“You smell of dirt and mediocrity”: He divorced her because she was the daughter of a gardener, unaware that her father owned his company.

The insult to her father—Arthur, a man with calloused hands and a heart of gold—hurt more than the divorce papers lying on the marble table.

“I’m offering you a deal,” Marcus continued, tossing a thick envelope onto the table beside the decree. “Fifty thousand dollars. A clean break. You move out by morning. I have a Vogue photo shoot here on Thursday and I need the space cleared.”

“Fifty thousand?” Elena whispered, the shock giving way to a cold, hollow pain in her chest. “I wrote the code for your first algorithm. I handled the books for three years.”

“You were a glorified secretary,” Marcus sneered, his eyes devoid of empathy. “Sign the papers, El. Don’t make me destroy you in court. I have lawyers who eat people like you for sport. Take the money, go back to your father’s little shack in Jersey, and plant some tulips.”

He left, slamming the heavy oak door behind him. The sound echoed like a gunshot.

Elena collapsed to the floor, devastation washing over her completely. He hadn’t just left her—he had rewritten their history, erasing her contributions and stripping away her humanity. She was being discarded like a seasonal trend.