Flash Marriage To My Secret Tycoon

The private elevator opened with a soft chime directly into the penthouse. Alayna stepped inside, holding a folder of wedding plans under her arm.

After three years together, she and Jordon were finally one month away from getting married. Tonight was supposed to be a quiet evening to finalize the guest list and celebrate.

Then her phone buzzed in her palm.

An anonymous message lit up the screen: "Your fiancé is finalizing a different kind of merger."

Alayna's breath seized in her throat.

The photograph was a close-up of the master bedroom door in this exact penthouse. Strewn across the hardwood floor outside the door was a man's silk tie—the custom navy Hermès tie she had gifted Jordon for his birthday—tangled with a pair of red-soled Christian Louboutin heels.

Heels she had seen her executive assistant, Lauren Bishop, wearing in the office only five hours ago.

The blood drained from Alayna's face, leaving a bitter, metallic taste coating her tongue. Her feet moved on pure, cold instinct, her heels sinking into the carpet as she marched down the dimly lit hallway.

She pressed her thumb to the biometric scanner on the double oak doors. The mechanism clicked.

A woman's muffled, breathy groan drifted through the opening.

Alayna shoved the heavy door wide open.

The blackout curtains were drawn, casting the room in dim shadows, but the massive king bed was directly in her line of sight.

Two naked bodies were intertwined in the center of the mattress—the very Egyptian cotton sheets Alayna had personally selected for their future home.

Her leather handbag slipped from her numb fingers, hitting the floor with a loud, hollow thud.

The movement on the bed stopped instantly.

Jordon snapped his head up. The color vanished from his face, leaving his skin an ashen gray. Panic flared in his eyes as he scrambled backward, violently shoving the woman off his chest.

Lauren let out a sharp shriek, hastily yanking the silk duvet up to her collarbone. She shrank against the headboard, but not before Alayna caught the brief, venomous gleam of triumph in the assistant's eyes before the tears began to flow.

"Alayna!" Jordon tumbled off the mattress, his bare knees hitting the hardwood with a painful thud. He reached out, his hands trembling as he grasped at the empty air between them. "Wait—listen to me! It's not what it looks like!"

Alayna stepped back, her entire body locking into rigid stone. Three years of shared dinners, shared promises, and late-night coding sessions while he promised to protect her studio flashed through her mind—all of it rotting into a pile of filth before her eyes.

"Not what it looks like?" Her voice was a razor-sharp whisper, dangerously calm. "You're naked in our bed with my assistant, Jordon. What part of that am I misinterpreting?"

"I was drunk! The champagne from the board meeting... the pressure of the merger..." Jordon stammered frantically, his voice cracking as he scrambled toward her on his knees. "She brought the contract files over and one thing led to another—it was a mistake! A meaningless mistake, I swear to God!"

From the bed, Lauren let out a pathetic, trembling whimper. "Miss Smith, please... I'm so sorry. Mr. Harris had too much to drink, I tried to leave, but he—"

"Shut your mouth," Alayna cut her off, her eyes never leaving Jordon. The cold, suffocating disgust in her veins was so absolute it burned.

Jordon lunged to his feet, lunging forward to grab her shoulders. His large hands clamped down on her collarbones, his nails digging into her skin through her silk blouse. "Alayna, look at me! We have too much at stake! The merger, the family financing—your studio's entire future depends on this wedding! You can't throw it all away over one drunken slip!"

"Let go of me," she hissed, twisting her torso.

His grip only tightened, bruising her skin. "I won't let you ruin our lives! You're marrying me next month, Alayna! You don't have a choice!"

Pain flared in her shoulder, shattering the last boundary of her restraint.

Her peripheral vision caught the heavy, half-empty bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon resting on the nightstand.

Survival instinct and raw fury overrode the shock. Her hand shot out like a whip.

Her fingers locked around the thick glass neck. Without a fraction of a second's hesitation, she swung her arm in a vicious, sweeping arc, slamming the solid glass base directly into the center of Jordon's forehead.

The bottle shattered on impact.

A violent spray of dark red wine and bright crimson blood exploded across Jordon's face. He shrieked in agony, clutching his bleeding skull as he stumbled backward and collapsed against the foot of the bed.

Lauren screamed hysterically, burying her face in the pillows.

Alayna stood over him, her chest heaving with cold, measured breaths. She raised her left hand, gripped the heavy three-carat diamond engagement ring, and ripped it over her knuckle, tearing the skin until a thin line of blood welled.

She hurled it straight at his face. The diamond struck Jordon hard in the center of his chest before bouncing onto the blood-stained floor.

"You crazy bitch!" Jordon choked out, blood and wine streaming down his nose into his teeth as he glared up at her with wild, furious eyes. "If you walk out that door, the merger is dead! Your father will freeze every asset you have! You'll be ruined!"

"Then let him freeze it," she said, looking down at him as if he were a pile of street garbage. "I would rather watch my studio burn to the ground and beg on the streets of Manhattan than spend another second tied to a pathetic, cowardly piece of trash like you."

She reached down, snatched her fallen handbag from the floor, and turned on her heel.

"Alayna! Alayna, don't you dare!" Jordon screamed down the hallway, his voice breaking in frantic desperation.

Alayna did not slow down. She did not look back.

She stepped out of the penthouse into the private vestibule and slammed the heavy oak door behind her, severing his screams from her world forever.

She stepped into the private elevator and struck the lobby button with the heel of her hand. The floor dropped beneath her, the sudden weightlessness pulling at her stomach.

A single tear tracked down her cheek. She bit down on her lower lip, wiped the moisture from her face with the back of her hand, and took a long, steadying breath.

Ding.

The elevator doors slid open to the grand, marble-clad lobby.

Her spine straight, her chin held high, Alayna walked briskly past the concierge and pushed through the revolving glass doors.

A torrential downpour was hammering the Manhattan pavement. She did not hesitate. She walked straight into the freezing rain.