"Miss Valerie Adams, do you accept Mr. Jeffery Anderson as your husband, to have and care for one another, from now on forever. In times of trouble and joy..."
Until the priest finished saying the sentence, the bride was still silent.
"Miss Valerie Adams?" call the priest. "Are you listening to me?"
Valerie looked down deeply, she answered with difficulty, "Y-yes."
Valerie's parents who were in the front of the row looked anxiously at their daughter at the altar.
"Calm down, Hera, maybe she's just too nervous. This is the happiest day she's been waiting for, isn't it?" Victor Adams, Valerie's father tried to calm his wife who looked worried.
"Okay, I repeat. Miss Valerie Adams, do you accept Mr. Jeffery Anderson—"
Valerie squeezed her dress tightly, in a trembling voice she said aloud, "I'm refuse."
"Valerie?" Jeff as the groom turned his head in surprise.
Valerie's words succeeded in making all the relatives and friends who were guests in today's wedding blessing scream loudly. Everyone was of course shocked. Valerie, who is known to love her lover, Jeff, suddenly refuses her marriage vows.
The priest asked all the guests to be quiet and calm. The gray-haired old man looked at Valerie with a calm face. "Miss Valerie, are you…"
Valerie looked up, her sad face could no longer be hidden behind the transparent white cloth that covered her face. "that's true, pastor. I refuse, and want to cancel my marriage."
Everyone present there was even more shocked by Valerie's statement.
Jeff must have been just as shocked. He pulled Valerie's shoulders to face him. "What does this mean, Valerie? Do you think this is all a joke?"
Valerie's emotions were unbearable. She lifted the white transparent cloth that covered her face, then looked at Jeff with a look of anger and disappointment. "I should be the one asking you, are my feelings just a joke to you?!"
"What do you mean?" Jeff's brows furrowed, he didn't seem to understand what she was saying. "Listen, Val, whatever's going through your head right now, you must be just misunderstanding—"
"Misunderstood, you say?" Valerie's tears rolled down her cheeks. Her lips seemed to tremble from all the pain that was ripping her chest.
"You and Anna have been affair all this time, you even having sex with her a few hours before our wedding blessing."
Jeff's eyes widened, his face suddenly changing rapidly. "What? Valerie, you—"
Valerie let go of Jeff's grip on her shoulder roughly. "You think I don't know?! I know, Jeff! I saw it! I heard it all! You don't have to dodge anymore. For God's sake, you are disgusting!"
Valerie's screams boomed, lucky for this wedding blessing with a private concept which was only attended by close relatives and friends of Valerie.
If the paparazzi came along and covered all of this, it would damage the reputation of the Adams family, which is famous and very influential in America.
Valerie really wanted to slap Jeff right now. The great betrayal by the bastard in front of her, hurt her heart so deeply.
Jeff tried to hold her hand to calm her down. "Valerie, listen to me—"
The beautiful woman removed the transparent cloth that was stuck to her head and threw it on the floor. She lifted her dress high and turned and ran out of the place in tears.
"Valerie, my dear daughter ..." called Hera trying to chase her daughter.
While Hera had gone after Valerie, Victor stepped wide at Jeff and then smacked him in the face.
"Damn it! How dare you hurt my daughter!" Victor lost control, even though Jeff had fallen to the floor, he still hit and even kicked the man.
Anna Adams, the woman Victor and Hera had adopted since childhood, reflexively ran to try to intervene even though she knew it would make Victor even angrier.
"Dad..."
Anna stopped walking to get closer when Victor turned his head with an angry face. "You really are an ungrateful human. I adopted you, elevating you to the highest level not to destroy my daughter's life!"
"Dad, I..."
"Stop calling me that," Victor interrupted Anna quickly. "Didn't I tell you to give in and cut your relationship with Jeff, when Valerie confessed that she liked him five years ago? So, you guys have been keeping an affair with Valerie behind her back all this time?"
Anna just lowered her head, she was too afraid to look at Victor's face which was very scary when he was angry.
"Where did you put your brain, Anna! After everything we have given you so far, is this your way of repaying it?!" said Victor. "We took you from your poor family, even from your gambling and drunken father. Even we saved you when your father want to sell you when you were still a child. Have you forgotten that horrible past of yours?! You forgot where your life came from and what kind of paradise we've been giving you?!"
"That's enough, Dad." This time it was Jeff who spoke, he couldn't stand his lover Anna getting insulted by her adoptive father.
"Shut up, you bastard!" Victor snapped while pointing at Jeff who was now trying to stand up with the help of his parents.
Jeff's father tried his luck. "Mr. Adams, I think this can still be discussed amicably..."
"What else is there to talk about, Mr. Anderson?" Victor asked with a mocking expression.
"I'm sure Valerie just misunderstood Jeff, there's no way—"
"Then you think everything my daughter said was bullshit?"
Mr. Anderson no longer dared to speak. Truly, he and his family were nothing compared to the Adams family who was famous for being wealthy and having great influence.
It was a stroke of luck for an Anderson who even though he belonged to the upper class of society, was able to marry with the Adams family who would never be their match.
Victor looked around, the place that had been transformed into a place for his only daughter's wedding blessing, was now shattered, looking chaotic and messy.
The bodyguards and the wedding organizers who arranged the event were busy arranging for the guests to leave the venue immediately.
Before he left to catch up with his wife and daughter, Victor tidied up his suit majestically then looked at Jeff and Anna and said, "You two, after this all don't expect to get away from me so easily."