Not Waiting For You Chapter 10
Joseph?
The foot Tyrone had stepped out pinned him to the spot.
Blood slammed up into his head.
Everything before his eyes began to warp and sway.
Only the pair in the center of the red carpet, arms linked, stayed cruelly sharp.
“Holy… shit?” A guy beside him nearly let his wineglass slip from his hand.
“Tyrie? What the hell?!”
“The groom’s name is Joseph? So the Benson-Snyder marriage alliance means…”
His buddies’ stunned chatter buzzed like a swarm of panicked bees, yet it could not pierce the razor-edged silence in Tyrone’s ears.
He stared at Amira.
He stared at that searing smile on her face, at the fingers tightly hooked around another man’s arm.
No.
This was wrong.
This was not right!
He suddenly shoved aside the buddies still standing there in a daze and charged toward the center of the red carpet, heedless of anything—
“Tyrone!”
A figure moved faster, blocking him.
It was Cynthia.
At this moment, there was not a shred of wedding cheer on her face.
Only undisguised fury.
“Get out of the way!” Tyrone growled, trying to slip past her.
Cynthia did not yield an inch. She pressed a step closer.
“What are you trying to do? Haven’t you made enough of a spectacle already? Tyrone, look around you — look at her. This isn’t your turf!”
Tyrone looked as if he’d heard the greatest joke in the world. “She’s mine! We were together for eight years! What the hell is this Joseph who popped out of nowhere?! Amira!”
He raised his voice.
Trying to look past Cynthia toward Amira, who had already stopped on the red carpet, he shouted, “Explain it to me! What is going on?! You fucking played me, didn’t you?!”
His loss of control drew glances from the surrounding guests.
But the venue was noisy; that one shout was not enough to reach the bride and groom.
Cynthia’s expression turned even colder. She kept her voice under control so more people would not hear. “Played you? Tyrone, search your conscience — these eight years, who exactly was playing who?!”
“How many chances did Amira give you? Can you even count them?!”
“The bouquet last time!” Cynthia said bitterly. “Do you know how much resolve it took her to wait for that moment?”
“When she went back to her hometown, she’d already met Joseph’s parents! That was the last chance she gave you!”
“She said that as long as that day, you caught the bouquet — even if you only walked over, even if you only said one sentence in public, ‘I will marry you,’ even if it was just a clear promise — she would immediately refuse the marriage Joseph’s family proposed and keep waiting for you like an idiot!”
Tyrone’s pupils contracted sharply.
The bouquet… had been the last chance?
Cynthia looked at his suddenly bloodless face and sneered even more. “But you? Tyrone, what did you do? You yanked the bouquet away with your own hands and gave it to Lillianna! Right in front of everyone, you told her, ‘Next time.’ Do you even know what you pushed away?”
“And Lillianna!” In Cynthia’s eyes was the pain and anger of someone furious on her friend’s behalf. “That little secretary — how many times did she call you after you got drunk, using that ambiguous tone to make Amira go pick you up?”
“How many times did she ‘accidentally’ leave lipstick marks, perfume on you? How many times did she post those coded lines and selfies in your company’s group chat and on Instagram — things only you would understand?”
“She even… even dared to imply to Amira that you’d already slept with her!”
Tyrone’s body lurched.
He wanted to argue, to say it wasn’t true, to say, “Lillianna isn’t like that.”
But the vague details he’d ignored surged up in a scramble.
Lillianna’s late-night calls for “help,” the earring left in his car…
And the work minutiae she always brought up “casually” whenever Amira was present — things only he and she would know…
“Amira chose to trust you every time!” Cynthia’s voice turned thick with tears. “Like a fool, she chewed those doubts to pieces and swallowed them.”
“And then she’d listen to you brush her off with ‘It’s just work,’ ‘She’s my secretary,’ ‘You’re overthinking it’! Tyrone, where’s your heart? Did a dog eat it, or did you give it to that young, pretty secretary a long time ago?!”
“No… I…”
Tyrone opened his mouth, only to find every defense pale and powerless.
Cynthia gave him one last look.
There was nothing left in that look but contempt. “Tyrone, you deserve this. What you lost is the person who loved you most in this world. From today on, she’s Mrs. Benson.”
“Just not your wife.”
“You’d better not cause trouble. The bodyguards I hired aren’t here for show!”
After that, she turned around cleanly and decisively.
She jogged to catch up with the bridal party and put a brilliant smile back on her face.
Tyrone stood rigidly where he was.
At the end of the red carpet, Joseph carefully lifted Amira’s veil.
When he lowered his head to kiss her forehead, Tyrone snapped and tried to rush over.
This time, several of his buddies grabbed him in a death grip.
“Tyrie! Calm down!”
“Tyrie — don’t!”
They used tremendous force, almost nailing him in place.
“Let go of me!” Tyrone’s eyes were bloodshot as he struggled.
He stared dead ahead. That gentle kiss on the forehead played like slow motion, flaying him again and again.
“She’s mine! Amira is mine! How can she… how dare she?!”
“Get a grip,” said the buddy closest to him, voice low. “Look at where we are. Cameras everywhere.”
“You’re a public figure now. The company just got funded — so many eyes are on you. You want to be on tomorrow’s front page? ‘Tech Company Founder Crashes Wedding to Steal the Bride, Suspected Mental Breakdown’?!”
Another buddy pressed hard on his shoulder and added rapidly, “Tyrie! We’re begging you! Don’t let this spiral into something you can’t fix!”
“What can you change by going over there now? You’ll only make everyone — including Amira — look down on you even more. You’ll become the whole city’s joke!”
“A joke…”
Tyrone’s struggling stalled for a beat.
The word hit him like ice water poured over his head.
In a daze, he scanned the room. The curious looks that had been thrown his way were now plainly shocked, appraising stares.
The emcee cleverly raised his volume.
In an even more rousing tone, he told the couple’s love story.
He was trying to cover up the commotion over here.
But more and more guests still looked over, whispering and pointing.
On the main stage, Joseph’s kiss had already landed.
Amira slowly opened her eyes and calmly swept her gaze over this brief chaos.
There was not a ripple in her eyes.
Then she looked back at her new husband with a smile.
That too-calm gaze severed Tyrone’s last thread of frenzy.
“Come on — get him out of here first!”
His buddies exchanged a look and half-dragged, half-carried Tyrone away, his strength nearly gone.
