An hour left until the concert, and the top trending topic across all social media was singular: **Sera Hayes’ Proposal to Alex Thorne.** This proposal, a monumental PR project for my company this half-year, was also meant to be the glorious culmination of Sera Hayes’ and my long-term relationship. Yet, here I was, backstage in the fire exit stairwell, stumbling upon Sera locked in a passionate, desperate kiss with her boy toy, Liam Reed. “Alex, listen to me… I can explain…” “Explain?” I scoffed, a chilling sneer on my face. “Explain why you’re cheating on me with another man right before our engagement ceremony?” “This proposal is being livestreamed across the entire internet. Tens of thousands of fans, countless media outlets, all waiting.” I slapped the engagement ring box down in front of her. “After the final song tonight, you either propose to me on that stage, or your career is shattered, and your reputation utterly ruined.” She clenched her fists, knuckles white, before finally picking up the box. From between gritted teeth, she squeezed out one word: “Fine.” Eventually, the spotlight found me. Sera, dressed in a stunning bridal gown, took out the ring. A stunned silence fell over the crowd. But then, she bypassed me entirely, extending the ring towards Liam, who sat in the VIP section, his face pale. “Alex, thank you for elevating me to the stars,” her voice, amplified by the microphone, echoed through the entire venue. “But tonight, I want to chase my Moon.” The entire arena erupted in gasps and shouts. I had become the most ridiculous prop in her very own proposal ceremony. The moment she walked towards her ‘Moon,’ my heart turned to ash.
“Mr. Thorne,” Chloe Green, my assistant, spoke, her voice hoarse, as she handed me a tablet. “You… you should really see this.” The screen was inundated with news about last night’s concert. This proposal was supposed to be the ultimate triumph for both our careers and our love. I’d poured in hundreds of millions, partnered with dozens of brands. All Sera had to do was propose to me in front of tens of thousands of fans, and the commercial value of our power couple image would have been limitless. All the pieces were in place, everything was meticulously planned and ready to go. But now, photos of Sera and Liam Reed embracing on stage were being magnified endlessly, with blindingly harsh headlines screaming: **A-Lister Defies the Corporate Machine for Love.** And my own bewildered retreat from the stage had been turned into countless mocking memes. My company’s stock plummeted by three billion dollars. I calmly scrolled through the headlines, page after page. Until I saw Sera Hayes’ latest personal statement. In the statement, she thanked everyone. Everyone, except me. She dismissed me, dismissed the company, as merely “an unpleasant past collaboration,” and declared she would seek her freedom at any cost. Freedom. I stared at those two words and suddenly, I laughed. “Notify PR: No comment, no explanations. Notify Legal: Prepare to activate the most severe breach of contract recovery clauses.” My assistant froze. “Mr. Thorne, shouldn’t we… shouldn’t we issue a statement to clarify things first? Public opinion is incredibly unfavorable right now.” “Clarify?” I walked up to him, pointing at Sera’s sugary-sweet face on the screen. “There’s nothing to clarify with a liar.” I rubbed my temples, then slumped into the sofa. The five years with Sera flashed before my eyes, frame by agonizing frame. Five years ago, she clutched a worn-out guitar, singing an obscure folk song that no one cared about. There were only a sparse handful of people in the audience. Only I heard a spark of raw talent in her music and decided to give her a chance. I signed her, set up a small studio. Back then, we had nothing. To save money, we slept on the floor in this cramped three-hundred-square-foot office, surviving on instant ramen and dreaming the most distant dreams. She said, “Alex, when I make it big, the first thing I’ll do is marry you!” I laughed back, “When you make it big, first, pay back the company’s startup funds.” She teasingly called me materialistic, but her eyes were full of bright ambition. To produce her first album, I sold the only property my parents had left me. To secure her an opening slot at a music festival, I drank with investors until I ended up in the ER with a bleeding stomach, my assistant rushing me there in the dead of night. When she arrived at the hospital, her eyes were blazing red. She gripped my hand and said, “Alex, I’ll never let you suffer like this again.” Looking at her then, I felt it was all worth it. Every single sacrifice. I thought we were bound by destiny, each other’s only support. I poured all my resources and heart into paving her way to stardom, every single step. I taught her how to face the cameras, how to handle the media, how to package herself into the perfect idol for her fans. She learned quickly, and she succeeded. So she became bigger and bigger, and we moved into the most luxurious office building downtown. Our little studio grew into a full-fledged company. But our relationship, too, subtly shifted. She started complaining about my controlling nature, saying my schedule was too packed, leaving her no time to create, longing for some “purity.” Liam Reed, a younger man she called her “junior,” appeared around this time. He became the embodiment of her so-called “purity.” I confronted her about it once, just a month before the concert. “Sera, we’re business partners, and we’re lovers. I don’t want anything jeopardizing the foundation of our partnership,” I said, cutting straight to the chase. She sat opposite me, scrolling dismissively on her phone. “You’re overthinking it. Liam is just a friend, someone I can talk music with.” “I’m the one handling all your music,” I reminded her. She snapped her head up, a look of pure loathing and defiance in her eyes that I’d never seen before. “That’s different! That’s commercial! That’s a product! Don’t you get it? All you understand is business!” “With Liam, I feel like a living, breathing person, not just a commodity in your hands!” That was the first time I realized she was no longer the Sera Hayes who’d fought by my side. She was just a successful product I had created. And now, this product had developed its own thoughts and wanted to break free from me. I chose to handle it with a cold shoulder back then. I thought it was just her ego inflating from fame, that once the concert concluded smoothly, and our relationship was solidified by a grand proposal ceremony, everything would go back to normal. I was wrong. I was wrong to treat her like a controllable pawn, ignoring the most uncontrollable betrayal of human nature.
The office door was thrown open without warning. Sera Hayes, wearing sunglasses and a hat, dressed entirely in black, strode directly in. Liam Reed trailed dutifully behind her. “Mr. Thorne,” Chloe Green, my assistant, startled, sprang to his feet, instinctively stepping in front of me. “Leave us,” I said, looking at Sera, my voice utterly flat, devoid of any emotion. My assistant gave me a worried glance but still retreated, closing the door behind him. Only the three of us remained in the office. “What are you doing here?” I asked. Sera took off her sunglasses. Her eyes had a network of red veins, but her face was perfectly calm. “To discuss terminating my contract,” she said, pulling Liam down onto the sofa opposite me and tossing a document onto the table. “I hope we can part ways amicably. It’ll be better for the company, and for you.” “Amicable parting?” I laughed as if she’d told the biggest joke. “Sera Hayes, you call last night’s meticulously planned betrayal ‘amicable’?” “You didn’t just ruin a proposal. You destroyed a commercial project worth hundreds of millions of dollars, the core of our company’s plans for the second half of the year. You know that better than anyone!” She scoffed, leaning back, an expression of unreasonable defiance on her face. “Business, business, your mind is always on business! I’m sick of it! I’m not your money-making tool!” Liam tried to come to her rescue. “Mr. Thorne, don’t blame Sera… it’s all my fault, we truly love each other…” “You shut up,” I said, sweeping a cold glance over him. “You don’t get a say here!” Liam’s face paled, and he said no more. This scene completely enraged Sera. She shot up, glaring at me. “Alex Thorne! That’s enough! You’re always so high and mighty! Who do you think you are? My savior?” “I’m telling you, every day I spent with you suffocated me! You sold your house, you drank with people until you bled—that wasn’t for me, that was for your ambition! For your investment! I was just your most successful investment case!” Every word she spoke twisted the knife, hitting every one of my raw nerves, brazenly. “So, five years of our relationship—that was an investment too? Me eating instant ramen and sleeping on the floor with you—an investment? Me staying up all night outside the ER—was that an investment too?!” I lifted my head, meeting her gaze, asking each word slowly, deliberately. She stuttered for a moment, avoiding my gaze. I smiled, but my eyes burned, tears threatening to fall. “Sera Hayes, I’ll ask you just one thing,” I took a deep breath. “What exactly were these five years to you?” She was silent for a moment, a look of hardened resolve appearing on her face. “Consider it… paid back.” She paused, then a mocking smile twisted her lips. “Oh, right, I forgot to tell you.” She reached out and put her arm around Liam’s shoulder, her palm gently resting on her still-flat stomach. “I’m pregnant. I have to be responsible for him, and for our child.” Pregnant. So that was it. The last thread of my sanity, snapped. It turned out, I had simply set the stage for a cheating lover and his bastard child.
That afternoon, I sat in my office, watching the projection screen. Sera Hayes’ press conference began on time. She looked thinner, her face pale and somewhat gaunt, her eyes bloodshot. Liam Reed sat beside her, head bowed the entire time, looking meek and innocent. “First, I want to apologize to everyone who cares about me.” Sera’s voice, hoarse as if she’d just been crying, came through the microphone. She began to speak of her pure love for music, how she was swept up by the torrent of commercialism, and how she struggled painfully against it. She spoke of Liam’s appearance, how he was like a ray of light, illuminating her dark world. Not a single word about anything I had done for her. She only referred to me, her fiancé of five years, soon to be her husband, as “my former agency” and “the shackles of capital.” “I admit, Mr. Thorne is an excellent businessman. He single-handedly brought me to where I am today, and for that, I am grateful.” Then, her tone shifted, filled with grievance and accusation. “However, he controlled my work, my social interactions, even my thoughts! Who I met, what I said, what I wore—everything had to be approved by him!” “I was just his creation, a soulless puppet!” Liam, his face streaked with tears, sobbed into the camera, “It’s not Mr. Thorne’s fault… it’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have appeared… Sera, I’m sorry…” The flashbulbs in the audience exploded, reporters frantically snapping photos. In the livestream comments, her fans were going wild. [Sister has suffered too much! We won’t let you be wronged again!] [My heart aches for her! So she’s been living under such oppression all this time!] [That Alex Thorne is truly evil! Get out of the entertainment industry!] [Support Sera’s solo career! Pursue true music!] Finally, Sera Hayes announced that she would be establishing her own studio, completely severing ties with my company. “I will make the music I truly want to make, in my own way. It might be difficult, but I have Liam, and our child.” “That’s enough.” The press conference ended, and online public opinion completely exploded. I became public enemy number one. The company phones were ringing off the hook. Several younger artists I had personally groomed even subtly hinted through their agents that they wanted to terminate their contracts, fearing they’d be dragged down by me, the “evil capitalist.” They were all quick to kick me while I was down. The ancients were certainly wise. I looked at that hypocritical face on the screen, my heart devoid of any warmth, only a chilling hatred remained. I wiped away the tears I hadn’t realized were falling and called for my assistant. “Notify Legal: All core personnel, first conference room, five minutes.” My assistant looked at me, his eyes full of worry. “Mr. Thorne…” I forced a smile, calm and resolute. “Notify Legal: All core personnel, first conference room, five minutes.” “I want her utterly ruined!”
“Mr. Thorne.” The Legal Director, Mr. Davies, quickly assembled his team. I wasted no words, directly tossing a document I’d prepared onto the conference table. All eyes in the room focused on me. “Within thirty minutes, I need three things simultaneously published across all online platforms.” “First, issue a cease and desist letter. Publicly expose Sera Hayes’ severe violation of her non-compete clause and her malicious manipulation of public opinion to attack the company during her contract period. From this moment on, freeze all commercial activities and copyright revenues associated with that stage name.” Mr. Davies’ eyes lit up. When I first signed Sera Hayes, she was an unknown nobody named “Sarah Miller.” I insisted on keeping full ownership and commercial rights to the stage name “Sera Hayes” firmly with the company precisely to prevent a situation like this from ever happening. “Second, contact all our partner music platforms and media channels. Release this audio file publicly at the same time.” I plugged a USB drive into the conference room computer and opened a folder. Inside were hundreds of audio files, recordings of her every studio session over the past five years. I randomly clicked one open, and shrill, off-key vocals instantly filled the entire conference room. It was a raw, unedited vocal track straight from the recording studio. A young lawyer couldn’t help but frown. “I want everyone to hear these audio files.” My voice grew colder. “Third, contact the financial media and major gossip bloggers we work with. Release this financial report.” From her vocal and etiquette training fees before her debut, to the production, promotion, and PR costs of every album, to the marketing expenses for every trending topic she ever had, and every haute couture gown she wore. Over these five years, the company had invested over nine figures into her. “Let these people see clearly who the ungrateful viper really is.” The team swiftly mobilized. Thirty minutes later, the hashtag **#SeraHayesGetOutofEntertainment** shot to the top of the trending topics. Immediately after, a compilation video of Sera Hayes’ hundreds of raw practice tracks spread like wildfire online. Countless music critics and popular music influencers reposted it, decrying her lack of talent given her fame. [WTF! This is Sera Hayes? Am I deaf or is she crazy?] [OMG, my ears miscarried! Calling this KTV level is being too generous!] [Now I finally understand why she only half-sings at concerts. Shout out to the million-dollar sound engineer, you earned your pay!] [Alex Thorne is truly something else, to make *this* level of talent a star!] Public opinion instantly flipped. Finally, a well-known gossip blogger on Ins released the studio’s financial reports from the past few years. The headline was bold and capitalized, clearly stating that Sera Hayes had cost the company a staggering nine hundred million dollars over five years! [LOL, oppressed by capital? She was clearly capital’s pampered daughter!] [Nine figures… so this is how A-listers are made. I get it now.] [Every penny she spent was earned by Alex, right? This isn’t just ingratitude, she’s an ungrateful viper!] The phone on my desk began to vibrate frantically, “Sera Hayes” flashing across the screen. I didn’t answer. All I wanted was for her and her boy toy to end up begging on the streets.
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