His Fake Proposal Led Me To My Real Husband Chapter 02
The event coordinator poked her head in to confirm the schedule.
“We open in twenty minutes. Are you ready?”
“Please delay the opening by fifteen minutes,” I said. “We have something to sort out.”
Someone behind me laughed.
“She’s still not giving up. Unbelievable.”
The coordinator looked to me for confirmation. I nodded.
My phone lit up.
Julian had replied.
*Fifteen minutes.*
I sat back down at the vanity.
Mason thought I was delaying the party because I was waiting for him to change his mind.
“Rebecca, even if you postpone this until tomorrow, I’m not getting engaged to you today.”
“You need to accept that.”
Tyler laughed.
“You really love him that much?”
He walked over to the dressing table, picked up one of the favor boxes, and tossed it in his hand.
“Nice work. Too bad no one’s getting any chocolate today.”
Then he let it drop. The box hit the floor, chocolates scattering everywhere as the gold paper split at the seams.
The others howled. “Tyler, that’s cold. But hey, Rebecca made a thousand of them. What’s one less?”
Mason frowned.
“That’s enough, Tyler.”
“She’s not going to get bent out of shape over one box.”
Mason didn’t say another word.
He wasn’t always like this.
Before, when his friends took a shot at me, Mason would pull me into his arms. “That’s enough,” he’d say. “You make her cry, you’re the ones who have to deal with it.”
Back then, everyone thought I was his one exception. Now, he just watched as his friends made a sport out of mocking me.
While the laughter was still echoing, Natalie suddenly stood up from the sofa. She crouched, picked up the broken box, blew the dust from it, and set it carefully on the edge of the dressing table.
Tyler nudged a stray chocolate with the toe of his shoe.
“Why bother picking it up? She made plenty more.”
Natalie didn’t look up.
“Becca spent three days on these. Her fingers were covered in Band-Aids and she just kept going. The party might be canceled, but you don’t get to do that.”
The room fell quiet.
Mason turned to look at her. The smile was still playing on his lips, but his eyes had gone cold.
Tyler turned away to find someone else to drink with.
Mason walked over to me and touched my earlobe.
“Stop sulking. I handled today badly. Cancel the party, and I’ll throw you an even bigger one next time.”
I turned away, avoiding his touch.
His hand hung in the air for a moment, his entire body stiffening.
He noticed the clip in my hair had come loose and reached up to fix it.
Then he lowered his voice.
“Rebecca. Cancel the party. Don’t make me lose my temper.”
His voice was a low threat meant only for me, but to everyone else, it looked like he was comforting me.
His friends started hooting.
“Mason always knows how to handle her.”
“What’s Rebecca still mad about? He’s personally talking her down.”
“Mason, I still remember what you said when you were drunk—’She never stays mad for more than three hours. Don’t even have to talk her down. She just gets over it.'”
One of them had Mason’s tone down perfectly, right to the dismissive pauses.
Tyler burst out laughing.
“Right. And the other one—’She waited for me all day on her birthday, and it only took me ten minutes to smooth things over.'”
“Where’d you even find a girl who’ll put up with you like that?”
They were just joking, but every word was a bullet.
I looked at Mason.
His face hardened.
“What are you talking about?”
The man who had spoken froze. “You said it in the group chat. You also said—”
Mason cut him off.
“What’s said when we’re drinking stays there. Don’t drag it out now.”
I laughed. The ache in my chest was slowly, finally, starting to fade.
I always thought love was about tolerance. Now I saw that every compromise I’d made was just another story for Mason to tell, another way to boast.
Mason looked at me.
“Rebecca, give everyone an out. Let this go.”
He had made this mess, and now he expected me to clean it up for him.
I looked down at the time.
Mason took my silence as agreement.
“Good. Cancel it. Everyone’s wasted their whole morning in here with you.”
“I’ll take you out for something to eat later.”
I didn’t answer.
Mason’s patience was wearing thin.
“Rebecca, can you just be an adult for once?”
Just then, a new message pinged on my phone.
*Parked. Coming in now.*
I replied with two words.
*No rush.*Â