From Hidden Husband to Tech Tycoon

I was heading to administration to ask why every male colleague had received flowers from the CEO’s girlfriend except me, when I overheard breakroom talk.

They said CEO Schmidt’s boyfriend was upset because I kept visiting her office. To placate him, she supposedly used my flower budget to buy a huge bouquet for an intern, Jay Cloud.

Someone even called me an old man shamelessly chasing the CEO. I’m a tech lead—this was blatant targeting.

I froze, recalling Jay Cloud’s enormous bouquet this morning, a chill in my heart.

Since the company started, Olivia Schmidt had never sent me flowers. Not today, and she couldn’t even spare time for our anniversary dinner.

Lately, even during our intimate moments, she’d cut things short, preoccupied with the company’s new tech challenges, fearing our competitor, the Hayes Group, would get ahead.

I’d joined her company with my top-tier tech, turning down a lucrative offer from Hayes because I sympathized with her startup struggles. I became a workaholic, agreed to a secret marriage—all so she could focus without social distractions.

But what happened? Faced with malicious gossip, she stayed silent and distant, yet showed obvious favoritism toward intern Jay Cloud.

I looked at the hard drive in my hand, holding the latest tech updates, took a deep breath, and called the Hayes Group.

“I agree to the technical equity investment. The partnership is settled!”

…