My Fiancé Fired Me and His Girl Took My Code Chapter 01

My Fiancé Fired Me and His Girl Took My Code Chapter 01

A notification popped up in Apex Software Solutions’ main Slack channel.

I had been laid off.

Right beneath the announcement was a brief note: [Conflict of interest mitigation / Anti-nepotism policy].

My fiancé, Preston Wilson, kept his avatar completely silent. Not a single word of explanation.

Whispers immediately rippled through the office.

“Valerie is the Tech Director, and Preston is the VP of Sales. Do they really need to avoid a conflict of interest?”

“Even if they do, why is Valerie the one getting let go?”

Chloe Harris, Preston’s childhood family friend who had just transitioned from an intern to a full-time developer, walked over with a smile.

“Valerie, don’t worry about leaving. I’ll be taking over your responsibilities from now on.”

I didn’t say a word. I just opened the severance package sent by HR.

The total was $120,000.

Without a hint of hesitation, I signed it.

Chase, a junior developer in my department, spoke up in frustration. “Valerie, aren’t you even going to fight this?”

I stood up slowly. “There’s no point.”

Chloe let out a soft laugh. “Fighting wouldn’t change anything anyway. Preston brings in over a hundred million in revenue for the company every year. Did you honestly expect them to fire him?”

I glanced at her. She had absolutely no idea what a Tech Director actually meant to a software company.

32 core codebases, 17 custom automation scripts, LLM lightweight optimization and deployment, and model-driven development architecture.

Every single bit of it was forged through five years of my blood, sweat, and sleepless nights.

There were certain technologies in this building that nobody understood except me.

Preston didn’t get home until 11:00 PM.

He reeked of alcohol.

Looking at me, his eyes showed not a single shred of remorse.

“Valerie, you need to understand. We’re getting married. We have to mitigate the conflict of interest.”

I kept quiet.

Suddenly, his phone buzzed on the coffee table with an iMessage notification.

He glanced at it and snatched it up instantly.

But I had already seen the screen. It was from Chloe.

[Hubby, the eyesore is finally gone.]

I withdrew my gaze and let out a cold smile.

It looked like this wedding was officially off.

***

I turned on the TV and mindlessly flipped through the channels.

But my mind was entirely elsewhere.

I was trying to pinpoint exactly when they had started sleeping together.

When I first started dating Preston, I knew he had a girl he grew up with who was practically like a little sister to him.

Chloe.

Preston always insisted he only viewed her as family.

Even his mother had reassured me, claiming Chloe was just a sweet girl from next door.

So when Chloe graduated from college, and Preston asked me to let her intern in my department, I hadn’t thought twice about agreeing.

I spent six months carefully mentoring her. I never expected to mentor her right into my fiancé’s bed.

Preston walked out of the bedroom, his face painted with a fake layer of guilt.

“Babe, I’m so sorry you got laid off. I can’t even stay and comfort you tonight because I have so much work. Once this busy streak passes, I’ll take you on a vacation to clear your head.”

I didn’t look at him. I just gave a faint hum of approval.

He stood there, hesitating for a moment.

“Babe, are you mad at me?”

“Don’t take what Chloe said today to heart. She’s young and clueless. She was just playing around.”

I finally looked up at him.

“You heard what she said?”

“Yeah.”

“And you think she was right?”

He didn’t answer.

I shut off the TV and stood up to head to my room.

He grabbed my arm.

“Babe, does it even matter? Women are going to embrace domesticity sooner or later anyway. When your husband has a successful career, doesn’t that give you social status too?”

I stared directly into his eyes. “Whose status? Yours, or ‘Mrs. Wilson’s’? Did I spend sixteen years getting an education just to change my surname to yours?”

His mouth fell open, but no words came out.

I yanked my hand free and walked toward the master bedroom.

He sighed in exasperation. “Fine, babe. I get that you’re in a bad mood, so I won’t argue. Just go calm down.”

I ignored him and shut the door behind me.

He stayed outside.

Later, I heard the door to the guest room click shut.

This was the first time we had slept in separate beds since moving in together.

On the exact night I was laid off.

On the exact night I discovered his betrayal.

Strangely, I didn’t feel much sorrow. Instead, I felt a wave of relief.

I was relieved that my future wouldn’t be sabotaged by a marriage completely devoid of dignity and loyalty.

To be fair, I was the one who joined the firm first. I recommended Preston to the CEO six months later.

His biggest closed deals only happened because I personally sat down with his clients to analyze the software’s performance and market outlook.

He owed at least half of his success as VP of Sales to my backing.

Yet, everyone in the company assumed he carried more weight than I did.

Perhaps Preston believed that too, taking it all for granted.

That was why he used such a ruthless layout to force me out, hoping to trap me in a domestic cage.

He wanted me to become a faceless shadow, sacrificing everything for him without complaint.

But I was never anyone’s accessory.

And there was no way in hell I would sacrifice my career for a man who resorted to such cheap tactics just to clear the path for his affair.

I logged onto my shopping apps, pulled up the long list of wedding supplies, and clicked refund on every single order, whether shipped or pending.

Then I opened a file on my laptop titled Wedding Expenses.

It tracked every dime we had spent.

We had co-owned our house, splitting the down payment and renovation costs down the middle.

Instead of tracking every single dollar, the simplest way was a clean break.

An equity buyout agreement—whoever kept the house would pay the other out.

As for the rest of the expenses, I tallied up the math.

I put it all into a spreadsheet and sent it to Preston.

He didn’t reply.

I checked the time. 11:30 PM.

He was always awake at this hour.

The next morning, Preston didn’t ask about the spreadsheet, and I didn’t bring it up either.

He stole a glance at me over breakfast. “Is there anything else we need to buy for the wedding?”

I knew he was testing the waters.

He wanted to know if that spreadsheet was an asset partition or just a routine budget update.

“Nothing,” I said flatly.

“Good.”

He let out a visible sigh of relief. “What are your plans for today?”

I kept my head down, sipping my milk.

“Going to the office. HR needs to see me.”

A conflicted look flashed across his face.

“Then you’ll have to drive yourself. I have to visit a client this morning.”

I nodded without a word.

He didn’t even finish his breakfast before rushing out the door.

The moment the front door clicked shut, I opened an app on my phone.

The car belonged to me, and I had a GPS tracking system synced to my device.

Thirty minutes later, my car pulled up and stopped at Whispering Pines Apartments.

I had dropped Chloe off there once. She lived there.

I took a screenshot of the location and saved it to my camera roll.

Then I got up and left the house.

When I arrived at the office, I ran straight into a glowing, radiant Chloe right at the entrance.

She was wearing stilettos and immaculate makeup.

It stood in stark contrast to my casual clothes and bare face.

She walked over, greeting me with a sweet smile.

“Hey, Valerie. Dressing so casual today? Did you have to take the subway here?”

I looked at her, keeping my expression perfectly polite as usual.

“Yeah, I did. I don’t get a private chauffeur like you do.”

The smile instantly froze on her face.