The night before the company’s IPO, Victoria Sterling was buzzing with excitement. She hosted a lavish celebration party and had her secretary hand out double year-end bonuses in cash.
Blake Harrison, her secretary, grinned, handing everyone a carefully wrapped stack of crisp bills. But when he got to me, he shoved me aside.
“Get out of the way, you’re blocking the path!”
Confused, I asked him what he meant.
He just sneered and slapped a termination letter on my face:
“You lowlife player, how dare you even show your face for a bonus? Get out of here, you’re a disgrace!”
With a flick of his wrist, a barrage of intimate photos of me and various high-profile clients flashed across the screen.
The last image was a bonus roster.
The numbers on the screen burned my eyes. Everyone else had at least a six-figure bonus, but my column was marked with a stark, red zero.
I clenched my fists and looked up at Victoria Sterling, standing not far away:
“Are you serious about firing me, tonight?”
On the screen, photo after photo of me and the clients continued to scroll. In them, I was either walking side-by-side with these women, or clinking glasses with them. One shot even showed a woman with her arm around my waist, leading me into a hotel.
Hearing my question, Victoria averted her gaze from the screen and stared at me, coldly, without a word.
“Are you serious about firing me, tonight?”
I asked again.
Everyone’s eyes turned to her, filled with a mixture of sympathy and pity.
She ignored their stares and slowly walked up to me, her face dripping with disdain:
“Leo Maxwell, what right do you have to be here? Every achievement this company has made is thanks to everyone’s hard work. You’re the only exception!”
“Did I ever lack your money or your love for you to humiliate me like this?”
“Don’t tell me these women are the reason you absolutely refused to let me manage our top clients!”
She abruptly pulled a stack of photos from her pocket and violently threw them at my face.
The sharp edges of the photos grazed my cheek and scattered across the floor.
A stinging pain flared, and I lifted my hand, feeling a patch of warm, sticky blood.
“This company’s IPO is my lifelong dream. I won’t allow a parasite like you to corrupt it, not even if you’re my fiancé!”
Looking at the elegant, sophisticated woman before me, I assumed she had simply misunderstood because of the photos. I patiently explained:
“Victoria, if others won’t believe me, won’t you? My achievements, I fought for them myself. They have nothing to do with those photos!”
“Fought for them yourself?”
Blake Harrison suddenly cut in, his voice laced with mockery:
“What exactly did you ‘fight’ for? Your bedroom skills? We’ve all heard how ‘deep’ your collaborations with the clients were!”
A ripple of laughter swept through the room, and someone murmured in agreement:
“Exactly. Who knows how many beds he had to warm to get those results? And to think we used to admire him so much, even secretly trying to learn from him!”
They were all kicking me when I was down. I never thought my colleagues, whom I thought I had a decent relationship with, would be so quick to stab me in the back.
I gritted my teeth, trying desperately to stay calm:
“Those photos don’t prove anything. My interactions with them were purely professional!”
“Professional interactions in bed, perhaps?”
“Then explain this photo!”
Blake Harrison picked up the photo of me being embraced by a woman as we entered a hotel:
“This is a high-definition video screenshot. Want me to play the full video for everyone to see?”
I stared at the photo and suddenly broke into a relieved smile.
The woman in the photo was my own sister.
That night, I was drunk and had intended to call Victoria to pick me up, but I ended up calling my sister instead. Coincidentally, my sister had just rushed in from back home in the capital, acting as our parents’ envoy, hoping to convince me to stop sulking with the family. She arrived just in time to rescue me from a group of women trying to take advantage.
Who would have thought that my sister bringing me to a hotel to rest would be captured by someone with ulterior motives?
No wonder, ever since that night, Victoria’s attitude towards me had been so erratic, blowing hot and cold.
She was remarkably patient, holding it all in until I secured various major clients for her and secretly leveraged my family’s influence to get her company ready for its IPO. Only then did she choose tonight to make her move.
Though her lack of trust deeply disappointed me, she was the first woman I’d ever truly fallen for.
I didn’t want us to miss out on each other because of a misunderstanding.
And I certainly didn’t want my parents to know that my first head-over-heels love affair had ended so abruptly.
Because I had fled back home from the capital specifically to escape an arranged marriage my parents had set up.
I wanted to choose my own partner, to walk alongside her as equals, not enter into a loveless business arrangement.
I had never told anyone about any of this, not even Victoria.
I was afraid that if she found out I was the heir to the powerful Maxwell dynasty, she’d feel insecure, anxious, and overwhelmed by the pressure.
From a young age, the women around me had always been drawn to me because of my status.
I loathed those calculating attempts to please me. What I cherished was the sparkle in Victoria’s eyes when she looked at me.
The memories of our past made me chuckle involuntarily.
“What are you laughing at?”
Victoria frowned, her voice filled with disgust:
“At a time like this, you can still laugh?”
I looked up, directly into Victoria’s eyes:
“Do you really think I’m some kind of gigolo who climbs his way up by sleeping around?”
“Otherwise?”
She sneered:
“What else makes you think I’d give you a second glance?”
My chest tightened as if an invisible hand had clenched my heart, making it hard to breathe.
I took a deep breath and slowly said:
“The woman in that photo, she’s my sister.”
“Your sister?”
Blake Harrison burst into laughter:
“Do you think we’re fools? Calling some random woman your ‘sister’? Do you call every woman you sleep with ‘sister’? Honestly, it sounds like quite the kinky little game!”
The laughter around me grew even more piercing, someone even whistled.
Victoria’s eyes were full of contempt:
“Enough! Don’t make a fool of yourself here. Take your termination letter and get out! From this moment on, you and I are nothing!”
I clutched the termination letter, my heart turning to ice.
For five years, I had hidden my identity, working as an ordinary employee to pave the way for her company to grow and flourish.
But now, after I had personally helped her reach the pinnacle of her career, she was using me and then throwing me away.
I wasn’t a sore loser; I just considered those five years of my youth wasted on a dog!
“Victoria, you’re going to regret this.”
Victoria heard my soft murmur and reacted as if I’d told the biggest joke.
“Regret?”
She scoffed:
“My only regret is ever knowing a scumbag like you who sleeps around!”
With that, she extended her hand to Blake Harrison, who stood beside her.
They exchanged a knowing smile and walked hand-in-hand to the center of the banquet hall.
Only then did I notice that Blake Harrison’s custom-tailored suit and her low-cut evening gown were a custom-made matching couple’s outfit.
Victoria raised their intertwined hands, her voice sweet and confident:
“Tomorrow, we will usher in the most important moment in our company’s history – our IPO! None of this would be possible without the hard work of every single one of you! May we continue to work together to create more brilliance!”
A thunderous applause erupted, followed by cheers.
Flattering remarks about her and Blake Harrison being a picture-perfect couple clearly reached my ears.
Victoria’s gaze swept over me but didn’t linger, as if I were just an irrelevant stranger.
Looking at the woman I had loved for five years, I finally understood why my parents always said I had terrible judgment.
It was clear I was completely blind, not realizing that Blake Harrison, her secretary, had been involved with Victoria for ages.
But as the heir of the Maxwell family, being blind didn’t mean I was incompetent.
I could lift her to the top, and I could also send her plummeting from the clouds!
Without me, I’d like to see how long this company can survive after its IPO.
I clutched the termination letter and turned to leave this suffocating place.
However, as soon as I took a step, Mr. Miller, the HR manager, blocked my path, a fake smile plastered on his face.
“Leo Maxwell, don’t be in such a hurry to leave.”
He adjusted his glasses, his voice carrying an undeniable forcefulness:
“Company policy states that before resigning, you need to sign a declaration confirming that all your actions during your employment are unrelated to the company. Additionally, you’ll need to sign a non-compete agreement to prevent you from using underhanded tactics to poach our clients after you leave.”
Before this, everyone knew I was Victoria Sterling’s fiancé, and I consistently secured major clients for the company. Everyone treated me with respect.
Especially Mr. Miller. Back then, to curry favor with me, he would always meekly call me ‘boss’.
Now, he looked down his nose at me, his eyebrows arched in disdain, as if trying to reclaim some sense of superiority.
I looked at his petty display and said coldly:
“A declaration? A non-compete agreement? What makes you think I’ll sign them?”
Mr. Miller’s smile vanished instantly, and his voice turned sharp:
“What makes us think? Because of your shady dealings! The company has been benevolent enough not to pursue legal action. Don’t push your luck!”
I scoffed in response:
“Shady dealings? Do you have any evidence? Based on a few out-of-context photos?”
“Evidence?”
Blake Harrison walked over, pointing at my phone:
“Isn’t the evidence right there in your phone? Who knows how many client contacts you’ve saved? You’re probably planning to hook up with them all once you walk out that door, looking for a new livelihood!”
As he finished speaking, Mr. Miller lunged for my phone.
I was caught off guard, and my phone was snatched away:
“Give it back!”
Blake Harrison, however, took the phone from Mr. Miller and quickly retreated:
“Look how nervous you are! Must be plenty of dirty secrets on that phone!”
He asked Victoria for my password, but they found that neither my birthday, Victoria’s birthday, nor our anniversary could unlock it.
Victoria, losing patience, snatched the phone and ordered the security guards to hold me still.
She tried to use facial recognition to unlock it.
But the phone, after several failed unlock attempts, could only be opened with a password.
“What’s the password?”
Ever since we started dating, my phone password had been the date I first confessed my feelings to her.
It was laughable that she had forgotten.
But then again, perhaps not surprising.
Victoria’s inability to unlock my phone made her feel increasingly humiliated in front of her employees. Her face turned as dark as a pot bottom.
“Leo Maxwell, you keep saying those photos are a misunderstanding. Then why did you secretly change your password behind my back?”
Her accusation struck me as incredibly dull.
“It’s the date I first told you I loved you.”
She froze for a long moment, unable to recall the date, her face a kaleidoscope of emotions.
I forcefully broke free from the security guard’s grip and snatched my phone back from her.
She watched me unlock the phone, her lips moving, her eyes filled with a complicated expression.
The next second, she snatched my phone again, trying to find proof of my infidelity.
When she saw a close-up selfie of me and my sister, she completely lost her temper:
“Leo Maxwell, you really are something else! The evidence is undeniable, what do you have to say now?”
“I told you, she’s my sister!”
“Give me back my phone!”
“This is robbery! This is slander! This is an invasion of my privacy!”
Victoria raised her hand and slapped me across the face, then violently smashed my phone on the floor.
The screen instantly shattered, fragments scattering everywhere.
I clutched my burning cheek, furious, and raised my hand to push her, but the security guards quickly restrained me again.
Victoria, provoked by my intense reaction, spoke coldly:
“Leo Maxwell, don’t try to play innocent. If you hadn’t been fawning over those women, how could you have achieved those ‘glorious’ results? Don’t even try to tell me you offered yourself to them for my sake. That’s disgusting!”
I looked up at her, my eyes filled with disappointment:
“Victoria, do you really have to humiliate me like this?”
She laughed nonchalantly:
“Humiliate you? You’re not even worth it.”
Faced with her distrust and humiliation, I felt utterly wronged.
“Fine. Since you won’t be reasonable, then let’s call the police. We’ll see who’s spreading rumors and who’s truly indecent!”
“Call the police?”
She looked at me coldly:
“You think you still have a chance? You might be shameless, but I’m not!”
“I’m so glad I only got engaged to you, not married. Otherwise, you’d be the biggest disgrace of my life!”
I stared at my shattered phone on the floor, and the anger in my heart finally erupted:
“Victoria, if you dare treat me like this, then forget about tomorrow’s IPO!”
“Hahaha…”
A burst of laughter echoed around the room.
“Leo Maxwell, have you gone crazy?”
Blake Harrison clutched his stomach, laughing so hard he doubled over:
“Who do you think you are? You think you can stop a company’s IPO?”
Victoria also looked at me mockingly:
“Do you think you’re some kind of heir to a powerful dynasty who can just cancel my IPO plans with a single word?”
I looked up, meeting her gaze directly, and spoke each word clearly:
“That’s right. I *am* the heir to a powerful dynasty. And the woman in those photos? That’s my sister, Isabelle Maxwell.”
The laughter grew even louder.
“Leo Maxwell, have you been so shocked you’ve lost your mind?”
Mr. Miller slapped the table, laughing:
“If you’re an heir to a powerful dynasty, then I’m Richard Maxwell, CEO of Horizon Corp!”
“Yeah, right!”
Others chimed in:
“If you’re an heir to a powerful dynasty, we’ll eat dirt for you!”
I looked at them coldly, a sarcastic smile playing on my lips:
“Richard Maxwell is my father, you ignorant fools!”
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