My CEO Fiancé Let His Mistress Replace Me

I woke up the morning after our five-year anniversary with Mateo's arm still around me. The light came through the curtains soft and warm. I turned my head and looked at him sleeping. His face was calm. I thought about the dinner last night, the candles, the way he held my hand across the table. Five years. It felt like forever and no time at all.

I slipped out of bed without waking him. The garment bag hung on the closet door. My wedding dress. I had picked it up yesterday from the final alterations. White silk, simple cut, nothing too much. I ran my fingers over the bag and smiled. I wanted to bring it to the office. Maybe hang it in Mateo's office for a minute so he could see it. Not on me. Just the dress. A little surprise.

I got dressed, grabbed the garment bag, and drove to Midtown. Morales Group headquarters sat on Forty-Third Street, all glass and steel. Mateo's company. I parked in the garage and rode the elevator up with the bag folded over my arm.

The lobby was busy. People in suits moving fast with coffee cups and phones. I smiled at a few employees I recognized. They looked at me, then looked away. One woman whispered something to the guy next to her. He glanced over and his mouth twitched. They both turned and walked off.

I kept walking. My chest felt tight but I told myself it was nothing. People were busy. That was all.

The atrium opened up ahead. Huge space, marble floors, screens on the walls showing company announcements and stock tickers. I stopped in the middle of the room because I saw my face.

It was on the big screen. My bridal portrait. The one I took two weeks ago in the white gown with my hair pulled back. But it was wrong. There was a thick black border around it. Dates underneath. Fabricated death dates. My name in block letters like a funeral memorial. The company website was projected right there for everyone to see.

I stood there holding the garment bag. My hands went numb. Around me, people were looking. A couple of junior analysts near the coffee bar were laughing behind their hands. Someone's phone camera flashed. I heard a woman say, "Oh my god, is that her?"

I turned and walked straight to the elevator. My legs felt like they weren't mine. I hit the button for the executive floor and the doors closed. I watched the numbers climb. My reflection stared back at me in the metal doors. Pale. Blank.

The executive floor was quiet. Mateo's office sat at the end of the hall, glass walls, his name on the door. I could see him inside at his desk. Layla Sanchez was perched on the edge of it, legs crossed, leaning toward him. She was laughing. He was smiling.

I pushed the door open. They both looked up.

"Esme," Mateo said. He didn't stand. "What are you doing here?"

I set the garment bag on the chair by the door. My voice came out steady. "There's a picture of me downstairs. On the website. It's been altered into a funeral memorial."

Layla's face shifted into something that looked like concern but wasn't. "Oh my god, Esme, I am so sorry. That was a glitch. I've been trying to get IT to take it down all morning."

"A glitch," I repeated.

Mateo sighed and leaned back in his chair. "It's being handled. Layla's on it."

"Everyone saw it," I said. "They were laughing."

"It's a joke, Esme," he said. His tone was flat. Tired. "A bad joke, sure, but you're making it a bigger deal than it is. We have investors coming in today. I need you to not be so sensitive right now."

I looked at him. At the man I had spent five years building. The proposals I wrote for him at midnight. The investor calls I set up through back channels he never asked about. The crisis I erased when rumors about his mother almost destroyed him, the PR team I paid for with money he didn't know I had.

Layla tilted her head. Her smile was thin and sharp. "I really am sorry, Esme. It won't happen again."

"Okay," I said.

I turned and walked out. I didn't take the garment bag. I left it there.

I stopped just outside the glass door. I could see them through the wall. Mateo rubbed his face. Layla leaned closer.

"She's exhausting," he said. His voice carried through the glass. "Trophy girlfriend. Pretty face, but she doesn't get it. Doesn't get this world."

Layla laughed softly. "You need someone on your level. Someone who actually challenges you. A real partner."

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah."

I walked to the elevator. I rode down. I got in my car and drove home.

That night I sat at the kitchen table. My mother's memorial urn sat in front of me. Hand-painted ceramic, pale blue with white flowers. I had carried it with me since college. Since the day she died and I couldn't say goodbye.

I picked up my phone and called Hunter.

She answered on the first ring. "Esme."

"I need you to find everything real about Layla Sanchez," I said.

There was a pause. Then: "I've been building the file for months. I was waiting for you to call."

I looked at the urn. I thought about five years. Every proposal. Every deal. Every investor. Every piece of Mateo's empire I built in silence while he told people I was just a pretty face.

"Send it to me," I said.

I hung up. I sat there in the dark. I didn't cry.

I started making a list.