Then Henri, the maître d’, returned. He wasn’t whispering anymore. “Mr. Bolton,” Henri said, loud enough for the head table to hear. “I just received a call from corporate ownership.”
“Corporate?” Derek stammered.
“Yes. The Prestige Hospitality Group was acquired recently. The new owner called personally. She wanted to extend a gift.”
Derek felt a glimmer of hope. Lydia still loved him. She was doing this to show off, but she would save him. “A gift? She’s covering the bill?”
“No, sir,” Henri said, his face stone cold. “She instructed us to enforce the contract strictly. Since the payment was declined, the event is officially over. Security will now escort the guests out. However…” Henri paused, pulling a small envelope from his jacket. “She asked me to give you this.”
Derek took the envelope with shaking hands. The music had stopped. The lights were being turned up to the harsh “cleaning” setting. Jessica was sobbing, mascara running down her face. Derek opened the card. Inside was a simple note written in elegant cursive:
Derek,
You always wanted a story that people would remember. Now you have one.
P.S. I want the cat back.
— L.
The gift wasn’t money. It wasn’t a bailout. It was the public execution of his ego.
“Everybody out!” a security guard bellowed from the back.
As the guests shuffled out, whispering and pointing, Derek Bolton stood in the center of the empty dance floor. He held a maxed-out credit card in one hand and a note from the billionaire he discarded in the other. He had wanted to be the main character. He just didn’t realize he was the villain who loses in the end.
The parking lot of Oheka Castle was a chaotic scene of ruined expectations. It was raining now—a sudden, torrential downpour that felt like the universe was washing away the last remnants of Derek’s dignity.
Jessica was sitting on the curb in her twenty-thousand-dollar custom gown, the hem dragged through a puddle of oil and mud. She wasn’t crying anymore. She was screaming into her phone, trying to get an Uber, but the surge pricing was astronomical because three hundred guests were all trying to leave at once.
“Derek!” she shrieked as he trudged toward her, his jacket soaked, his hair plastered to his forehead. “My mother had to hitch a ride with your college roommate in a Honda Civic! Do you understand the humiliation? Do you?”
“Jess, please,” Derek pleaded, reaching for her. “It’s a misunderstanding. I’ll fix it on Monday. I’ll go to the bank.”
“You don’t have a bank!” she spat, slapping his hand away. “You don’t have a job! Did you think I didn’t hear your boss? You’re fired, Derek. And if you’re fired, how are we going to pay for this dress or the apartment?”
She stood up, her eyes wild. “You told me you were a player. You told me you were going to be a CEO. You’re nothing but a fraud in a rented suit.”
“I did this for us!” Derek yelled back, his voice cracking. “To give you the life you wanted!”
“No,” Jessica sneered, pulling off the massive engagement ring. She looked at it for a second, debating whether to keep it. Then she realized something. “Is this even real? Or is this fake like everything else?”
“It’s real! I spent…”
“I don’t care!” she interrupted. She didn’t throw the ring back; she shoved it into her purse. “I’m keeping it as compensation for wasting the best year of my youth.”
A black SUV pulled up. It wasn’t for Derek. It was for Jessica. The window rolled down, and to Derek’s horror, his best friend, Kyle, was in the driver’s seat.
“Need a lift, Jess?” Kyle asked, not even looking at Derek.
“Kyle?” Derek stared, betrayed. “What are you doing?”
“Sorry, man,” Kyle shrugged. “Business is business, and you’re bad for business right now. Plus, I’ve always thought Jess deserved better.”
Jessica hopped into the car without a backward glance. Derek watched as his wife of three hours drove off with his best friend, leaving him standing alone in the rain with a bill for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars that he couldn’t pay.
The next morning was worse. Derek woke up on the couch of his apartment—the one he had bragged about, the one with the lease that was three months overdue. His head was pounding.
He reached for his phone, hoping the previous night had been a nightmare. It wasn’t. He had five hundred new notifications, but they weren’t congratulations.
Someone—probably one of Jessica’s influencer friends—had live-streamed the moment the news broke on the screens. The video was trending on TikTok and Twitter under the hashtags #JerkTheBrokeGroom and #KarmaWedding.
The video showed Derek’s face crumbling as Lydia’s interview played. It showed the maître d’ cutting him off. It showed the guests laughing. Comments flooded in:
“Imagine dumping a billionaire for a broke influencer lmao.”
“The level of fumble here is historic.”
“She bought his bank. That is queen behavior.”
“I was at this wedding. The cake was dry just like his bank account.”
Derek threw the phone across the room. It cracked against the wall. He needed to think. He needed a plan. He was a survivor, right? He was a shark. Sharks kept moving.
He showered, put on his only clean suit, and decided to go to the Stratton Oakmont office. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe he could talk to Sterling. Maybe if he just explained that it was a misunderstanding, he could keep his job.
He arrived at the glass skyscraper at 9:00 a.m. He walked to the turnstiles, swiping his badge. Beep beep. Access denied. He tried again. Access denied.
“Sir?” A large security guard stepped forward. Derek recognized him. He had walked past this man every day for five years without ever learning his name.
“My badge is acting up,” Derek said, forcing a confident smile. “Can you buzz me in?”
“Mr. Bolton,” the guard said, his face impassive. “I’ve been instructed to collect your badge. You are not permitted on the premises.”
“This is illegal!” Derek shouted, causing people in the lobby to turn. “I have personal items in my office! My contacts! My deal sheets!”
“Your personal items have been boxed and are waiting at the service entrance,” the guard said, pointing to the back door. “Everything else is company property, including the deal sheets.”
“I want to see Sterling!” Derek demanded.
“Mr. Sterling has been reassigned to a regional branch in… I believe, North Dakota,” the guard said. “The new management is making a lot of changes.”
Derek felt the blood drain from his face. North Dakota. That was a death sentence in the finance world. “Who authorized this?” Derek whispered.
The guard pointed to the massive digital screen in the lobby, which usually displayed stock prices. Today, it displayed a welcome message for the new ownership group: “WELCOME TO SINCLAIR FINANCIAL. INTEGRITY. VISION. ACCOUNTABILITY.”
And there, in the corner of the screen, was a photo of the Board of Directors. Lydia sat at the head of the table, looking powerful, serene, and utterly untouchable.
Derek grabbed his box of stuff from the loading dock. It was raining again. As he walked toward the subway—because his Uber account was suspended due to the failed payments—he saw a billboard.
It was an ad for a new luxury watch. The model wearing it looked familiar. It was the guy Jessica had been networking with on Instagram for months. Derek realized then that the bottom wasn’t the wedding. The bottom was just beginning.
Three weeks later, Derek was living in a motel in Queens. His landlord had evicted him within forty-eight hours of the wedding disaster, citing a breach of lease regarding “running a business from the premises”—a lie, but Derek couldn’t afford a lawyer to fight it. He spent his days drinking cheap coffee and furiously Googling legal statutes.
He had convinced himself of a new narrative. “Lydia defrauded me. She hid assets,” Derek ranted to the empty motel room. “That’s illegal. If she was rich when we were married, I’m entitled to half. Alimony. I deserve alimony.”
It became his obsession. If he could just prove that she had the money while they were together, he could sue her for millions. He could get back on top. He sold his last Rolex to pay for a consultation with a shark of a divorce attorney named Saul.
Saul’s office was above a falafel shop, but he had a reputation for being vicious. “So let me get this straight,” Saul said, chewing on a toothpick. “You dumped her. You signed the divorce papers uncontested. And now you want to reopen the settlement because you found out she’s rich?”
“She lied by omission!” Derek slammed his fist on the cheap laminate desk. “She pretended to be a librarian. That’s fraud. I suffered emotional distress living in poverty with her when we could have been living in a penthouse!”
Saul looked at Derek with pity. “Mr. Bolton, did you ask her for financial disclosure during the divorce?”
“No,” Derek scoffed. “I thought she had nothing. I wanted a clean break.”
“So you waived discovery,” Saul scribbled on a notepad. “And did she inherit this money during the marriage?”
“I don’t know,” Derek admitted, “but she’s a Sinclair. She must have had a trust fund.”
“I did some digging before you came in,” Saul said, sliding a piece of paper across the desk. “Lydia Hart Sinclair’s grandmother, the matriarch, passed away three weeks after your divorce was finalized. The title and the bulk of the estate transferred to Lydia upon that death. Before that, she was living on a librarian’s salary by choice, refusing access to the family funds until she was thirty-five or the matriarch passed.”
Derek stared at the paper. The dates were mocking him. Divorce Finalized: September 1st. Date of Inheritance: September 22nd.
“She played you,” Saul chuckled darkly. “But legally? She’s clean. She didn’t have the money when you were married. She got it after you left. You missed the payout by twenty-one days.”
Twenty-one days. Derek felt like he couldn’t breathe. If he had just waited… if he hadn’t been so eager to marry Jessica… if he had just stayed a little longer, he would be the husband of a billionaire. He would be powerful.
“There has to be something!” Derek pleaded. “Emotional damages! She embarrassed me publicly at my wedding!”
“You invited her,” Saul reminded him. “And she didn’t say anything untrue. She just played a video. Truth is an absolute defense against defamation.” Saul closed the file. “Go home, kid. You got beat. The best thing you can do is disappear before she decides to sue you for legal fees.”
But Derek couldn’t let it go. He began stalking her. Not physically—he couldn’t get within five miles of her security team—but digitally. He watched every interview. He read every article.
He saw her at the Met Gala, wearing a red dress that looked like liquid fire, walking arm-in-arm with a man. Derek squinted at the screen. The man was handsome, distinguished. He was a French architect named Luc, known for restoring historic castles. Derek looked at the half-eaten pizza on his bed.
“I need to talk to her,” he decided. “If I can just look her in the eye, I can remind her of what we had. She loved me once. She was obsessed with me. I just need five minutes.”
He found out she was speaking at a charity gala for literacy at the Public Library the following Tuesday. It was a public event, technically. Derek spent his last fifty dollars on a haircut. He put on his suit, which was now slightly loose because he had lost weight from stress.
He arrived at the library steps. There were paparazzi everywhere. He waited in the crowd, shivering in the cold November wind.
Finally, a black limousine pulled up. The crowd cheered. Lydia stepped out. She looked radiant, happy, and lighter than she ever had with him.
“Lydia!” Derek screamed, pushing through the crowd. “Lydia! It’s me! Derek!”
The security guards tensed, but Lydia paused. She turned her head. She saw him. For a second, Derek thought he saw a flicker of emotion. He lunged forward.
“Lydia, please! I made a mistake! We need to talk!”
Lydia didn’t move toward him. She simply adjusted her coat, leaned over to her bodyguard, and whispered something. The bodyguard nodded. He walked over to Derek, who was now being held back by a police officer.
“Mr. Bolton?” the bodyguard asked.
“Yes! Tell her I’m here! Tell her I love her!”
The bodyguard handed him a small, sealed envelope. “Ms. Sinclair prepared this in case you showed up. She predicted you would.”
Derek ripped it open, his hands trembling. He expected a phone number, a meeting time, a check. Inside was a photo. It was a picture of the two of them from five years ago, eating pizza on the floor of their first apartment.
Derek looked bored in the photo, looking at his phone. Lydia looked at him with pure adoration. On the back, she had written:
“I loved this man. But you aren’t him anymore. And honestly, Derek, I don’t think you ever were. Goodbye.”
Derek looked up. Lydia was already gone, disappearing into the golden light of the library, the doors closing with a heavy, final thud. He stood there as the paparazzi snapped photos of his crying face. He knew this would be another meme by morning.
The descent wasn’t a cliff; it was a long, humiliating slide. In the first month after the wedding disaster, Derek still believed he could fix it. He treated his unemployment like a temporary sabbatical.
He spent his mornings in Starbucks, nursing a single coffee for four hours while aggressively messaging headhunters on LinkedIn. He wore his suits, though they were beginning to smell faintly of the mildew from his damp basement apartment in Queens.
“It’s just a misunderstanding with the previous management,” Derek told a recruiter over the phone, pacing outside the coffee shop. “I was a top producer. My numbers speak for themselves.”
“I’ve seen your numbers, Mr. Bolton,” the recruiter replied, her voice cold. “But I’ve also seen the compliance report from Stratton Oakmont and the viral video. Frankly, you’re radioactive. No reputable firm in the tri-state area will touch you. Have you considered another industry?”
Derek hung up. He threw his phone into a trash can, then immediately fished it out because he couldn’t afford a new one.
By month three, the denial cracked. The money from the pawned watches ran out. The Porsche was repossessed in the middle of the night; a tow truck driver named Sal banged on his door at 3:00 a.m. demanding the keys. Derek watched from the window as the symbol of his success was dragged away, leaving oil stains on the pavement.
He moved again, this time to a room-share in Weehawken, New Jersey. His roommate was a conspiracy theorist who didn’t believe in deodorant.
Derek stopped wearing suits. He started wearing a gray hoodie that he hadn’t washed in weeks. He stopped shaving. The face in the mirror—the sharp, arrogant face of a Senior Vice President—had dissolved into something puffy, tired, and defeated.
He tried to find Jessica once. He saw on Instagram that she was in Dubai, tagging a fifty-year-old oil consultant in her photos. She looked happy, or at least expensive. She hadn’t mentioned Derek once. It was as if he had never existed.
By month eight, Derek Bolton, the man who once drank twelve-dollar sparkling water, was washing dishes at the Golden Griddle, a 24-hour diner off Route 3.
One year later, the diner smelled of burnt bacon, floor cleaner, and despair. The fluorescent lights buzzed with a headache-inducing hum that seemed to drill directly into Derek’s skull.
“Order up! Tuna melt, side of slaw, table four!”
Derek wiped his hands on his stained apron. “I got it,” he muttered, his voice raspy from too many cigarettes and not enough conversation. He picked up the plate. His hands, once manicured and soft, were red and chapped from the industrial dish soap. He walked to table four, his orthopedic sneakers squeaking on the linoleum.
At the table sat a young family. The father was on his phone, ignoring his kids. He was wearing a suit—ill-fitting, polyester, but a suit nonetheless. He looked stressed, important in his own mind.
“Here you go,” Derek said, placing the sandwich down. “Can I get you anything else?”
“Yeah, more coffee,” the man snapped without looking up. “And make it quick. I’ve got a conference call in ten minutes. Big deal closing.”
