going.
"Callan Roth didn't leave because he was scared of love. He left because he was never in it. This wedding was a merger, not a marriage. And now it's a massacre."
"Elara—" Her mother reached for her arm.
She shrugged her off.
"My name is Elara Wren. And from this day forward, I'm done being someone's deal. Someone's bargaining chip. Someone's beautiful little pawn."
The cathedral doors boomed open as she turned on her heel and walked down the aisle—not as a bride, but as something else.
Something reborn.
Outside, the rain had started, but she didn't care. It soaked through her designer gown. It smudged the makeup that had taken hours. But she walked anyway, straight past the stunned reporters, into the chaos of flashing lights and shouted questions.
"Elara! Where is Callan Roth?"
"Did he run away?"
"Was there another woman?!"
"Elara, are you pregnant?!"
That one stopped her in her tracks.
She didn't turn. Didn't answer.
Just… paused.
Then got into the black car that waited by the curb and slammed the door shut.
Inside, silence.
Her driver, Marcus, glanced at her in the rearview mirror. "Home, Miss Wren?"
She didn't answer immediately. Her hands shook as she reached up to remove the veil, now a crumpled mess. Her voice, when it came, was quiet.
"No," she said. "Take me to the penthouse. I need to pack."
Marcus blinked. "Pack? Are you… leaving?"
Her eyes met his through the mirror. "Yes."
"But where will you go?"
She leaned back against the seat, eyes heavy. "To find the only person who ever told me the truth."