I Faked Bankruptcy Before The Wedding Chapter 1

After five grueling years of blood, sweat, and sleepless nights, my childhood best friend and I finally signed off on an acquisition that valued our company at ninety million dollars.

My hands were shaking with adrenaline as I pulled out my phone, desperate to share the news with my fiancée.

Louis snatched the screen right out of my grip.

"Don't tell her about the buyout," he said, his voice flat and dead serious. "Tell her the deal went up in flames and you're drowning in debt."

I stared at him, bewildered. "We each have forty-five million sitting in escrow, plus millions more in annual operating cuts. You want me to play broke the exact second we make it?"

Louis looked at me, his eyes chillingly sharp. "Trust me on this, Joel. Seeing who someone really is before the wedding is a hell of a lot cheaper than watching them dismantle your life in a divorce."

Just last month, his ex-wife had stripped him of three properties in their settlement. Across our five years in the trenches, Louis was the one who took the hits, drank the client poison, and watched my blind spots.

Before I could even set my phone to silent, Lauren’s name flashed across the screen.

I answered.

"Joel, I’ve made up my mind," her voice came through, crisp and unyielding. "We can't put your name on the deed for the new house."

I froze.

"Brandon made a bad investment and owes sixty thousand," she continued, without a single beat of hesitation. "I need you to pull the cash from our down payment to clear his debt first. It’s not like that little startup of yours is bringing in real money anyway."

* * *

As if worried she hadn't made herself clear enough, Lauren pressed on:

"Don't go overthinking this. I'm not playing favorites. Brandon is in a really tight spot right now. If his creditors take this to his parents, his dad’s blood pressure is going to spike. Something terrible could happen."

My thumb hovered motionless over the screen.

Louis stood directly across from me, his gaze cutting like a scalpel, perfectly silent.

Just beyond the frosted glass of the conference room, our team was popping bottles of champagne. The head of finance was waving a folder, calling out for my signature on the final distribution sheets.

And here on the line, the woman I was supposed to marry was casually instructing me to surrender the foundation of our future home to bail out another man.

My chest felt packed with wet, suffocating cotton.

"Lauren, that money is our down payment. We saved it for our house."

"I know that," she replied, her tone immediately souring with impatience. "It’s not like we’re never going to buy a place. Since your company isn't doing well, we can just rent for a couple of years after the wedding. What’s the big deal?"

Louis reached across the mahogany table and tapped the speakerphone icon.

Lauren’s voice spilled out into the room, amplified and tinny.

"Joel, stop obsessing over money all the time. You know how good Brandon’s been to me over the years. The fact that he never pressured me to be with him was graceful on his part. As my fiancé, shouldn't you be stepping up to help him out?"

Near the door, an administrative assistant organizing our paperwork froze mid-motion, terrified to breathe.

Louis let out a dry, venomous chuckle.

Lauren’s tone sharpened instantly. "Who’s in the room with you?"

"Louis," I said.

"He's still there?" A heavy, dismissive sigh rattled through the receiver. "Joel, I've told you a hundred times to stop letting him get in your ear. Just because he was too pathetic to keep his own marriage together doesn't mean you should let him ruin ours."

Louis’s hand tightened against the edge of the table, his knuckles bleaching white.

In that quiet second, I flashed back to the day of Louis’s divorce. He had sat on the fire escape stairwell behind our old cramped office, burning through half a pack of cigarettes, whispering only one broken sentence: "I thought the person who starved with me wouldn't be the one to gut me when we finally made it."

My throat felt raw. "Lauren... what if I really didn't have any money left?"

"What are you talking about?"

"The deal cratered," I said.

The four words dropped like lead weights, pulling all the oxygen out of the conference room.

Louis’s eyes softened just a fraction.

Lauren didn't speak right away. A few seconds later, she let out an airy, condescending laugh.

"Joel, don't play stupid games to test me."

"I'm not testing you."

"How much do you owe?" Her tone dropped several degrees, stripped of all warmth.

Louis grabbed a legal pad and scribbled two numbers: "500k".

I read it off. "Five hundred thousand."

Across the line came the sharp crack of a mug slamming against a countertop.

"Are you insane, Joel?" she hissed. "Five years of grinding, and not only do you have nothing to show for it, you managed to dig a half-million-dollar hole? What about the wedding? What about the venue deposits? My entire family has already been invited!"

The woman who had just preached that money wasn't everything didn't ask if I was okay. She didn't ask how I was holding up under the crushing weight of ruin.

Her first and only concern was the spectacle of her wedding.

My palms were slick with cold sweat. "So... the down payment..."

"You are not touching a single cent of that down payment," she snapped, cutting me off clean. "That money is my leverage. It’s what keeps my mother from looking down on me. You made this mess; you figure out how to clean it up."

"And Brandon's mess?"

"Brandon is different," she enunciated every syllable with icy precision. "He's experiencing a temporary cash flow hiccup. You're just a talentless liability who threw away five years."

The wet cotton in my chest turned to pure ice.

Louis picked up his champagne flute and lightly clinked the rim against mine. The crystal chime was razor-sharp.

Lauren paused. "What was that sound?"

Louis leaned down toward the speaker, speaking low and steady:

"Joel just signed over the entire house fund to settle his debts with me."

"What did you just say?" Lauren’s voice hit a shriek.

Right then, a tentative knock sounded at the conference door. My assistant poked her head in, whispering nervously:

"Mr. Jeremy... Ms. Barrett is downstairs at the reception desk."

Through the receiver, Lauren's voice turned venomous: "Joel, you have three minutes to get down here and explain where my money went."