Ficorpio
Chapter 1
Chapter 1
The first notes of the wedding march drifted through the ballroom, rich and solemn beneath the glitter of crystal chandeliers. Light shattered overhead and spilled across my mermaid wedding gown in flecks of gold. The emcee stood at the front with a microphone, beaming as he counted down in an excited voice.
“Three—two—one! Let’s welcome the groom, Mr. Ethan Sterling!”
The spotlight snapped toward the entrance.
And found no one.
My fingers tightened around the white rose bridal bouquet until the thorns bit deep into my palm, but the sting was nothing compared to the cold spreading through my chest. A wave of whispers rolled through the room. In the front row, my mother discreetly wiped at her tears. Ethan’s mother had gone white as paper.
Then my phone started vibrating wildly in my pocket.
The screen flashed with Ethan Sterling.
I drew in a breath and answered. Wind rushed through the line, and then Ethan’s hurried voice came through, strained and breathless. “Sophie, Annie suddenly spiked a fever. She’s crying and won’t let go of me. I really can’t leave right now… We’ll talk about the wedding when I get back. I’m sorry.”
In the background, Vanessa’s soft, coaxing voice was perfectly clear.
“Ethan, don’t panic so much. Annie just wants you to stay with her.”
Then a little girl’s bright cry rang out over the call.
“Daddy Ethan, the kite’s flying so high! Come look!”
For one stunned second, it felt as if I could actually hear my world caving in.
My free hand dropped to my stomach, to the faint curve beneath the layers of satin and lace. Our baby was already four months along.
I let out a quiet laugh into the phone, but tears hit my dress before I could stop them, darkening the white fabric in small damp circles.
“Ethan Sterling,” I said softly, “don’t bother coming back.”
The moment I hung up, a message from an unknown number popped onto my screen.
A photo.
Ethan was running across a lawn hand in hand with Annie. Vanessa was looped around his other arm, leaning against him with easy intimacy. The three of them formed a perfect little triangle under the sun, the kind of picture that looked like it belonged in a brochure for happy families.
My thumb moved across the screen and deleted it.
Calmly. Too calmly.
I turned and looked out at the crowd, at the faces rising and falling in the sea of whispers. Some looked sympathetic. Some looked embarrassed for me. Some were openly entertained.
I walked straight to the emcee, took the microphone from his hand, and felt the chill of the metal spread across my skin.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice carrying cleanly through the ballroom, “that all of you had to witness this farce.”
The room went dead silent. Every eye locked onto me.
Chapter 2
Chapter 2
I straightened my back, the skirt of my gown sweeping in a pale arc beneath the lights.
“Mr. Ethan Sterling has chosen not to attend his own wedding because he had another urgent appointment to keep. But I, Sophie Bennett, am done waiting for him.”
I paused, the words landing one by one.
“Starting now, our engagement is over.”
The ballroom exploded.
Gasps. Murmurs. Chairs scraping.
Ethan’s mother stumbled onto the stage, tears streaming down her face. Her thin fingers clamped around my wrist so tightly it felt like bone grinding against bone.
“Sophie! Sophie, don’t do this on impulse!” she cried. “Ethan’s a doctor. Saving lives is his duty. That poor child has suffered so much—he couldn’t just leave her there!”
Her voice broke as she clutched me harder.
“I’m apologizing for him. Please, just give him one more chance. Just one last chance.”
I looked at the white in her hair, at the tears cut deep into the lines of her face, and something sour and aching twisted inside me.
Once, this was exactly how I had convinced myself to forgive him.
A doctor’s compassion.
That was the excuse every time.
On my birthday, he canceled because Vanessa’s daughter had a fever.
The morning we were supposed to take our wedding photos, he rushed off after an “emergency call for help.”
Even the day I told him I was pregnant, he stopped to bring Annie imported medicine before he came home to me.
But this time—
This time was our wedding.
Gently but firmly, I pried her fingers from my wrist.
“Aunt Linda,” I said quietly, “I used to tell myself over and over that his patients would always come first. But today I finally understand something. Some favoritism has nothing to do with his profession.”
I held her gaze.
“It has everything to do with where his heart really is.”
I reached up and removed my veil. The fine netting, sewn with scattered crystals, had once held every expectation I had for marriage. Now it felt unbearably heavy. I pressed the veil and the bouquet into her arms together.
“I’ll respect his compassion,” I said. “And I’ll let myself go too.”
Then I gathered up the skirt of my gown and walked off the stage.
Step by step.
As I passed the guest tables, someone handed me a tissue. Someone else murmured a few soft words of comfort. Those small kindnesses glimmered through my humiliation like distant light.
I didn’t look back.
I didn’t cry again.
I just kept my spine straight and walked out of the ballroom that had held seven years of my love, my hope, and everything I had once believed my future would be.
Chapter 3
Chapter 3
When I got back to the house we’d bought for our marriage, every room still looked like a future we had built together.
Wedding decorations covered the walls. My skincare bottles were lined up across the vanity exactly where I’d arranged them. His suits hung beside my dresses in the closet, as if we were only a few hours away from the life we were supposed to begin.
Now all of it felt like a joke.
Without a second of hesitation, I took out my phone and booked a pregnancy termination by induction at a private women’s clinic. Then I started packing.
My clothes, my books, my camera gear—one by one, I put everything into boxes and suitcases with calm, methodical movements, as if I were clearing out a guest room that had nothing to do with me.
The moment I zipped my suitcase shut, I heard a key turning in the front door.
Ethan rushed in. There were bits of grass clinging to his white coat, sweat beading at his temples, his breathing ragged as he stared at me.
“Sophie!” he said. “Please, just listen to me. Annie really wasn’t okay today. Her face turned blue, she was struggling to breathe, and when I saw her, I just—she reminded me of myself when I was little…”
He reached for me, trying to pull me into his arms. I stepped aside.
His hands froze in midair, panic flashing across his face.
“I was raised by my mom too,” he said hoarsely. “I know what it’s like to grow up without a father. She’s my patient’s child. I couldn’t just ignore her.”
He looked at me desperately. “I only feel sorry for Vanessa. You’re the one I really love. You have to believe me.”
Sorry for her?
I thought of the phone full of pictures of Annie’s daily life. I thought of the five-figure surgery bill he’d paid for Vanessa. I thought of the photo of mother and daughter tucked inside his wallet. I thought of all those nights he’d been summoned away by Vanessa’s calls.
Maybe love really could begin with too much empathy. But once that empathy crossed the line, it became betrayal in its rawest form.
I looked at the man standing in front of me—the man I had once been proud to love.
He was the hospital’s youngest associate chief physician, the rising star everyone admired, the perfect fiancé every older relative praised.
And he was also a coward.
A coward who had swayed back and forth between me and another woman, and treated my love as something that would always be there no matter what he did.
“Ethan.” A bitter smile tugged at my mouth. “I never once tried to stop you from being a good doctor. I was proud of you for it. But can you tell me something? Does a doctor’s duty include giving a patient’s family your private number? Paying huge medical bills out of your own pocket? Skipping your own wedding so you can go fly a kite with another woman’s child?”
His eyes reddened instantly.