The Bride They Called A Mistress

On what was supposed to be the happiest day of my life, Rhys told the crowd we were going to play one last game before the reception wound down. The next second, a tiered wedding cake was smashed into my face, followed by half-empty champagne flutes emptied over my head. Buttercream and sparkling wine dripped down my collarbones, soaking into custom French lace. The bridal suite erupted into laughter. Groomsmen high-fived; bridesmaids giggled behind manicured fingers. Then someone shouted over the din: "Hey, someone in this room is gonna be a daddy! Care to guess who?" My breath hitched. My hand moved instinctively to my flat stomach. I had just found out yesterday; I had tucked the positive test into my clutch, waiting for the quiet of our hotel suite to tell him. "Did he already know?" I opened my mouth, a breathless smile forming on my lips. Before I could speak, Rhys’s best man cut through the music: "Rhys, obviously! Who else?" I froze. Through the haze of expensive cigar smoke, Rhys leaned against the marble fireplace, his expression languid, almost bored. The smoke veiled the sharp cut of his jaw. "He's right," Rhys drawled. Before my brain could even process the words to celebrate, he took another slow drag and looked right through me. "Giselle and I actually signed our marriage license three years ago," he said, flicking ash onto the hardwood. "She caught wind of this wedding today and got so hysterical she nearly miscarried. The boys were just letting off some steam on her behalf." The air left my lungs in a violent rush. "What... what did you just say?" A half-smile curved his lips. Cruel. Detached. "I'm saying you're the other woman, Marina." A high-pitched ringing flooded my ears. My fingertips began to tremble so hard I couldn't hold my wrists steady. For one endless second, the room fell dead silent—and then it broke into a chorus of jeering, mocking laughter. "Don't cry," Rhys murmured, pushing off the mantle and stepping toward me, his hand reaching out as if to wipe away the tears pooling on my cheeks. "It’s not like I’m throwing you away." My hand moved before my mind could stop it. The slap echoed through the room like a gunshot. The force of it sent a shockwave of pain straight up to my shoulder. Rhys didn’t flinch. He just tilted his head, the tip of his tongue pressing slowly against the inside of his bruised cheek. His gaze darkened. "Can't take a little joke?" he whispered, his voice dangerously soft. "You haven't even gone to Giselle to beg for her forgiveness yet." … A bone-deep chill seized me. Shame, disbelief, and a suffocating sense of degradation clawed at my throat, and the tears spilled over, hot and bitter against the cold grease of the cake frosting. I had spent three months meticulously planning this day. I had surrendered the biggest client portfolio at my firm to a junior associate just to clear a two-week leave for this wedding. I had tolerated his friends' crude jokes, their frat-boy arrogance, their endless hazing—all because I loved him, because I wanted so desperately to fit into his world. And now he was telling me this entire spectacle was nothing more than a public execution to placate his real wife. I gripped the skirt of my wedding gown until the hand-sewn crystals bit into the soft flesh of my palms, drawing sharp pinpricks of pain. Rhys noticed my gaze dropping to the dress. He let out a soft, pitying sigh. "Speaking of which... Giselle wore that exact gown to an archival charity gala two years ago," he remarked casually. "You two have almost identical measurements." The dress. He had looked me in the eye when he gave it to me, brushing his thumb over my cheek, whispering that a woman only marries once, that he wanted me to blind every person in the room. He told me he had commissioned it privately from a Parisian atelier. It featured an open back—bold, plunging, provocative. It wasn't my style at all; I had always favored understated silk. But because his eyes lit up when I wore it, I had swallowed my discomfort and smiled. It wasn't made for me. It was someone else’s cast-off. "Why?" My voice shook violently, tearing out of my chest. "If you were already married, why did you pursue me? Why spend seven years making a fool out of me? Why humiliate me like this?!" Rhys reached out again, his thumb catching a falling tear with terrifying tenderness. He sounded almost exhausted, like a parent dealing with a petulant toddler. "Why are you crying again? If you're going to be this hysterical, how am I supposed to take you to the hospital?" "I am not going anywhere with you! We're done, Rhys! We're over!" Grief turned into blind rage. I raised my fists to beat against his chest, but he caught my wrists in one large, calloused hand, twisting them back effortlessly until I was pinned against him. "Stop acting out," he snapped, his patience wearing thin. "Giselle and I are a business merger. It was supposed to stay behind closed doors. But you just had to post that wedding registry on Instagram, didn't you? You just had to tell the whole damn world." My chest seized, an arctic cold settling over my ribs. Just last night, this man had wrapped his arms around me from behind while I brushed my teeth, whispering into my neck about our future. He had told me he wanted a four-bedroom colonial in the suburbs. He talked about building out the nursery early. He said my parents were getting older, that we should buy the townhouse down the street so they could drop by whenever they wanted. He promised me honeymoons in Iceland and Hokkaido. He had even brainstormed names for our future children—a boy and a girl, the perfect pair. And now, with a snap of his fingers, I had been branded a shameless homewrecker. While he turned to grab his jacket, my trembling hands fished my phone from my purse. With blurred vision, I sent a panicked SOS to my parents. When Rhys dragged me out of the car at the hospital entrance, I tried to bolt. But the heavy yards of tulle and soaked satin tangled between my ankles. I stumbled hard onto the asphalt, gravel biting into my skin, leaving a jagged, purple contusion across my forearm. Rhys sighed, crouching beside me. He ruffled my hair, the way he always did when he thought I was overreacting. "Be a good girl, Marina. Nothing bad is going to happen. You’re just going to apologize to Giselle. With me there, what are you so afraid of?" Ignoring my muffled sobs and frantic struggles, he pulled me to my feet and shoved me through the heavy glass doors of the private wing. The door to room 804 was pushed open. The chatter inside died instantly. Before my eyes could adjust to the harsh fluorescent lighting, a heavy hand cracked across my face. The blow was so vicious my knees buckled. I crashed to the floor, my ears ringing with a deafening screech. "You filthy whore!" "My sister lost her baby! Because of you!" The skin of my cheek felt like it had been held to a blowtorch. Instinctively, I shrank back, cowering against the floor, but Rhys’s boots pressed firmly against my lower back, nudging me further into the room. I looked up through the tangle of my hair. Standing over me was a tall, broad-shouldered man in an Italian wool suit. His features carried an uncanny, haunting familiarity. Out of sheer survival instinct, I looked up at Rhys, my voice cracking into a ragged plea. "Rhys... please..." I needed him to tell them the truth. I needed him to explain that I didn't know. That I was a victim, too. That I wasn't what they thought. But Rhys looked down at me with eyes as dead as winter ice. The languid indulgence from the car was completely gone. "Apologize to Giselle," he said, his tone chillingly flat. "Now." All the blood drained from my face. Seven years. We had spent seven years breathing the same air, tangled in the same sheets. When a drunk had cornered me in a parking garage three years ago, Rhys had broken the man’s jaw and two of his ribs, swearing with a trembling voice that he would spend the rest of his life protecting me from the world. Every sweet memory, every whispered vow, transformed in an instant into a serrated blade, twisting inside my gut. I was hauled forward, forced down in front of the hospital bed. Dressed in a ruined wedding gown, smeared with frosting and dirt, I felt completely stripped bare—paraded naked before a firing squad. Then, a soft, familiar voice drifted down from the pillows. "Malcolm, stop it. Don't treat a girl like that." My head snapped up. My entire world shattered into unrecognizable shards. Giselle Townsend. My vice president. My direct supervisor. When I had graduated from college, an insecure girl in an ill-fitting blazer trying to survive in a cutthroat corporate jungle, Giselle had taken me under her wing. She had mentored me, promoted me, smoothed out my rough edges, and handed me the career I was so proud of. She was my first real friend in this cold, towering city. Whenever Rhys and I had a fight, Giselle was the one who poured the wine, listening patiently, offering the gentle, maternal wisdom of an older sister. A sound tore from my throat—half-laugh, half-sob. The room tilted. Her brother, Malcolm, glared down at me, his lip curled in disgust. "What are you waiting for? On your knees!" He shoved his palm against my shoulder. My knees slammed into the cold linoleum. Beside me, Rhys’s brow furrowed. He made a reflexive move to pull me up, but Malcolm spun around and drove a fist straight into Rhys's jaw. Rhys took the blow, stumbling back against the wall, but he didn't retaliate. He only stopped moving when Giselle cleared her throat from the bed. I collapsed onto the floor, trembling uncontrollably. What had I done wrong? I didn't know about their high-society arrangement. I didn't know he was legally tied to someone else. Just last week, Rhys had knelt in front of my parents in our small suburban living room, sliding a solitaire diamond onto my finger, begging them for my hand. My mother had wept as she zipped up this very dress this morning. I had walked toward him with a full heart, ready to give him the rest of my life. And now, I was kneeling in the dirt, unable to even stand. "I didn't know..." My voice fractured, the words spilling out in incoherent pieces. "I didn't know he was married... I’m not a homewrecker... I swear to God, I didn't know..." Malcolm laughed, a sound dripping with venom. "My sister took hormone injections for six months to carry this child. She bought clothes, decorated the nursery, picked out names. And because a greedy little climber like you couldn't wait to brag about your fake wedding on social media, she saw it and went into shock." He stepped closer, his polished shoe inches from my face. "She lost the baby because of your vanity." Rhys’s eyes were bloodshot. He abruptly reached down, seized my wrist, and violently yanked the platinum band from my ring finger. The edge caught on my knuckle, tearing a strip of skin with it. A bead of crimson welled up, dripping onto the pristine white lace of my skirt. The physical pain was nothing compared to the hollow ache opening behind my ribs. "Marina, I'm sorry," Rhys said, his voice ragged, though his eyes remained resolutely fixed on the floor. "If you're angry, take it out on me. Do whatever you want to me. But you shouldn't have provoked Giselle." Murmurs of disgust rippled through the room. "Look at her. Kept women never know their place." "Thought she could force the real wife out. Despicable." "No..." I gasped, trying to pull air into my lungs. "No, that's not what happened..." The grief and indignation choked me, sealing my throat. I couldn't make a sound. Just as the darkness began to close in, the heavy oak door was violently shoved open. My parents rushed into the room. My father took one look at the scene, marched straight up to Rhys, and swung his fist, catching him across the cheek. "You swore to me! You swore you'd take care of my daughter! Is this how you protect her?!" A sob tore out of my chest. Gathering the shredded remnants of my strength, I scrambled across the floor, reaching desperately for the hem of my mother’s coat, ready to collapse into her arms. "Mom..." Suddenly, the room fell dead quiet. Before my fingers could touch her fabric, my head was knocked violently to the side. My mother had struck me. Her hand was trembling, her face twisted in a mixture of horror and fury. She pointed a shaking finger at my face. "How did I raise a daughter so shameless? A home-wrecking tramp?!" I clutched my burning cheek, staring up at her in stunned disbelief. The air was sucked entirely from my lungs. The last fragile tether of hope snapped. She knew. She knew Rhys and I had been together for seven years. She knew how much I loved him. How could she stand there and condemn me without asking a single question? My father, breathing heavily after striking Rhys, wouldn't look me in the eye. He rubbed his trembling lips, his voice tight and hollow. "Marina... just apologize. You're in the wrong here. Admit it." I froze. I looked between the two of them, genuinely wondering if I had slipped into a fever dream. None of this could be real. A soft, measured sigh broke the silence. Giselle pulled back her duvet and swung her slender legs out of bed. She walked slowly toward me, looking down like an empress inspecting a beggar. She knelt beside me. With practiced grace, she tucked a stray lock of matted hair behind my ear, then used a damp silk handkerchief to gently wipe the cake frosting and dirt from my cheek. Leaning in until her lips brushed my ear, she murmured: "Hurts, doesn't it, Marina?" I stared at her, paralyzed. Her smile was warm, radiant, and utterly terrifying. Her whisper was sweet as honey, detailing the architecture of my nightmare: "To be destroyed on your wedding day. To be humiliated by the groomsmen, forced to your knees by the man you spent seven years loving, and then slapped across the face by the parents who raised you." She paused, her eyes gleaming. "I forgot to mention... I planned every single second of it." My breath caught in my throat. "I approached you on purpose," Giselle purred. "I let Rhys play house with you on purpose. And I chose today to burn your life to the ground on purpose." She tilted her head, admiring her handiwork. "You really are pathetic, you know. Even if I told you the truth—that you are the real Townsend heiress, and I'm just the switched counterfeit who grew up in your cradle—what could you possibly do about it?" The blood in my veins turned to liquid nitrogen. "Look around you," Giselle whispered, her breath warm against my freezing skin. "Your adoptive parents took one look at my face and chose me over you. Your biological brother didn't hesitate to break your spirit without asking a single question. And Rhys..." She gave me a look of deep, mocking pity. "...the man betrothed to you from the day you were born? He belongs to me now, too." "No." My mind screamed against the words. My parents couldn't be strangers. Malcolm Townsend couldn't be my brother. I whipped my head around to look at the Walkers. But my mother was looking at the ceiling, and my father was staring intently at his own shoes, their faces pale, deliberately avoiding my gaze. Even if there was no blood between us, we had lived under the same roof for twenty-four years. You develop an attachment to a stray dog after that long. How could they discard me like trash? Reading the desperate pleading in my eyes, my adoptive father cleared his throat, his tone hard and final. "Since she refuses to apologize, call the police. Let her sit in a holding cell for a few days to think about what she's done. We can't manage her anymore." Rhys stood in the corner, his head down, silent. His silence was an execution order. No matter how I screamed, wept, or clawed at the linoleum, two private security guards hauled me away. Within two hours, I was processed for reckless endangerment and aggravated assault, sentenced to seven days in administrative detention under the weight of the Townsend family's legal influence. Those seven days were a living hell. I spent every hour curled in a defensive ball on the cold concrete floor, my arms locked tightly around my stomach, shielding the tiny, fragile life inside me. When I was finally released, my body was covered in deep, blooming bruises, and my clothes hung off my frame. But I refused to lay down and die. The moment I stepped out, I used the last of my savings to commission an expedited, high-priority DNA test. Three days later, with the sealed envelope clutched in my bruised hand, I staked out Malcolm Townsend’s private office building. When he stepped out of the glass lobby, flanked by bodyguards, I lunged forward and slapped the paper directly against his chest. Malcolm glanced down at the official seal, then looked at me, a cruel smirk spreading across his face. "Giselle called it," he chuckled, his voice dripping with condescension. "She said you were crazy enough to forge a fake paternity test just to spite her." Before I could speak, he tore the heavy paper in half, then into quarters, and threw the shredded pieces violently into my face. The sharp edge of the cardstock sliced across my cheek, drawing a line of fresh blood. His eyes burned with unadulterated disgust. "You stupid, desperate bitch. You think a parlor trick like this is going to get back at my sister? Get the hell away from me." He shoved me hard. I crashed onto the pavement as he slid into the back of his black sedan. Two burly security guards grabbed me by the collar, dragging me across the concrete and tossing me unceremoniously into the gutter of the busy boulevard. A semi-truck blared its horn, swerving violently, missing my legs by inches. I limped all the way back to the apartment I had called home for years. When I turned the corner, my stomach dropped. All of my belongings—my clothes, my books, my childhood scrapbooks—had been dumped onto the sidewalk beside the municipal trash bins. It was raining lightly, and the cardboard boxes were already dissolving into soggy pulp. I stood there beneath the scorching, humid sky, shivering violently. For the first time in my life, I realized I had nowhere to go. "No. I still have my job." Giselle was powerful, but she was only a divisional VP. She didn't own the entire multinational conglomerate. If I could just transfer branches, take a post in London or Chicago, I could start over. Relationships had failed me, family had destroyed me, but my labor was mine. I couldn't let them kill me. Not yet. I hurried to a walk-in clinic to check on the baby, then caught a cab to the office. The moment I stepped into the gleaming glass atrium, the receptionist's eyes widened. She nudged the security guard beside her, whispering furiously: "That's her, right?" "Look at her... looks so innocent, but she's a vicious home-wrecker." "Sleeping her way up the ladder. Disgusting." I froze in the center of the marble floor. Before I could take another step, my phone vibrated violently in my purse. The head of HR’s voice slammed through the speaker before I could even say hello. "Marina, how dare you show your face here?! You think this firm is going to harbor a mistress who causes the VP to miscarry? Clear out your desk—actually, don't bother. Security will escort you off the premises. Your termination letter has already been emailed." "Click." Before I could lower the phone, two building guards seized my arms and shoved me out through the revolving doors into the glare of the afternoon sun. With trembling fingers, I unlocked my phone. A notification from Twitter sat at the top of my feed, trending nationally: "#BillionaireMistressCausesTragicMiscarriage" I tapped it. The screen filled with paragraphs describing me as a calculating sociopath who targeted her married superior's husband. And beneath the text were photos. Intimate, private photos. Pictures Rhys had coaxed me into taking during our vacations in Cabo and Aspen. He had whispered that he missed me too much when he traveled, that he needed something to keep him sane when we were apart. He had sworn on his life they were for his eyes only. A suffocating weight crushed my chest. My phone buzzed relentlessly. Hundreds of messages, thousands of notifications. Not a single text from my parents asking if I was alive. Not an apology from Rhys. Only death threats, vulgar insults, and grotesque propositions from strangers who had found my number. The whole world thought I was a whore. The street began to spin. The edges of my vision blurred into static. Just then, a message popped up from my closest college friend: "Marina, how could you do that to Giselle? She gave you your career! I can't believe I ever trusted you. I’m utterly disgusted. Don't ever contact me again." I frantically tapped the glass, trying to type an explanation. "It’s not true. Rhys lied to me. I’m the victim. I broke up with him. Please believe me—" Before I could hit send, my shoulder slammed into someone. "Watch it!" I gasped instinctively. "Watch it?" A raspy, slurred voice sneered above me. "You bump into me and think 'watch it' covers it, bitch?" A heavy, calloused hand clamped down on my collarbone. The man reeked of cheap liquor and stale cigarettes. But as he squinted at my face, a repulsive grin stretched across his features. "Wait a minute... I know you. You're that slut from the news." He tightened his grip, yanking me toward him. "Look at that. If you're giving it away to trust-fund brats for free, you might as well give some to a real man." "Let go of me! Help!" I screamed, thrashing wildly. People walked by. Some glanced over, recognized my face, and deliberately looked away. Someone even pulled out a phone, recording the scene with a smirk. The man dragged me backward into the shadow of a narrow alley between two brick warehouses. He shoved me against the damp brick, his dirty hands tearing at the neckline of my blouse, pinning my wrists above my head. "Stop! Please! I'm pregnant!" I shrieked, kicking wildly. A sharp, white-hot spasm ripped through my lower abdomen. It felt as though something vital, something fragile, was tearing away from my interior wall, plummeting downward. "The baby." Tears blinded me. "My baby... please, God, my baby!" I fought like a cornered animal, baring my teeth, raking my fingernails across his cheek until I felt flesh give way beneath my nails. The man howled in pain, recoiling for a fraction of a second. Then his fist cracked against my jaw. Once. Twice. "You high-and-mighty cunt! Acting like you're too good for it now?!" He raised his arm to strike me again, but suddenly froze. His eyes darted down. A thick, dark tide of crimson was spreading through the fabric of my skirt, running down my bare thighs, pooling onto the grimy pavement. It was pouring out of me, endless and unstoppable. "Shit... fucking psycho..." the man muttered, panic finally cutting through his drunkenness. He hauled up his pants and bolted out of the alley, his footsteps fading into the roar of traffic. I lay in the puddle of my own blood, my body convulsing with cold. With fingers that were barely functional, I dragged my cracked phone from my pocket. Through muscle memory forged over seven years of devotion, my thumb dialed the only number I knew by heart. He had always told me: "If you ever find yourself in trouble, call me first. Always call me first." Even with my soul broken, the instinct remained. The line connected. "Rhys... please..." I wept, my voice nothing more than a wet whisper. "Save me... the baby... there's so much blood..." Through the speaker, a woman’s light, musical laughter drifted through. "Darling," Giselle’s voice purred softly in the background. "Your little bird is calling for you." Then came Rhys’s voice. Distant. Cold. Indifferent. "Hang up on her," he said. "Leave the social media trending. It’s time she learned her lesson." The line went dead. My chest heaved. With the last ounce of strength in my trembling hands, I dialed my parents. My father answered, exhaling a long, weary sigh. "Marina, we’re sorry things turned out this way. But you can't go around faking medical emergencies to get attention." Before I could beg, my mother took the phone. "Even if it’s true," she said, her voice sharp as glass, "Giselle lost a child because of you. If you lose yours, it’s just paying what you owe." The line clicked off. Something inside me withered and died, turning to ash. I let my phone slip from my fingers, shattering against the concrete. When the paramedics finally found me, hours later, I was still breathing. The baby was not. I stayed in that sterile county hospital bed for an entire week. No one came. Not a single bouquet of flowers, not a single phone call, not a single inquiry. On the day I was discharged, wrapped in a threadbare coat bought from a thrift store down the block, I stepped into the blinding afternoon sun. Across the street, the massive digital billboard towering over the financial district flashed an opulent birthday tribute to Giselle Townsend, celebrating her family’s multi-million-dollar philanthropic pledge. I held the tiny, white ceramic urn against my chest. At the international terminal of the airport, I took my phone, permanently deleted and blocked my adoptive parents, and severed every link to Rhys Abbott. Then, using a secure, scheduled delivery, I sent a single attachment—the official, unalterable PDF of the genetic paternity test—to the private inboxes of Malcolm Townsend, Charles Townsend, and Rhys Abbott. I walked down the jet bridge without turning around. The moment the wheels lifted from the tarmac, three thousand miles away, three phones began to ring off the hook.