Chapter 4: I Want to Break Off the Engagement

Nicole's POV

Everyone's eyes instantly fell on me, filled with judgment and suspicion.

Shier rushed up to me and cursed at me angrily.

"Fuck! Nicole, you bitch! Tell me! Which man did you just go fool around with?!"

Wendy looked at me with innocent eyes, but the smugness in them was impossible to hide.

I looked at them and let out a sarcastic cold laugh.

"Fool around? Who exactly abandoned his bride at the wedding and ran off to fool around with someone else? You should know that better than anyone."

Wendy's face instantly turned deathly pale, and tears immediately welled up in her eyes.

Shier pulled Wendy into his arms and yelled at me.

"I was just worried about Wendy. You're her sister. How can you be so heartless and cold-blooded?"

"Nicole, I was going to come back and continue with our wedding. You've embarrassed me so much!"

"Shier, don't talk to me about things you don't have."

I looked at him calmly.

Shier and Wendy, this pair of despicable people, actually had the right to talk to me about dignity and honor?

"Nicole, you..."

Shier was suddenly choked by my words, his face flushed red with anger.

Perhaps he would never understand why, in just one night, I had completely changed.

I was no longer the obedient, humble Nicole from before.

"Since you want to know so badly why I took off my wedding dress, I'll tell you."

"Because I don't want to continue this ridiculous wedding anymore."

"Shier Hall, I want to break off the engagement. The relationship between us is over!"

The anger on Shier's face froze, replaced by an expression of disbelief.

"Slap!"

A crisp, loud sound.

Doris rushed up to me and slapped me hard across the face.

My face whipped to the side, my cheek quickly swelling up, burning with pain.

I could even taste a hint of blood at the corner of my mouth.

"Nicole! Shut up!"

She trembled all over with rage, pointing at me and scolding.

"A daughter of the Gerald family cannot break off an engagement unless she's dead!"

At this moment, my heart died completely.

I thought I no longer needed any verification.

My parents had never loved me. In their eyes, there was only profit.

Now, by unilaterally proposing to cancel the engagement, I had violated their interests.

"Nicole, you idiot!"

Leighton said furiously, "Without the Gerald family's permission, you have no right to break off the engagement! Now apologize to Shier and make him forgive you!"

Looking at them, I only felt disgusted and wanted to vomit.

Leighton and Doris turned to face Shier, their faces showing fawning smiles again, begging for his forgiveness.

I watched this absurd scene coldly.

My birth mother, my fiancé, my sister, all stood against me.

They looked at me as if looking at a criminal.

Wendy continued with the previous topic.

"Nicole, what exactly did you just do? Did you sleep with another man, so now you want to cancel the engagement with Shier?"

It seemed that today, Wendy was determined to ruin my reputation here.

I showed a mocking smile.

"Do you want me to strip naked in this hall, in front of everyone, to prove my chastity?"

"The daughter of the Gerald family, Shier's fiancée, stripping naked in the wedding hall."

"This will be tomorrow's headline in Astoria."

Doris's face looked very bad.

What she cared about most was reputation.

But my father still wouldn't compromise. He ordered the waiter nearby.

"Go! Get the hotel manager here!"

"Search room by room! I don't believe that wedding dress can just disappear into thin air!"

The hotel staff were quickly summoned and began a carpet search of the bridal lounge and nearby guest rooms.

I stood there, my heart beating uncontrollably.

The room where the wedding dress was hidden, Wendy and Shier knew that Hodgson had rested there.

Once the wedding dress was found, the fact that Hodgson and I had slept together would be quickly exposed.

Half an hour passed, and the hotel manager came running back, covered in sweat.

"Mr. Gerald, Mrs. Gerald, all the rooms have been searched, and the wedding dress wasn't found."

My tense nerves finally completely relaxed at this moment.

It seemed that Hodgson had returned to the room after I left.

He must have had someone take away the wedding dress.

Wendy's voice rose sharply, "How is that possible?! Nicole clearly..."

"What are you saying, Wendy?" I stared at her coldly.

She didn't dare reveal the fact that I had been drugged, because she was the one who gave me that drink.

She needed to continue playing the role of the obedient daughter in front of our parents.

It wasn't until midnight that this absurd farce finally ended.

Even though Wendy was very unwilling and kept instigating Shier to find that man, without evidence, it could only be left unresolved.

Returning to the Gerald family's cold villa was when the real nightmare began.

Doris sat on the sofa, holding a horsewhip in her hand.

"Kneel down." She spoke in a commanding tone.

I stood there without moving.

"Mother, I did nothing wrong. Why should I kneel?"

"You still dare to talk back to me?!"

Doris suddenly stood up, and the horsewhip in her hand, carrying the sound of wind, lashed hard across my back!

Intense pain came.

I groaned, my body swaying, but I still gritted my teeth and stood straight.

This pain was nothing compared to the pain in my heart.

"I said, I did nothing wrong."

I glared at her viciously.

"I want to break off the engagement! I want to leave here!"

Doris approached me, her voice extremely low.

"Leave? Nicole, have you forgotten why you came back to Astoria?"

My heart suddenly sank.

"Your foster mother, lying in the hospital, whose life can only be sustained by spending enormous amounts of money every day."

"And your foster father who jumped to his death in Gardella."

"Do you want your foster mother to die as miserably as he did?"

Three years ago, my adoptive father committed suicide by jumping off a building due to the company's bankruptcy and huge debts.

My foster mother Vera was in a car accident on her way to the police station and became a vegetative patient.

I had begged my birth parents to bring Vera from Gardella to Astoria.

"What do you want to do to Vera? She's just a patient!"

I suddenly felt cold all over.

Doris's hand gently brushed across my cheek.

"Good child, do you want to watch your foster mother die in her hospital bed?"

She looked at me with satisfaction as I trembled all over, and the horsewhip lashed across my body again.

"Kneel down!"

I clenched my fists and finally knelt obediently before her.

"Good child, do you still want to break off the engagement?"

She asked me cruelly.