My Father Paid My Fiancé $50,000 To Dump Me And Marry My Cousin. Three Years Later, I Showed Up At My Brother’s Wedding Richer Than The Entire Family Combined. Is It Wrong To Enjoy Their Shock?
We’d agreed to keep things low-key and not to make a big deal about our relationship. This wasn’t about revenge or proving anything.
Except it absolutely was, and we both knew it. Michael picked us up from the airport.
He hugged me so hard I couldn’t breathe, then shook Daniel’s hand with the kind of enthusiastic energy that made me remember why I’d missed him.
“I’m so glad you’re here,”
he kept saying.
“Emma can’t wait to meet you. Mom’s been cooking for two days straight. Dad’s pretending he’s not emotional, but he absolutely is.”
My stomach tightened at the mention of my father.
“Mia and James will be there too,”
Michael added, glancing at me carefully.
“I invited them before I knew… I mean, I didn’t know if it would be weird for you.”
“It’s your wedding,”
I said.
“Everyone who matters to you should be there.”
The rehearsal dinner was at a nice restaurant downtown. I’d chosen my outfit carefully—a navy dress that was professional but not uptight, elegant but not trying too hard.
Daniel wore a suit that probably cost more than my first car but looked effortless on him. We walked in together, and I watched the room notice us.
My mother saw me first. She gasped, dropped her wine glass on the table, and ran over to hug me.
“Sarah! Oh, sweetheart, you look wonderful! And you must be Daniel. Michael told us about you.”
My father stood more slowly. He looked older and grayer.
He shook Daniel’s hand, sized him up the way fathers do, and said:
“It’s good to see you, Sarah.”
“You too, Dad.”
Mia was there with James. She’d cut her hair short and gained some weight.
She still looked beautiful, but there was something tight around her eyes, something strained. James had lost hair and gained muscle, the kind that comes from spending too much time at the gym avoiding home.
They both stared when they saw me.
“Sarah!”
Mia said, her voice too bright.
“Oh my god, it’s been forever! Look at you!”
“Hi, Mia.”
James nodded, not quite meeting my eyes.
“James.”
“Good to see you.”
The dinner was exactly as awkward as I’d expected. I sat between Michael and Daniel, answering questions about Singapore, about my job, and about how Daniel and I met.
My mother kept reaching over to touch my hand as if making sure I was real. My father was quieter than usual, watching me with an expression I couldn’t quite read.
Mia kept trying to engage me in conversation, asking about my apartment, my social life, and whether I missed Portland.
James said almost nothing, just pushed food around his plate and refilled his wine glass too often.
“So what do you do, Daniel?”
my father finally asked.
“I run a venture capital firm,”
Daniel said easily.
“We focus on fintech and sustainable technology in the Asia-Pacific region.”
“Venture capital?”
my father repeated.
“That’s quite lucrative, I imagine.”
“Dad,”
I said quietly, a warning in my voice.
“I’m just making conversation, Sarah.”
“It can be,”
Daniel said, unbothered.
“But Sarah makes more than I do. Her company went public last year. She’s done remarkably well.”
The table went silent.
“You went public?”
my father said, looking at me.
“Your startup went public?”
“Yes,”
I said.
“Last June. We rang the bell at the Singapore Exchange. It was a good day.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
my mother asked.
Because you chose Mia’s trust fund over my potential. Because Dad thought I wasn’t worth investing in. Because I built this without any of you and I needed to prove I could.
“It was busy,”
I said instead.
“Everything happened very fast.”
Mia’s face had gone pale.
“That’s… that’s amazing, Sarah. Congratulations.”
James was staring at his plate like it held the secrets of the universe. My father cleared his throat.
“Well, that’s quite an achievement.”
“Thank you.”
The conversation moved on, but I felt my father’s eyes on me for the rest of the evening. After dinner, when people were mingling over drinks, my father pulled me aside.
“Sarah, can we talk?”
“Sure, Dad.”
We stepped out onto the restaurant’s patio. It was a clear night, and Portland’s lights spread out below us.
“I owe you an apology,”
he said.
I waited.
“When you left for Singapore, I thought you were running away. I thought you were being impulsive, emotional. I was worried about you.”
“Were you?”
“I was wrong,”
he continued.
“About a lot of things. You’ve built an incredible career. You’ve made something of yourself that I… I didn’t see coming.”
“No,”
I agreed.
“You didn’t.”
“James and Mia,”
he started, then stopped.
“Things didn’t work out the way I’d hoped.”
“How did you hope they’d work out, Dad?”
