My Fiancée Joined a Dating Show

The day my ice-cold fiance Victoria Hastings ruined her own reputation, I was lounging in the backyard of my Hudson River estate, smoking a perfectly marbled brisket.

The savory scent of cracked black pepper and hickory wood had just filled the courtyard when my phone went absolutely nuclear. The vibration was so violent it rattled the table and shattered my eight-thousand-dollar Baccarat crystal tumbler.

My boy Jaxon sent fifty voice notes in a row. His throat sounded completely blown out.

"Alex!!! Check the trending page!!!"

"Massive drama!!! Your girl Victoria!!!"

"Live broadcast!! Turn on that dating show right now!! Shes doing you dirty on national TV!!!"

A spark from the burning charcoal snapped, nearly singeing my eyebrow. I let out a dark chuckle.

Victoria? Humiliating me?

That was more absurd than pigs growing wings and winning the Kentucky Derby.

Who was Victoria Hastings?

Manhattan's ultimate socialite. The billionaire ice-queen CEO. The internet's undisputed dream wife who never gave men the time of day. She couldn't possibly face a scandal. Her entire pristine image was built on an impenetrable mountain of cold, hard cash.

Carrying a heavy, murderous aura of who the hell dares to mess with my girl, I tapped into the live stream.

The screen instantly loaded.

It was a heavily hyped, supposedly unscripted extreme survival dating show.

Right at that moment, Victoria was blushing deeply, participating in a game of Truth or Dare. Her dare: Call the man who makes your heart beat the fastest and ask to borrow a hundred million dollars.

Live viewer count: thirty-seven million.

The comment section was scrolling so fast it looked like a locust swarm, completely obscuring the faces on the screen.

I pinched the screen to zoom in.

Victoria sat by a crackling bonfire, wearing a cream-colored knit sweater. Her hair was tied up loosely, exposing the elegant curve of her neck. The warm firelight danced across her face, melting away half of her signature icy facade.

Next to her sat a man.

Early twenties, sharp jawline, piercing eyes, and a charming little mole near the corner of his mouth when he smiled. He wore a custom casual suit, sleeves rolled up twice to show off a limited-edition luxury watch.

Nate Alexander.

A top-tier pop idol who debuted from a hit reality show. Half the women in America went to sleep dreaming of putting a ring on his finger.

He was tilting his head, smiling at Victoria.

I knew that exact smile.

It was the grin of a predator who had fully cornered his prey and knew she couldn't escape.

The host, Ryan, held up his microphone, dragging out his words to maximize the tension. "Tori, you know the rules. Truth or dare, and you picked dare."

"Now, please call the man who makes your heart race the most, and ask him for a hundred million dollars."

"Remember, it has to be the one who makes your heart race."

The live chat instantly exploded.

"The one who makes her heart race! Doesn't that mean her fianc?"

"Who even is Alex? Has the internet investigated him yet?"

"Nothing to find. Rumor has it hes just an absolute nobody, a corporate arrangement set up by the Hastings family."

"Theres no way she actually calls her fianc, right? In front of the whole country?"

Victoria looked down, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. She bit her lower lip, released it, and bit it again.

Her gaze drifted toward Nate.

Just for a second.

Then she pulled it back.

Nate chuckled softly. He reached out and gently tucked a stray hair behind her ear.

Victorias shoulders shrank back the slightest bit, but she didnt pull away.

Thirty-seven million people watched that exact motion.

Ryan instantly threw gasoline on the fire. "Tori, could it be that your ultimate crush is sitting right here with us?"

Victoria took a deep breath and picked up her phone.

The screen lit up.

She scrolled to a single contact name.

Alex.

Just my name. No emojis, no profile picture, no special tags.

I stared at the screen. The heavy scent of hickory smoke still lingered in my throat. Sizzling fat dripped onto the hot coals, and a bead of boiling grease popped, searing the back of my hand.

I didn't flinch.

She pressed call.

The phone in my pocket began to vibrate.

It rang exactly three times.

I picked up.

"Yeah."

My voice was blasted through the studios loudspeakers, echoing out to thirty-seven million listeners.

Victoria pulled the phone slightly away from her face and put it on speaker.

Ryan leaned in, his face glowing with pure gossip. "The mysterious fianc! Ladies and gentlemen, this is the very first time the internet gets to hear his voice!"

The chat went feral.

"Okay but his voice is deep as hell."

"Who cares? A nice voice doesn't pay the bills."

"The ultimate placeholder husband has logged on lmaooo."

Victoria cleared her throat. Her tone went completely flat, like she was reading the terms and conditions of a legal contract. "Alex. Im filming a show right now. Theres a game segment where I need to borrow a hundred million. Can you figure something out?"

Figure something out.

Four words.

Not do you have it. It was can you figure something out.

Every single person watching caught the underlying message. He doesn't have a hundred million dollars, but he needs to go scrape it together for her.

Ryan laughed and pushed the knife deeper. "Tori, is this the man who makes your heart race?"

A suffocating silence blanketed the set for one solid second.

Victoria didn't look at the camera. Her voice was ice-cold. "He is my fianc. It was an arrangement made by the families."

She didn't say yes.

She didn't say no.

But everyone heard the real answer loud and clear.

No.

She quickly added, "A hundred million is definitely a bit out of his reach, but this is just a game anyway."

The comments flooded in like a broken dam.

"Deadass crying right now. She has to call her crush for 100M, and she calls her broke fianc who can't even afford it."

"Did you see the way she looked at Nate? The chemistry is insane."

"Did she get this fianc out of a cereal box?"

"Girls, her heart is beating for the pop star, but shes calling the hubby for cash. Iconic."

Nate sat beside her, smiling effortlessly. He picked up his wine glass and took a slow sip, completely relaxed. The dark red liquid caught the firelight, reflecting a fleeting flash of absolute triumph in his eyes.

I stared at the screen of my phone.

Thirty-seven million people were waiting for me to break.

"Alright," I said.

"A hundred million, right? You got it."

I didn't raise my voice. It was dead calm.

The entire studio froze.

Victoria froze.

Ryan's mouth hung open, his exaggerated expression completely glitching out.

The chat took a full two seconds to process what just happened.

"??? You got it? Just like that?"

"The absolute flex. Man is dropping 100M like it's pocket change."

"Capping so hard right now."

"Wake up buddy, it's a hundred million, not a hundred bucks."

I ignored the internet's meltdown.

"Victoria Hastings," I used her full name, pronouncing every single syllable with surgical precision. "When this broadcast is over, we need to talk."

Then I hung up.

Call duration: forty-seven seconds.

Victoria remained frozen, her phone screen already black, still holding it up to her ear.

Nate let out a mocking snort. He tilted his head, swirling his wine. "Your fianc is quite the character. Talks a really big game."

Ryan scrambled to save the segment. "Talk about tension! Well, viewers, whether or not that hundred million actually hits the bank account, we'll just have to wait and see!"

The comments detonated again.

"I bet my life savings this Alex guy can't even wire a thousand bucks."

"The most pathetic fianc on the internet, confirmed."

"Tori needs to drop him and get with Nate right now!"

I locked my phone and tossed it aside.

The prime cut of meat on the grill had completely charred, sending up thick plumes of black smoke that stung my eyes.

I picked up my secondary phone and pulled up a number with no name attached.

Just a string of digits.

Three years. I had lived in this city for three years and never dialed this number once.

Today was the first time.

I hit the button.

It rang exactly once before it connected.

"Young Master."

The voice was old, profoundly respectful, and trembling with a hint of shock.

"Arthur," I grabbed the blackened meat with tongs and dumped it into the trash, brushing the ash off my hands. "The Hastings Group. Every single line of funding connected to the Pierce family. Cut it."

"Credit lines, loan guarantees, venture investments, acquisition funds. Leave absolutely nothing."

"Right now. Immediately."

The other end of the line went dead silent for two seconds.

"Young Master, if we execute that order, the Hastings Group will suffer a total cash flow collapse within forty-eight hours. Seventy-three percent of their liquid capital runs straight through the Pierce Capital pipelines."

"I know."

"Your grandfather and old Mr. Hastings were close friends for thirty years..."

"Arthur," I cut him off. "She stood in front of thirty-seven million people and called me a corporate arrangement."

The line fell silent again.

Three seconds later, Arthur's voice dropped, sharp and decisive like a blade sliding out of its sheath.

"Understood. It will be fully executed within twenty minutes."

I hung up, walking over to the edge of the patio and gripping the iron railing.

The biting wind sweeping off the Hudson blew away the last traces of hickory smoke.

Across the water, the Manhattan skyline glowed brilliantly, twisting into the dark clouds like a serpent scaled in diamonds.

Beneath that ocean of lights stood seven massive skyscrapers, twelve commercial hubs, and three entire financial blocks.

Every single one of them had the name Pierce attached to the deed.

Victoria truly believed her family was worth ten billion dollars.

What she didn't know was that out of that ten billion, seven point three billion was entirely propped up by Pierce money.

She actually thought this marriage was just an "arrangement made by the families."

She was right about the arrangement.

But it wasn't the Hastings family calling the shots.

It was my grandfather taking pity on her grandfather, throwing the Hastings family a lifeline to save them from ruin.

There was only one condition attached to that lifeline: The Hastings' granddaughter had to marry the Pierce's grandson.

Three years.

I had stayed quietly in this waterfront estate. I didn't get involved in the Pierce empire's business, I never threw my family's name around, and I never swiped the black card sitting in my drawer that had no spending limit.

I did it all just to wait for Victoria to figure out her own feelings and come to me willingly.

Well, she figured it out alright.

She figured out she wanted to go on a dating show, blush at a boyband pretty boy, and tell the entire country I was nothing but a forced obligation.

Fine.

Then don't blame me for tearing down the facade.

At 1:17 AM, Marcus, the Chief Financial Officer of the Hastings Group, was jolted awake by his phone.

He glanced at the screen. It was an automated red-alert from the company's internal risk management system.

He answered, and a robotic AI voice began to list the casualties:

"Critical Alert: Master account anomaly. Pierce Capital guarantee limit reduced to zero. Repeating: Pierce Capital guarantee limit reduced to zero. Associated credit contracts have triggered mandatory liquidation clauses. Immediate action required."

Marcus's exhaustion vanished instantly.

He threw off the blankets, flipped open his laptop, and hammered his password into the system.

On the screen, lines of financial data were rapidly turning blood-red.

Pierce Capital has withdrawn all joint letters of guarantee.

Pierce Capital has terminated investment agreements (Codes PC-2024-0731 through PC-2025-0214, total of forty-seven contracts).

Pierce Capital has frozen all Hastings Group corporate accounts operating through Pierce National Bank.

Marcus's fingers started to violently shake.

He grabbed his phone and dialed a number.

"Mr. Hastings! Sir! We have a catastrophic situation!"

Richard Hastings's voice groaned through the speaker, groggy and deeply irritated at being woken up.

"It's the middle of the night, Marcus. What the hell is it?"

"Pierce Capital... they pulled everything! All guarantees, all credit lines, all investment capital. It's completely severed!"

The line went dead silent for five agonizing seconds.

When Richard finally spoke, his voice sounded like someone was strangling him.

"Say that to me one more time."

"Pierce Capital pulled out. Our master accounts are frozen. If we don't secure alternative funding within forty-eight hours, our corporate cash flow snaps. Every single construction project halts. Mr. Hastings, we are dead in the water."

Richard hung up the phone.

He sat on the edge of his mattress, clicking on the bedside lamp. The color drained from his face piece by piece until he looked like a corpse.

Next to him, his wife Eleanor woke up, rubbing her eyes. "Whos calling you at this hour...?"

Richard didn't answer.

He frantically scrolled through his contacts, found the executive liaison for Pierce Capital, and hit dial.

The number you have dialed is powered off.

He called the Pierce Capital headquarters front desk.

"We apologize, but Pierce Capital's corporate relationship with Hastings Group has been officially terminated. For all future inquiries, please contact our legal department."

He made seventeen phone calls.

Every single one gave him the exact same answer.

Richard's phone slipped out of his sweaty palm and slammed against the marble floor, a jagged crack splitting the screen.

He stared blankly at the ceiling, his pupils dilating in pure terror.

Pierce Capital.

Pierce.

Alex... Pierce.

No. Impossible.

That kid who spent his days lounging in a riverfront house, playing with his dogs and smoking meat on the grill? How could he possibly be tied to the apex predators of Pierce Capital?

He was just a distant, broke relative of the Pierce family. Old Mr. Pierce had forced this marriage out of a misguided sense of charity.

That was what Richard had always believed.

For three whole years, that was the absolute truth in his mind.

I woke up the next morning feeling completely refreshed.

My phone had over four hundred unread messages.

Three hundred of them were just from Jaxon.

I casually scrolled through the trending page.

#VictoriaHastingsDatingShowDrama C 1.2 billion views.

#WhoIsVictoriaFiance C 800 million views.

#DidAlexSendThe100Million C 500 million views.

I clicked into the threads. The comment sections were a unified wall of mockery.

"It's been twelve hours. Where's the hundred mil? Did the bank pigeon get lost?"

"Tori needs to cancel this engagement immediately. Why keep a broke loser who lies to save face?"

"Nate and Tori are the endgame. This Alex guy is just a speedbump."

"Lmaooo the ultimate placeholder gets publicly cucked and says 'you got it'. Got what? Got ghosted?"

I put the phone down, brushed my teeth, boiled some water, and brewed a cup of black tea.

Jaxon called.

"Bro, are you okay?! The entire internet is dragging you through the mud! Did you look at Twitter?!"

"I saw."

"Why aren't you losing your mind?! Your girl is basically flirting with another dude on live television, and you hit them with a 'you got it'?! Got what?! Do you even have a hundred million dollars?!"

"I do."

"...How much do you actually have?"

"A little more than a hundred million."

Jaxon went totally silent for ten seconds.

"Alex, the heartbreak didn't actually fry your brain, did it?"

I didn't answer, because another call was actively beeping through.

Caller ID: Nate Alexander.

I narrowed my eyes.

I had never saved his number. How did he get mine?

The answer was painfully obvious. Victoria gave it to him.

I picked up.

"Alex, right?" The voice on the other end carried a lazy, arrogant smirk. He spoke with the casual disrespect of someone looking down from a throne. "Did you catch the broadcast last night?"

"I did."

"Then you should know that Tori is having a really great time on this show."

He intentionally called her Tori. Not Victoria. Not your fiance.

Tori.

Like it was a pet name he had used a thousand times in private.

"Did you really track down my number just to tell me that?"

"No, I called because I wanted to give you a piece of advice." Nate lowered his voice, acting like he was doing me a favor. "Bro, cancel the engagement. You're out of her league. Don't stress over the hundred million thing, I'll cover it for her."

My fingers tightened around my teacup.

The fine porcelain let out a faint, microscopic creak.

"You'll cover it?"

"Yeah. It's a hundred million. Pocket change. If you're worried about looking bad on the internet, I can have my manager spin the narrative and say the money actually came from you. How about that? I'm giving you a way out."

The dark tea rippled in the cup, tiny waves crashing against the rim.

"Nate," I slowly placed the cup down on the marble counter. "Do you have any idea how Victorias ten-billion-dollar net worth actually exists?"

The other end laughed. "Obviously. The Hastings Group. A top-ten corporation in New York."

"Then do you know where the Hastings Group gets its money?"

Nate paused. For the very first time, a microscopic sliver of uncertainty bled into his voice. "What are you talking about?"

"Nothing. I got your advice."

I hung up the phone.

Finished my tea in one gulp.

And opened my closet.

Pushed all the way to the back was a custom-tailored, pitch-black suit.

I hadn't worn it in three years.

On the inside of the collar, embedded into a dark metal button, was a flawlessly engraved letter: P.

Today was the day I put it back on.