Chapter 1

Right in the middle of our wedding live stream, just as we were about to exchange rings, the giant LED screen went pitch black.

Seconds later, a grainy, hidden-camera video appeared before all six hundred guests.

In the video, I was wearing a mask, walking into a luxury hotel.

Three minutes later, a tall, broad-shouldered man caught up with me, wrapping his arms around me from behind.

I turned around, a radiant smile on my face, embracing him tightly.

The scene cut.

At 1:00 AM, the two of us finally walked out of that hotel room together.

The timestamp in the corner showed the night before Carter and I signed our marriage license.

There were six hundred high-society guests sitting in the grand ballroom.

And on the TikTok live stream, over a million viewers were watching in real time.

The comment section froze for a single second, and then exploded into a vicious frenzy.

【The bride is cheating?!】

【Carter got cuckolded on his own wedding day?!】

【No freaking way! Getting married tomorrow, but creeping in a hotel room the night before?】

【And this guy spends every day teaching millions of people how to keep a relationship honest! His own wife is a cheating snake!】

Everyone was screaming that I was an adulteress.

None of them knew that the man in the video was my biological brother.

"Chloe."

It was the first time Carter had ever called me by my full first name without warmth. His face was pure stone.

"Is that you in the video?"

I bit my lower lip hard, trembling. "Cut the live stream. Turn it off first... please, Carter."

He didn't move an inch.

He touched his earpiece, listening to something being fed to him from behind the scenes. The last trace of warmth in his eyes completely vanished.

"Why should I turn it off?"

I looked at him pleadingly. "Carter, this is our wedding! My dad is sitting right down there!"

Carter's voice turned icy. "Precisely because this is our wedding, we need to make things crystal clear right here, right now."

"I've spent seven years as a relationship guru. I've built my brand telling millions of followers that love cannot survive on lies."

"Today, I won't run from the truth just because the person standing across from me is my bride."

Five years ago, Carter was just a nobody streaming out of a tiny studio apartment to barely seven hundred followers.

He sat in front of a cheap webcam, talking about heartbreak.

No production team. No lighting. Even his microphone had a buzzing glitch.

Now, he was one of the internet's biggest lifestyle and relationship influencers, commanding six-figure checks for a single sponsored mention.

Everyone told me how lucky I was. A quiet scriptwriter, marrying Carter Evans at the peak of his fame and wealth.

The chat was flying by at a nauseating speed.

I gripped my bouquet so tight the hidden thorns pierced my palm. "Carter, when the ceremony is over, I will explain everything to you in private—"

Carter cut me off ruthlessly. "I want you to explain it right now. Is that you in the footage, yes or no?"

I looked into his eyes and whispered, "Yes."

The ballroom erupted into chaos.

Carter's eyes instantly turned bloodshot. "Who is that man?"

"I can tell you, but privately."

"You can't say his name in front of everyone?"

"No!"

"Chloe..." Carter's voice quivered with suppressed fury. "You won't even tell me who he is, and you expect me to believe you're innocent?"

Suddenly, a loud crash echoed through the hall.

My father had stood up so abruptly that his heavy chair tipped backward, slamming onto the polished marble floor.

"Carter!"

My dad was sixty-five. He had put on a custom suit for the very first time in his life just to walk me down the aisle.

From the moment he led me into the chapel, tears hadn't stopped shining in his eyes.

Now, he was clutching the edge of the dining table, his face dangerously pale.

"Cut the damn broadcast," my dad wheezed, his voice shaking. "Whatever needs to be said, we talk about it as a family behind closed doors!"

Carter didn't budge.

Instead, his manager, Amanda, stepped out from behind the soundboard. She was impeccably dressed in a sharp white power suit, her production badge swinging against her chest.

"I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Vance," Amanda said in a practiced, professional tone.

"This wedding stream is tied to an exclusive platform contract. If we terminate the feed without authorization, the breach-of-contract penalty runs into seven figures."

"Besides, the narrative has already blown up online. Turning the cameras off now won't fix anything."

My dad's lips trembled with pure rage. "Does money matter more than my daughter?!"

Amanda gave a tiny, condescending smile.

"Carter needs the truth precisely because he cares about Chloe. As her father, I'm sure you wouldn't want your daughter sneaking around on her husband either, would you?"

"Shut your mouth!"

Dad slammed his hand onto the table.

In the very next second, his entire body swayed violently.

I dropped my bouquet and sprinted down the altar steps.

"Dad!"