Canceled Vows: The CEO's Ruthless Payback

The day before our engagement, Wesley and I went to his college friend's clinic for our prewedding lab work. The nurse handed me the printed results.

I scanned the crisp white paper, my eyes locking onto the bold black ink. [Positive for four major STDs. History of abortions: 5.] I stood there, the blood draining from my face.

Amber leaned against the counter a few feet away.

She grabbed a can of disinfectant and aggressively sprayed the empty space between us, her nose crinkling in disgust before tossing the can aside. "Disgusting.

Walking around carrying all that filth, trying to trap a good guy." I whipped the stapled packet straight at her face.

The crisp edges of the paper sliced through the air like a blade. Wesley didn't even blink. He lunged forward, shoving himself between us and shielding Amber with his body.

He pointed a stiff finger at me. "Amber just mixed up the reports as a joke.

Are you seriously throwing a tantrum over this?" My eyes drifted down to the two official medical folders clutched in Wesley's fist. My perfect, clean health records.

I stared at the patient label pasted across the top tab. [Amber.] Amber hooked a finger under her surgical mask and pulled it down.

She tilted her head, her eyes wide and feigning pure innocence. "Sloane," she cooed. "With a body that trashed… how do you expect to be good enough for Wesley?

How are you supposed to give him kids?" She stepped out from behind his broad shoulders and smoothed down her scrubs. "Unlike me.

I've never even held a guy's hand." Chapter 1 Heat clawed its way up my neck.

Before I could force a word out, Amber snatched the open bottle of liquid disinfectant and splashed it directly into my face. "Sloane's just crawling with viruses.

Gotta sanitize." Wesley furrowed his brows. "Stop messing around." But the corners of his mouth twitched upward, the lines around his eyes softening entirely.

He turned to me. "Amber's just playful. It's a harmless prank, don't let it get to you." He grabbed a nearby cleaning rag and held it out for me to wipe my dripping face.

I knocked his hand away and spun toward the exit, slamming straight into a wall of local news cameras. A reporter thrust a microphone forward. "Dr.

Amber, you're one of the youngest top talents here.

Could you share some of the biggest challenges you face with patients?" Amber kept her voice soft, but her eyes flicked to me, sharp and full of contempt.

She projected her voice so it echoed down the hall. "There are definitely challenges.

I'd say the biggest one is when patients intentionally hide their medical history." She snatched my medical file off the counter and flipped it open right in front of the flashing camera lenses. "Take this woman, for example.

Walking in here loaded with infectious diseases, hiding her status, and putting all of our healthcare workers at direct risk of occupational exposure." The crowd physically recoiled.

An invisible barrier dropped between me and the rest of the lobby as massive camera lenses shoved inches from my dripping face, shutters clicking wildly.

Whispers mutated into harsh insults. People clamped hands over their mouths and noses, backing away as if looking at a walking corpse.

Amber folded her hands, painting on a mask of pure empathy. "There are plenty of people like her out there. We really shouldn't discriminate against them.

After all, dealing with those kinds of diseases is already miserable enough." Wesley stepped up, his jaw clenched tight as he placed his body between me and Amber. "Alright, that's enough out of you.

We're leaving." Amber gave an exaggerated shrug and waved a hand in the air. "If she didn't want people talking, she shouldn't have been sleeping around." She turned back to the news crew, slipping right back into her professional persona. "But everyone can rest easy.

As long as you keep your private life clean, you won't catch things like this." Wesley shot her a warning look, then clamped his hand around my wrist. "She's always been like this.

She just likes playing harmless pranks." He squeezed my wrist, pulling me toward the doors. "Everyone from our old med school cohort is used to it.

Even our old professors let her get away with murder. She really doesn't mean anything by it." The English language suddenly sounded completely foreign to me.

A vicious, liferuining smear campaign broadcast to local news was nothing more than a prank in his eyes.

A dry laugh scraped its way up my throat. "A prank about a woman's reputation?" I ripped my wrist out of his grip. "I'm not laughing." I snatched my medical file back from his hand, the paper crumpling in my fist.

I leveled a deadeyed stare right at his face. "She just dragged my name through the dirt in front of a live camera crew.

I am not letting this go." I spun on my heel and walked straight toward the sliding glass doors.

Behind me, Wesley raised his voice over the murmuring lobby. "I promise I won't let that footage air!" Chapter 2 A girl's whiny, sickeningly sweet voice drifted through the gap in the automatic doors. "Wesley… what did Sloane say?

The way she looked at me was so scary." "I was just using her as an educational example.

She wouldn't actually do anything to me, right?" Wesley reached out and patted the top of her head. His posture was totally relaxed, completely used to this routine. "Of course not.

She's always been the forgiving type." A second later, the corners of his eyes crinkled with amusement. "What's this?

Our fearless little terror is actually scared for once?" "That's different. Sloane isn't like you.

You always let me get away with everything." Wesley's tone melted into something soft. "As long as I'm around, you can be as wild as you want.

It's fine." I knew that exact tone of voice intimately.

There was a time when I genuinely treated Amber like my own little sister, funding her entire lifestyle so she could live like a trust fund baby.

But the more money I poured into her, the colder my relationship with Wesley became. What a textbook pickme.

A heavy, suffocating weight settled right in the center of my chest, making every breath shallow. As wild as you want? I was going to show her exactly what wild cost.

The second the front door clicked shut behind me, I pulled out my phone.

I dialed the private research institute operating under my corporate umbrella. "I'm sending over a live specimen." I walked into the kitchen and poured a glass of ice water. "Test whatever you want on her, just make sure she stays breathing.

Focus heavily on infectious diseases." I tossed the phone onto the granite counter and went upstairs to sleep. A relentless, piercing ringtone ripped me awake a few hours later.

My assistant's panicked voice blared through the speaker. "Sloane, it's bad. Your medical status got leaked. Company stock is completely tanking." I pulled up Twitter.

Nine out of the top ten trending hashtags were my name.

I tapped the number one spot. [Sloane Group CEO tests positive for multiple STDs.] The evidence pinned to the top of the thread was a screenrecorded livestream from the clinic.

Amber stared directly into her frontfacing camera, her expression practically vibrating with righteous fury. "If I hadn't secretly switched the local news broadcast to a livestream, none of you would have ever known the truth." "Our great CEO Sloane sleeps around like crazy.

Who's going to buy her company's products now?

Aren't you guys scared of catching something?" She held up a photocopy of the lab results right to the lens. "Technology is too advanced now.

You can't hide what you've done in the dark." "The worst part is that she actually tried to buy me off with hush money." She shook her head, looking utterly betrayed. "What does she think I am?

Seriously guys, you need to boycott her entire brand." The live chat replay scrolled by in a blur of pure vitriol. [So freaking gross.] [Thanks for the warning, definitely boycotting.] [You really can't judge a book by its cover, huh.

Trash.] Digital donation icons flooded the screen. Amber's lips curled into a bright, greedy smile. "I just did what I had to do.

I couldn't let a toxic woman like that ruin someone else's life." "The fact that she's actually trying to get married looking like that… isn't that just a hazard to society?" She pressed a hand dramatically over her scrubs. "Just thinking about a good guy getting hurt over this literally makes my chest ache." "Always demand prewedding labs, guys.

Never marry a woman who refuses to get tested." The video abruptly cut to black. A system prompt popped up indicating the stream had been banned. A cold laugh pushed past my lips.

So this was Wesley's big damage control. His promises were cheaper than dirt. My mind drifted back to the very first time I laid eyes on Amber.

Back then, she was just an isolated, broke freshman getting iced out by the rest of her dorm.

I saw how much she was struggling to pay tuition, so I pulled strings to get her massive grants and scholarships.

I even introduced her to my boyfriend, since they were in the same premed program.

Chapter 3 Junior year, she clung to me, sobbing that a premed degree without a residency match meant a dead end.

I talked her into prepping for the MCAT and paid for her elite prep courses out of pocket. Since I didn't know the first thing about medicine, I begged Wesley to tutor her.

Back then, she was broke, insecure, and completely helpless. I emptied my wallet for her without a second thought.

I helped her cut ties with her toxic family and set her up in the city. After graduation, I pulled strings to get her a spot at a toptier public hospital.

When she couldn't handle the grueling eightyhour workweeks and got fired, I quietly funded the exact private clinic we were standing in today.

I specifically hired her, letting her work one day a week. Now, all that goodwill had metastasized into a blade twisting right under my ribs.

She hadn't just tampered with my lab results and launched a viral smear campaign. She had hooked my fiancé right under my nose.

And the image of Wesley standing there, casually enabling her, made bile rise in my throat.

By the time I walked through the sliding doors of my private research lab, the injections were already finished. Amber lay crumpled on the sterile floor tiles like a discarded rag.

Her eyes burned with pure hatred. "Sloane, you bitch… how dare you." Her fingers twitched.

She snatched her phone from the ground, a triumphant, unhinged smile stretching across her pale face. "I recorded everything. I'm calling the cops.

I'll make sure you rot in federal prison." She gasped for air, her chest heaving. "And Wesley. I'm going to show him exactly how vicious you are.

Do you really think he's still going to marry you after this?" A dry laugh slipped past my lips.

I looked down at her thrashing form, my gaze entirely flat. "Who cares what a doctor thinks?" Her eyes widened in absolute shock.

I used to be famous for hanging onto Wesley's every word.

I pulled out my own phone and tapped the screen, pulling up the security footage of her screaming and crying during the procedure.

I tilted the screen toward her. "You love playing pranks, right?" I said, my voice completely dead. "Let's play a prank right now.

How about I hit send and let the whole internet enjoy this?" Violent shudders racked her body.

She ground her teeth together. "If you want to call the cops, you better do it fast." I maintained eye contact as my thumb pressed the Upload button. "After all, it's just a harmless joke." I stepped back, adjusting my coat. "And as for Wesley… he needs me.

Without me, he's absolutely nothing." The automatic doors slid open, hitting me with a blast of freezing night air.

Across the street, a college couple walked hand in hand under the streetlights. It dragged up the memory of the first time I saw Wesley. It was a campus sunset just like this one.

He was dirt poor but endlessly stubborn, his eyes carrying a heavy, unyielding grit that none of the frat guys had. He was different. It drew me in.

I started funneling money into his accounts, secretly paying off his debts, and covering his mother's medical bills.

All I got in return was a stack of untouched cash and a handwritten IOU. Right before finals, his mom's condition went critical. He dropped out.

When I finally tracked him down, his eyes were bloodshot, and streaks of premature gray had already infected his hairline. He looked like his bones were about to give out.

He broke down right there on the pavement, sobbing that his mom was gone. The sight of it felt like a physical blow to my chest.

After that, I used 'tutoring' as an excuse to wire him ten grand a month. I kept that up for ten straight years.

After he finally got accepted back into his medical program, he showed up at my door with his acceptance letter and a cheap bouquet of flowers.

It was a suffocatingly hot summer night. He waited outside for hours until I got home. "Sloane," he said, his voice raw. "I know I don't have the right to say it yet.

But I just wanted to see you smile." Chapter 4 Sophomore year, Wesley hit it big with a patent.

He took the prize money and paid me back every cent I'd ever spent on him, plus interest.

The next day, he showed up in a crisp suit, dropped to one knee in front of the entire student body, and looked up at me. "Sloane," he rasped, his voice trembling with a vulnerability he couldn't quite hide. "Will you be my girlfriend?" By junior year, he fell dangerously ill.

I didn't know the first thing about medicine, but I knew I couldn't lose him.

I begged my father to pull every string he had, eventually flying in a worldrenowned specialist who had been retired for years to perform the surgery.

When Wesley finally opened his eyes, he told me I had saved him twice. Once when his heart was hollow, and again when his body was failing.

From that moment on, I was his entire world.

He worked himself to the bone, not just at the hospital, but sitting through hours of my boring finance lectures just to be in the same room as me.

He did everything he could to bridge the gap between our worlds. Two years after graduation, he finally saved enough to buy a ring. He sobbed like a child when he proposed.

He told me that his greatest happiness was simply being loved by me. A gust of freezing wind hit my face, making my eyes sting. The tears came before I could stop them.

Wesley's love used to be so intense—a firework that lit up the entire sky. But fireworks are designed to burn out. He made countless promises to me, yet he hasn't kept a single one.

I was the only one still drowning in the lie of our "forever." A sharp, aggressive honk cut through the silence.

Wesley slammed his car door and sprinted toward me, wrapping his arms around me in a frantic, suffocating hug. "Where the hell have you been?

Why aren't you picking up your phone?" I went stiff and wrenched myself out of his grip. My eyes caught a flash of movement in his hand—a splash of violent, aggressive crimson.

He fumbled with a garment bag, pulling out a limitededition gown with a hopeful, pleading smile. "Sloane, look. Don't be mad anymore." "What happened at the clinic… that's on me.

It has nothing to do with Amber. You've been wanting this dress forever, right? Go on, try it on." A bitter knot formed in my throat as I stared at the fabric.

I've always hated loud, attentiongrabbing colors. Amber was the one who treated every hallway like a catwalk, always overdressed and desperate for a spotlight.

I glanced at the receipt tucked into the tissue paper. The purchase date was two weeks ago.

The gift card was tucked right behind it, written in Wesley's neat handwriting: Happy Birthday. Amber's birthday.

He could remember her birthday, her favorite color, and every one of her tiny, annoying habits, but he'd completely forgotten that I don't even like wearing dresses.

I didn't reach for it. I just looked at him. He wasn't that starving student who had to save for three months just to buy me a scarf anymore.

He was wearing custom Italian leather shoes that cost more than a semester of tuition.

The raw heat that used to sit in his eyes had been replaced by something cheap and performative. I remembered how he used to carry a notebook in college.

He was so busy with med school he barely had time to eat, but he'd still fill pages with my favorite snacks and hobbies just so he'd have something to talk to me about.

That light in his eyes had long since moved on to someone else.

The notebook was gone, replaced by spreadsheets and a new set of favorite things that didn't belong to me. "Sloane, come on.

Just try it." When I didn't move, he reached out and grabbed my hand. As he pulled me toward him, his sleeve slid up.

Tied around his wrist was a frayed pink scrunchie—the one Amber wore every single day. Then, his phone screamed.

A highpitched, frantic ringtone I knew belonged only to her. "Wesley! Save me!

Sloane is insane!" Amber's voice distorted through the speaker, thick with theatrical sobs. "She's killing me! She injected me with some kind of virus… it's murder!

Wesley, it hurts so much… I think I'm dying… where are you?" The veins in Wesley's forehead turned thick and purple.

He squeezed his eyes shut, forcing his voice to stay calm as he whispered reassurances into the phone.

Then he turned to me, his chest heaving with a disappointment so heavy it felt like a physical weight.

Chapter 5 Wesley's voice dropped to a dead chill. "Sloane, you've gone too far. Amber is defenseless.

How could you be sick enough to hurt her?" The rims of his eyes flushed a violent red.

His massive, sixfoottwo frame swayed, looking like his bones were turning to ash. "She has her whole life ahead of her.

If she's infected, it's over." His voice cracked, stripping down to a raw, desperate rasp. "Can't you just let her go?" A single tear broke loose and tracked down his cheek.

It felt like a serrated blade twisting right between my ribs. He was always so intensely calculated, so clinical.

Even on the day I said yes to his proposal, he had only offered a measured, restrained smile. I shoved the phone displaying the security footage back into my pocket.

My throat burned as I forced the words out past a suffocating lump. "What about me? My reputation is shredded.

The company my father built is nosediving into bankruptcy." "She set me up. I just gave her a scare. Am I the villain here?" Wesley stared at the moisture tracking down my face.

His jaw locked. Total silence. Then, Amber's hysterical sobbing tore through the phone speaker. "Wesley, she's lying! She locked me in!

She's making sure I can't get to the PEP medication!" "Please save me! You're all I have! I gave you my virginity… I belong to you!" All the oxygen sucked out of the space.

A violent ringing erupted in my ears. The ground completely dropped out from beneath my feet. Something wild and desperate fractured Wesley's composure.

He lunged, his large hands digging hard into my shoulders. "Sloane, where did you lock her up? Tell me." His grip shifted, sliding up. His fingers locked around my throat.

He squeezed. Air supply severed. Black spots swarmed my vision. My lungs burned. Just as my knees began to buckle, his hands snapped back as if he had been electrocuted.

He stared at his trembling palms. "I'm sorry, Sloane. I didn't mean to… I'm just so worried about Amber." I stood there, massaging my bruised windpipe, completely silent.

Tears spilled from his eyes, tracking rapidly down his jaw. Wesley always cried. His tears used to tear me apart. But he was also a man who never cried.

Not a single drop of that saltwater had ever been spilled for me. He turned his back on me and walked away. He didn't look back.

Within hours, he led a crew to smash the glass doors of every property registered under my name. His final words before driving off were precise. "Sloane.

Once you figure out how badly you screwed up, I'll consider coming back." He left with Amber. He vanished for weeks.

The first trace of him I found was a tagged post of them skydiving and bungee jumping.

Just because Amber mentioned it sounded fun, a man terrified of heights downed half a bottle of sedatives just to strap himself to her back.

To make sure she properly recovered from her trauma, Wesley took an indefinite leave of absence from the hospital.

He escorted her on an international shopping spree, maxing out his credit cards on designer racks.

Amber posted a perfectly angled selfie on Instagram, feigning annoyance in the caption: [Never met such a stagefive clinger.

Skipped work entirely just to shadow me 24/7.] Wesley's method of loving someone hadn't changed at all.

Just like the absolute devotion he used to aim at me, he still threw his entire life away for the girl he wanted. I scrolled to the very bottom of his feed.

My eyes burned, tracing the digital graveyard.

Posts that used to be exclusively dedicated to me had slowly been buried by medical journals, and finally, completely overridden by the face of another woman. I closed the app.

I pulled up my contacts and dialed the hospital's executive office. "Harrison.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Sloane family is still the primary shareholder backing your entire operation." "Of course, Ms. Sloane.

Whatever instructions you have, consider them executed." I sat at my desk, sliding my finger across the printed copies of Wesley's indefinite leave request and the bank statements proving he embezzled corporate funds to finance her luxury spree.

I compiled the evidence into a single PDF. My finger hovered over the send button. Then, a sharp ping echoed from my laptop.

An unknown email dropped into my inbox, loaded with a photo gallery and a single attached message.

Chapter 6 The photos attached to the email showed a side of Wesley I had never seen.

He was on his hands and knees, with Amber riding his back like a dog. [Sloane, Wesley never served you like this, did he?] [He told me he loves it when I treat him like this.] In the photos, angry red marks trailed all the way from the back of her knees up to her inner thighs.

The sheer violence of the bruising told the whole story. Every trace of that timid, innocent freshman was entirely dead and gone. [Wesley and I are the same kind of people.

We actually understand each other.

We don't use money and power to humiliate each other.] [He absolutely hates that suffocating, 'always looking out for him' act you put on.] [He couldn't find any passion with you.

That's what you get for playing the pure virgin and not letting him touch you before marriage. You made him feel like less of a man.] [But don't be too sad.

Wesley said if you give me a proper apology, we can all just live together.] [Oh, and by the way, Wesley willingly let me infect him.

That just proves he loves me more.] Bile rushed up the back of my throat. I slammed the laptop shut before I could read another word.

I gripped the edge of the desk until my breathing leveled out. Then, I grabbed my keys, drove straight to the precinct, and filed a massive corporate embezzlement report.

The very next day, Wesley abused his executive clearance to officially hire Amber back into the hospital as an attending physician.

He personally paraded her around to every department head. Gossip spread like wildfire. The entire city was convinced I had been dumped.

Amber went from a fired liability to a highly soughtafter specialist overnight.

PR accounts flooded social media, pushing aggressive narratives about her beauty and supposed relentless work ethic.

The few comments defending my name were instantly drowned out by a sea of paid bot accounts.

Screenshots of the two of them even went viral, becoming the internet's newest 'couple goals' aesthetic. On the day of her official onboarding, Wesley went all out.

He invited local TV stations to the hospital lobby, turning it into a massive media circus.

They stood shouldertoshoulder, completely surrounded by a wall of flashing cameras and a cheering crowd, looking exactly like the main characters of a blockbuster romance movie.

Wesley held out a massive bouquet of imported roses, a blindingly bright smile plastered across his face. "Today, we are honored to welcome Dr.

Amber—" The wail of police sirens ripped through the lobby. A dozen uniformed officers shoved through the sliding glass doors, instantly forming a perimeter around the crowd.

The lead detective marched straight up to Wesley, his body camera blinking a harsh red as he flashed his gold shield. "Wesley.

Following an extensive internal investigation, you are the primary suspect in a massive corporate embezzlement case—" All the color drained from Wesley's face. "That's impossible.

There has to be a mistake