Betrayed at the Table, I Cleaned Out My Fiancé

Tiffany was also clearly one card away from winning, her eyes fixed intently on the table.

It was Shawn's turn to draw.

He drew a card and ran his thumb over its face for a long moment. His gaze drifted between Tiffany and me.

I knew exactly what he was holding. It was the Two of Spades.

I also knew that Tiffany was waiting on a Five or an Eight. The Two was useless to her, but as long as he held onto it, I couldn't win. But if he discarded it, I could turn the tables.

This was the ultimate test. I wanted to see whether I, his fiancee, still held even a fraction of his heart.

"Shawn," Tiffany called sweetly, as if she had sensed something. "I think I'm about to win."

Shawn glanced at me. I met his eyes, a final flicker of hope burning in my eyes.

Even if he just held the card and forced a draw, I could live with that—as long as he didn't go out of his way to hand Tiffany the victory on a silver platter.

Shawn looked away, a cruel, mocking smirk playing on his lips.

"Tiffany, watch this," he said.

He kept the Two of Spades in his hand and discarded the Eight of Diamonds instead.

"Eight of Diamonds."

Tiffany let out a squeal of delight. "I win! I was waiting for this Eight of Diamonds!"

My heart felt like it was sinking into the bottom of the ocean.

He had clearly drawn the card that could have helped me win, yet he chose to break up his own winning hand just to feed Tiffany the discard she wanted, even though that one move would cost me my mom's heirloom.

Tiffany snatched the emerald bracelet off the table, slid it onto her wrist, and admired it. "It's gorgeous. The clarity of this emerald is incredible."

She deliberately flaunted her wrist in front of me, the vivid green stinging my eyes. "Thanks for letting me win it, Joanna."

Shawn lit a cigarette, exhaling a slow cloud of smoke. "I told you not to play, but you just wouldn't listen."

He mocked, "Happy now? You just gambled away your own mom's heirloom. How are you going to explain that to her when you meet her on the other side?"

I couldn't believe he had the nerve to bring up my mom.

I lowered my head, my shoulders trembling. Everyone must have thought that I was breaking down in tears.

But I wasn't crying. I was laughing.

I was laughing at my own stupidity, at how pathetic this entire relationship had become. And mostly, I was laughing because the bait had finally been taken.

…

"Deal another hand."

I snapped my head up, my hair a mess, and my eyes burning red. I looked exactly like a woman who had just gambled away everything she had and finally snapped.

Everyone at the table was startled.

Shawn frowned. "Joanna, are you done yet? What do you even have left to lose? That measly three-grand-a-month job of yours? Or that closet full of cheap fast fashion?"

He snapped, "Stop making a scene and just get out of here."

Tiffany curled her lip in disdain. "Seriously, Joanna, just call it quits. We're going out for a late-night celebration. We don't have time to waste on a broke nobody like you."

With that, she stood, her hand instinctively hovering over the emerald bracelet she had won from me, as if afraid I might try to snatch it back.

I reached into a hidden compartment of my bag, pulled out a document, and slapped it onto the table with a resounding smack.

"This is an equity transfer agreement for five percent of the founding shares of Simpson Group. They're yours the moment you sign."

In an instant, the room fell silent. Everyone gaped in shock.

Simpson Group was the largest conglomerate in the city, valued at hundreds of billions of dollars. A five-percent stake? That wasn't just chump change—it was worth tens of billions of dollars!

The lit cigarette in Shawn's hand dropped right onto his lap. It burned a hole straight through his pants, but he didn't even flinch. He surged to his feet, his voice cracking.

"Joanna, you… you're a Simpson?"

We had been together for three years. In all that time, I had never breathed a single word about my family. I had told him that my parents were gone, and that I had built my life from scratch.

I drove a beat-up Volkswagen worth barely a few grand and always dressed in ordinary office wear. To him, I was just another average office worker with some meager savings.

He never dreamed that I was the long-lost heiress to the Simpson family.

"Why? Don't I look the part?" I stared him down, expressionless. "Are you in or out? These shares, in exchange for your tech startup that just secured funding, plus…"

I pointed a sharp finger at Tiffany. "Everything she's taken from me at this table tonight, and the deed to her downtown condo."

Shawn's breath came in ragged gasps. His eyes burned red. It was the look of a man consumed by absolute greed.