She Wants My Fortune, Not My Heart

Fake Piece Of Love

TOM POV

Cooking hangover broth from scratch at eight o'clock on a Friday night is probably pathetic, even by my standards.

I shift the paper bag in my grip and step out of the elevator onto the top floor of the Aurelia Grand, the heat of the glass container inside soaking straight through the kraft paper into my palm. My eyes burn from fourteen hours of staring at lines of code, and I didn't even have time to change out of my wrinkled gray Henley before driving across town.

Not that I cared when Ann called an hour ago.

“Ms. Baudelaire is already on her third glass of champagne, Mr. Monroe,” her secretary had whispered over the background roar of the banquet hall. “And with the Vanguard executives pouring another round, she’s going to have a splitting migraine by ten. Could you bring that ginger-and-honey broth she likes?”

So I dropped my work, stood over a hot stove for forty minutes, and drove through downtown traffic in the rain.

Because for five years, that has been the single rule of my life. If Vivian needs something, I make sure she has it.

Laughter spills down the wide, carpeted corridor ahead of me, rich and loud over the low thrum of a string quartet.

The main ballroom doors are closed for the dinner speeches, but the smaller lounge off to the right—the private terrace suite reserved for Baudelaire Technologies’ senior brass—has its frosted glass door propped open by a silver ice bucket.

I slow my steps, suddenly self-conscious of my scuffed boots against the plush cream rug. I hate events like this. I hate the fake smiles, the backslapping, the way men in three-piece suits look right through you until they figure out what you can do for their bottom line. It’s the whole reason I signed my company over to Vivian four years ago instead of sitting in the CEO’s chair myself. She wanted the spotlight; I just wanted her to be happy.

"I'm serious, Viv, look at this room," a woman’s voice floats through the gap in the lounge door. Scarlet. I’d recognize that sharp, wine-soaked drawl anywhere.

"Vanguard just signed a three-year contract with you. You’re officially the golden girl of the tech sector. When are you finally going to cut the dead weight?"

I stop beside a tall marble planter just outside the doorway.

"Keep your voice down, Scarlet," Vivian says, though she’s laughing. A warm, breathless sound that makes my chest tighten because I can’t remember the last time she laughed like that at home. "Someone’s going to hear you."

"There’s nobody out here, everyone’s at the main tables," Scarlet scoffs. Glass clinks against a bottle as she pours another drink. "And don't dodge the question. You’ve been playing the devoted wife to Tom for five years. Five years, Viv! Ann just told me you had him making hangover soup tonight. Isn't it exhausting keeping him around?"

My fingers curl tighter around the warm bag. I wait for Vivian to shut her down. I’ve never liked Scarlet, and she’s never liked me, mostly because she thinks Vivian married beneath her social circle.

"It’s not that exhausting when he does everything he’s told," Vivian replies easily.

Something cold drops into the pit of my stomach.

"Come on, Scarlet, be practical," Vivian continues, the softness vanishing from her voice, replaced by the cool, clipped tone she uses in board meetings. "Where else was I going to find a man willing to hand over his entire sole proprietorship without asking for a single voting share in return? Everything Baudelaire Tech was built on. The initial server architecture, the seed capital, the first two patents, came out of Tom’s pocket because he thought we were building a family."

My breath catches in my throat. The paper bag crinkles against my chest.

"Okay, fair, the man was a goldmine," Scarlet admits, snickering. "Still, if I had to wake up next to a guy that boring for five years, I’d lose my mind. And if you divorce him now that you’re on top, he’s going to take half of what Baudelaire Tech is worth."

"Half?" Vivian laughs again, and this time the sound makes the blood drain from my face. "Scarlet, he can’t take a dime."

"What do you mean? You didn't sign a prenup—"

"I didn't need a prenup. The marriage certificate in our safe is fake."

For a second, the roar of the ballroom down the hall, the string quartet, even the sound of my own heartbeat—it all just stops.

"Wait. Shut up." Scarlet’s heels click sharply against the tile inside the lounge. "What do you mean it’s fake?"

"I mean I paid a guy two hundred bucks to print a forged county seal five years ago so I never had to file the paperwork at City Hall," Vivian says, as casually as if she’s discussing her dry cleaning. "Legally, Tom Monroe and I have never been married a day in our lives. I don't love him. God, I don't even like him. The whole thing was a game from day one."

My hand trembles so violently the glass jar inside the bag knocks against my knuckles.

A game.

"You're ruthless," Scarlet breathes, and I can hear the sick admiration in her voice. "Wait—have you two seriously never...?"

"Slept together? God, no," Vivian says, distaste dripping from every syllable. "Five years in the same house and I haven't let him touch me once. I fed him some story after the wedding about needing space to build my career before we shared a bedroom, and he’s been sleeping down the hall ever since like a saint. Honestly, the way he looks at me like a kicked puppy waiting for a scrap of affection makes my skin crawl."

Nausea rolls through my stomach, sharp and sour.

I stare at the carpeted floor between my boots, my lungs refusing to pull in enough air. Five years. Every anniversary dinner I cooked while she worked late. Every night I lay awake in the guest room, telling myself that if I just worked harder, if I just wrote better code for her company, if I just gave her a little more time, she’d finally let down her walls and let me in.

And the whole time, she was laughing at me behind a two-hundred-dollar piece of fake paper.

"Then why haven't you kicked him out yet?" Scarlet asks.

"Because his new network-stability patent clears final testing this week," Vivian says smoothly. "That algorithm alone is going to push our profit margins up by more than ten percent next quarter. Once he signs the transfer papers over to me on Monday, I’ll tell him I’ve fallen out of love and let him pack his bags. What’s he going to do—sue his wife with a fake license?"

I close my eyes. For three heartbeats, the urge to walk in there and smash this glass jar against the wall is so blindingly strong my vision blurs at the edges.

Don't. The voice in the back of my head is cold, quiet, and unrecognizable. If I walk in there raging, she’ll spin a lie, cry on cue, and scramble to lock down the servers before I leave the building.

I open my eyes. The shaking in my hands stops. It doesn't fade. It just snaps off, like a breaker flipping in the dark.

I step back three paces, kick the base of the marble planter hard enough to make a dull thud, and walk toward the lounge door with heavy, unhurried footsteps.

By the time I push the door open, Scarlet is leaning against the bar with a flute of champagne, and Vivian is turning toward me, her face lighting up with that soft, apologetic smile that used to make my heart ache.

Now, looking at it makes me want to be sick.

"Tom?" Vivian’s brows lift in practiced surprise as she crosses the room, the silk of her emerald gown whispering against the floor. "What are you doing here? Don't tell me Ann actually dragged you out in the rain."

"She said you were drinking champagne on an empty stomach," I say. It amazes me how normal my voice

sounds. Calm. Even. "I brought your broth."

I hold out the paper bag.

Vivian’s gaze flicks to the plain brown paper like she’s afraid the grease might stain her manicure, before she catches herself and touches my forearm. Her fingers barely brush my sleeve, a half-second graze before she pulls back.

Makes my skin crawl. I could laugh at how blind I’ve been.

"You really are too good to me," she murmurs, taking the bag by the top edge and setting it immediately on the side table without opening it. "I have to get back into the ballroom before the Vanguard vice president starts his toast, and I know how much you hate these stuffy dinners. Don't wait up for me tonight, okay?"

"I won't," I say, looking straight into her eyes. "Enjoy your celebration, Vivian."

I turn and walk out before she can answer.

I don't even make it past the elevators before Scarlet’s voice drifts out of the lounge again, not bothering to whisper this time.

"God, did you see that sweater? He looks like the help. It’s almost sad how pathetic he is—you snap your fingers and he comes running with soup."

Vivian’s light, musical laugh follows me all the way into the elevator as the steel doors slide shut.

The house is pitch-black when I unlock the front door forty minutes later.

I don't turn on the hallway lights. I walk straight up the stairs, past the master bedroom I’ve never been invited into, and push open the door to my study.

When I flip the desk lamp on, the yellow light falls across the thick manila folder sitting beside my keyboard.

Patent #409-X.

Eighteen months of sleepless nights, seventy-hour weeks, and three hundred thousand lines of proprietary architecture sitting in one file. In the enterprise tech world, failed mobile transactions during network drops cost major platforms millions a month. My protocol eliminates ninety-eight percent of those drops—a guaranteed ten-to-twelve-percent surge in net profits for whichever company holds the license.

Clipped to the top of the folder is the Irrevocable Deed of Assignment I printed out at five o’clock today, naming Baudelaire Technologies as the sole beneficiary. I’d even left a pen resting across the signature line so I could sign it for Vivian over breakfast tomorrow.

I pick up the assignment deed, fold it in half, and rip it straight down the middle. Then I rip it again, dropping the pieces into the trash bin under my desk.

Five years I played the blind, devoted idiot. Not anymore.

As I slide the patent blueprints and the encrypted thumb

drive into my leather briefcase, my phone lights up on the desk, buzzing against the wood.

I glance down at the caller ID.

Selene Brooks.

Right underneath her name is the call log count: 102 Attempts.

Selene is the founder of Brooks Systems—the only company in the city with the engineering muscle to rival Baudelaire Tech, and the one woman Vivian despises more than anyone in the industry. Last month, an old colleague from the patent board let it slip to Selene that the brains behind Baudelaire’s software belonged to me, not Vivian. Since that day, Selene has called my personal line more than a hundred times trying to buy a license.

Every single time, I let it ring out because I wouldn't betray my wife. Except I don't have a wife.

I pick up the phone and swipe to answer. "Tom Monroe."

There is dead silence on the other end of the line for two full seconds, followed by the sudden scrape of a chair and a woman’s sharp inhale.

"Mr. Monroe?" Selene’s voice is low, slightly breathless, and laced with disbelief. "Please don't hang up. I know I’ve called you a hundred times, and I know your wife is my biggest rival, but a mutual friend told me you’re sitting on a network-stability patent that hasn't been signed over yet. Give me five minutes to convince you why Brooks Systems deserves to partner with you."

I snap the brass locks of my briefcase shut, a cold smile tugging at the corner of my mouth.

"I don't do business over the phone, Ms. Brooks," I say, reaching for my car keys. "If you haven't eaten yet, send me an address. I’m free for dinner right now.”