Chapter Three

I felt like I'd come down with a bad cold. My nose was completely blocked, and my brain was starved for air.

I moved mechanically, as if some invisible, heavy force were pushing me forward.

It wasn't actually a long way from the PR department to the CEO's office, but I had to keep wiping away the tears I couldn't stop with the back of my hand the whole way there.

Plenty of coworkers in the hallway gave me startled looks, but I was past caring about being embarrassed.

I knocked on the heavy oak door, and Victor's voice came from inside, as cool and flat as always.

"Come in."

I pushed the door open and stood rooted to the spot, my eyes red. The moment I opened my mouth, the tears came pouring down.

"Why?"

He didn't even look up. His long, elegant fingers kept turning the pages of a merger report.

"Why what?"

I couldn't hold it back anymore. My voice rose, full of hurt and anger I couldn't swallow. "Summit Media has so many departments, so many positions. Why did you have to put Serena in PR and take the promotion I killed myself to earn?"

Only then did Victor stop and glance up at me from the pile of papers. His tone was as flat as if he were talking about the weather in New York. "She likes PR."

"Because she 'likes' it, you can just wipe out five years of my work, just like that?"

It wasn't as if he didn't know what I'd done to build up my résumé and earn that promotion.

I'd volunteered for the Colombia assignment no one else wanted, doing crisis PR in a dangerous place full of cartels and riots.

I even caught a terrible case of dengue fever there. My fever wouldn't break, and I nearly died in that foreign country and never came home.

Victor rose unhurriedly, came around the wide desk, and stood in front of me. He looked down at me, his eyes so cold they could have been frozen over, without a single trace of warmth.

"Ella, this is how the world works for grown-ups."

"Because I'm the one sitting in this chair, I'm the one who gets to decide everything."

My voice was shaking now, out of my control. "All I want is the most basic fairness. Is that wrong? Is that so hard?"

That seemed to strike him as funny. A low, cold laugh escaped his throat. "Fairness?"

"You came here to talk to me about fairness?"

"Ella, you'd better remember where you stand." He suddenly leaned forward, so close that his cool, indifferent breath almost touched my cheek. "If you hadn't climbed into my bed back then,"

"that state school diploma of yours wouldn't have gotten you past Summit Media's first round of résumé screening."

"Why don't you go ask all those Ivy League grads who interviewed in your batch whether they'd like some of the fairness you're talking about?"

"You enjoyed every shortcut my power got you without saying a word. Now you didn't get promoted, and you come here asking me for fairness?"

Victor's words were like a stinging slap across the face.

My cheeks burned, and every breath tore at my insides.

Suddenly, I saw everything clearly.

For five years, I'd worked like a woman possessed, trying to prove my worth with results. I'd never once thought of using my private relationship with Victor to get ahead.

But no matter what I did, I could never wash away the fact that I'd only gotten in Summit Media's door because of him.

He was right. I had no right to talk to him about fairness.

So I decided to quit.