By BETH LANDMAN
Last Updated: 5:08 PM, October 11, 2009 Posted: 3:31 AM, October 11, 2009

In February 2008, raven-haired beauty Erica Wang got the surprise of her life. Her boyfriend of two years, swarthy celebrity chef Todd English, whisked her to St. Barts, rented a yacht and led her out onto the bow.

Overlooking the clear, azure sea, English pulled out a 6-carat diamond ring and asked her to be his wife. Wang happily accepted but with a caveat — she wanted to elope, she said. For her, a big white wedding wasn’t important.

But English shook his head.

“Erica,” he said, fixing her with his intense brown eyes, “you’ll resent me for the rest of your life if you don’t let me throw you a big wedding.”

Wang, 33, didn’t feel like she could argue.

“It was so romantic,” she recalled in an exclusive interview with The Post. “I never asked him to marry me because I knew he was the kind of man you can’t push. We were having a great time, and I loved him.”

Wang isn’t exactly feeling the love now. After planning a lavish, $150,000 wedding at The St. Regis last week, the 49-year-old restaurateur jilted Wang — leaving her to host a party for 150 guests on her own.

He even stiffed her with the final charges for the wedding, she said, forcing her to fork over $12,000.

Now that it’s all over, English has cut off her credit cards and is forcing her to move out of their Chelsea apartment at the end of the month, she said. Because she was effectively English’s personal assistant, she’s also out of a job.

“An animal wouldn’t treat another animal the way he has treated me,” said Wang, wearing sunglasses to hide her puffy eyes. “He is forgetting I am human. I don’t deserve this. He has caused me, my friends and family so much pain.”

English yesterday released the following statement to The Post: “I am deeply saddened and remorseful for the cancellation of the wedding and any embarrassment that it caused to Erica, her family, my family and our friends. It was never intended this way, but our relationship has not been positive for some time.”

After saying Wang had hit and wounded him during a fight and tore up a prenup agreement, the statement added: “As sad and painful this has been for me and I am sure for her, we are better off alone rather than together. I wish Erica well.”

Wang scoffed at his response, denying she ever hit English.

“He gave me a prenup in June, but it was so ludicrous and offensive. It said if we ever break up — ever — I would get zero. There was one number all over it and that was zero. I said I would sign anything reasonable, but he never presented me with another one,” she said.

It has been a shocking end to a fairy-tale romance sparked four years ago, when the pair was introduced by a mutual acquaintance. They started off as friends, texting each other “all the time,” Wang said, and within a year, they were dating seriously.

In September 2007, Wang quit her job as a concierge at the Peninsula Hotel to organize English’s busy schedule — for free. It enabled her to spend more time with her constantly traveling boyfriend, who owns restaurants all over the country, including Olive’s in New York City, and was named one of People’s 50 Most Beautiful People in 2001.

Six months later, English popped the question. And while the lovebirds rarely fought, when they did clash, English would disappear for days to avoid confrontation, Wang said.

“He would call a couple of days later, and I would be so relieved to hear from him that I would forget why I was angry,” she recalled.

And something else was strange. Although English is divorced with three children — Oliver, 19, Isabelle, 16, and Simon, 13 — Wang said he never told his kids he was getting remarried.

This August, English had another surprise up his sleeve. He took Wang to Venice and Croatia, where he rented another boat, brought two wedding bands and arranged for a private, but not legal, ceremony onboard. The chef on the boat officiated.

“I love a good surprise, what chick doesn’t?” Wang said. “He said he wanted that day to be a memory only the two of us could share.”

Three weeks before their wedding, the couple headed to Central Park to take “rehearsal” photos, and the shots from that day show a besotted man nuzzling the neck of his fiancé and holding her tight in his arms.

“I was elated and proud, and I wanted to look beautiful for him and give him wonderful memories,” she said.

Two weeks later, English was on business in Tampa, Fla., and Wang flew out to meet him for a weekend. On her way back, she said they kissed at the airport, exchanged loving words, and she headed home to New York, expecting her betrothed to return the next day to prepare for their wedding that weekend.

But English never came back.

For the next six days, Wang desperately phoned her fiancé on his cell and at his office, while e-mailing, texting and trying to reach his friends.

Worried, hurt and angry, she even sent a text to English suggesting that they call off the wedding if he was having cold feet and turn their event into a party.

But English didn’t respond — until two days before the wedding — when he suddenly phoned Wang’s best friend and bridesmaid, Sara, to say he didn’t know what he was doing. Sara told him: “We are glad you are alive. Now you should call Erica.”

He agreed, but it wasn’t until 1 p.m. on the wedding day that Wang finally heard her phone ring and saw her fiancé’s number pop up on her caller ID.

“I was at lunch, huddled with my mother who had flown in from California, and aunts and uncles who had traveled from Hong Kong,” Wang said.

“We were trying to find him and saying, ‘He has one hour to make that last flight.’ I was still holding out hope that he would say, ‘I’d better get home and marry that girl. I promised her.’ “

Wang stepped outside to answer the call. But the conversation she had waited so long for was brief.

“I know this call is long overdue,” English said, “but I can’t marry you today.”

Wang couldn’t believe it. Later, she wished she had replied with a sarcastic response like, “OK, so when is good for you?”

But before she could say a word, English hung up, she said.

That was the last time they spoke.

“He was so icy,” Wang said in disbelief. “It feels as if the last three years of my life never existed.”

With 150 guests already in town for the bash — some who had flown halfway around the world — Wang decided to go ahead with a party, which English had told her he had paid for in full.

Fighting back tears, the plucky brunette put on a stunning black and white crystal Badgley Mischka gown — and a “brave face.”

According to Wang, English had instructed his friends and family not to attend. But she said some still showed, and he texted them feverishly, telling them to leave and go to Olive’s instead.

“I drank and danced. It was hard for me to do, but those people traveled a really long way. There were moments I felt I just couldn’t breathe. He left me alone to deal with all of this,” she said.

And at the end of the night, she said she got one last slap in the face — a $12,000 bill for the remaining cost of the wedding.

“He lied,” she said. “He said he’d sent in the last check, but he didn’t. I was horrified.”

That night, Wang and a girlfriend stayed in her wedding suite at The St. Regis — the Tiffany Suite, estimated at $1,150 a night — and soon after reports surfaced that English had been partying in South Beach, where he was photographed with a group of girls.

But Wang said her pain didn’t end there. On Thursday, English sent two security guards to their apartment with an inventory list of what belonged to him and what she was allowed to take on her way out, she said.

“They stood there while I packed, to make sure I didn’t leave with anything that Todd wanted,” she said. “He knows I have nowhere to go. Why not call and ask if I am OK?

“I did everything for him. I was even working for him, but I wouldn’t take money. I totally trusted him, stupid me, and he left me with nothing overnight.”

Now, as Wang faces a future without a husband, a job and — for a short while — a home, she said she is shell-shocked, angry and sad.

But she refuses to feel sorry for herself.

“I’m not upset about not being a wife,” Wang insisted.

“I guess it wasn’t meant to be. I’m upset at the way it was handled. When I look back, I realize that I asked every single question a woman should have asked. He just avoided details. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I could really be bitter, but I actually still believe in love.”

You do? Thoughts please!!!

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