Chapter 2

"I asked about execution. Don't drag responsibility into this."

I stared at that line, and anger shot straight up through me.

Before I could reply, Lily messaged me privately.

"Don't push back. She's been trying to climb lately. Anyone who gets in her way is in trouble."

I deleted what I'd typed.

Half an hour later, Vanessa called me into her office.

The moment the door shut, her face darkened.

"That message you posted in the channel just now. What was that supposed to mean?"

"I was explaining the process."

"You're telling me how to do my job?"

"No. I'm just stating the facts."

Vanessa leaned back in her chair and stared at me for a few seconds. Then, out of nowhere, she smiled.

"Sienna, do you think you're pretty special?"

I said nothing.

"Three months at the company. You can write a proposal, you're not afraid to speak up in meetings, and you're not bad-looking."

Her gaze slid from my face down to my employee ID badge, carrying a contempt she didn't bother to put into words.

"But let me give you some advice. This isn't one of the little places you used to work. The Grayson Group isn't short on smart people."

"And it's especially not short on women looking for a shortcut."

I understood.

She'd already started pinning a label on me.

I looked at her, my voice level. "Director Holt, what shortcut are you referring to?"

She didn't answer directly. She just tapped the desk.

"From now on, keep your distance from the 38th floor. Not just anyone gets to worm their way into the CEO's Office."

I almost laughed out loud.

My husband's office was on the 38th floor.

At night, I went home with him to the same house.

And somehow, in her version, I was the one sneaking upstairs to throw myself at him.

When I got back to my desk, Lily asked quietly, "Did she chew you out?"

I made a small sound of agreement.

She sighed. "You should keep a low profile for a while. Once Vanessa's got her eye on someone, nobody has an easy time."

I'd planned to put up with it too.

That's work. Who hasn't run into a few rotten bosses?

But with some people, the more you back down, the easier they think you are to walk all over.

That same afternoon, Vanessa moved the project review meeting to the large conference room.

It wasn't just the Brand Department attending. Marketing, Sales, and the liaison from the CEO's Office were there too.

During the meeting, the partner mentioned that among the early content directions, the "real employee storyline" had been especially memorable. It was a shame it hadn't been fully used in the end.

Before I could say a word, Vanessa had already picked it up.

"Yes, that direction was my original idea. Later, with the brand's overall tone in mind, we scaled it back a bit."

The pen in my hand stopped.

Across the table, Felix Mitchell looked up at her, then at me.

He said nothing.

After the meeting, he deliberately slowed his pace and waited until most people had cleared out before asking me in a low voice, "That storyline was your idea, wasn't it?"

I smiled. "Assistant Mitchell, it isn't appropriate for you to ask me that."

He smiled too.

"You're right. It isn't."

After a pause, he added, "But Mr. Grayson saw the original version."

My heart sank a little.

Cole knew.

That meant he knew Vanessa had taken my work.

And he hadn't done anything.

That night at home, I made a point of not bringing up anything from the office.

Cole didn't bring it up either.

He just came out of the shower, saw me sitting on the couch with my laptop, revising a draft, and walked over and closed the screen.

"Stop working on that."

"It's due tomorrow morning."

"Then let her wait."

I looked up at him. "Didn't you say you wouldn't get involved?"

"I'm not getting involved."

He tucked a loose strand of my hair behind my ear, his voice low.

"I just hate seeing my wife worn out like this."

My nose stung all of a sudden.

Still, I opened the laptop again.

"Cole, give it a little longer."

"I want to see what she's really after."

He looked at me for a while and said only one word.

"Fine."

He seemed cold on the surface, but he was fiercely protective of his own.

I knew he wasn't doing nothing.

He was waiting for me to say yes.

What I didn't expect was that Vanessa would move first and make the whole company hear about it.

A week before the anniversary launch event, the group held a joint meeting.

Every department head was there that day, and Cole came down too.

It was the first time I'd sat in a conference room with him at the far end of such a long table, pretending we didn't know each other.

He sat at the head in a black suit, his face cold, looking like nobody had better come near him.

I sat at the very end, head down, taking notes.

Halfway through the meeting, the projector suddenly went down.

Someone from IT went to fix it, and the room was in disarray for a few minutes.

Vanessa took the chance to stand up and carry the printed materials she'd prepared to Cole's side, pitching her voice just right.

"Mr. Grayson, I've added a few more ideas for the hotel line. Take a look when you have a moment."

Cole gave a flat acknowledgment without even raising his head.

Vanessa wasn't embarrassed in the least. She stayed where she was and added something else.

"At the golf outing the other day, didn't you mention wanting to dig deeper into the high-net-worth client segment? I put this together specifically for that."

A few people around the room exchanged glances.

The tip of my pen paused.

Golf outing?

Cole hadn't played golf at all lately.

Just two nights ago, I'd been laughing at him on the treadmill at home, telling him that if he didn't start exercising, his suits would get tight.

He finally raised his eyes and looked at Vanessa.

"Is that so."

Just three words.

No emotion I could read.

But Vanessa seemed encouraged, and her smile grew more natural.

After the meeting, she came out of the conference room and made a point of running into me at the break room door.

She leaned against the counter stirring her coffee and asked lightly, "Was that meeting nerve-racking for you?"

I glanced at her. "It was fine."

"Of course. Someone at your level probably only gets to look at Mr. Grayson from a distance anyway."

Her lips curved in a smile.

"But let me remind you of something. A person needs to know her place. Don't think that just because you look a little sweet and innocent, everyone's going to give you a second look."

I filled my water bottle and screwed the lid on.

"Director Holt, you seem to have a lot of free time today."

Her expression went stiff.

I turned and walked away.

From that day on, the gossip about me in the department grew.

First, someone said I always got first-hand information on whatever the CEO's Office wanted.

Then someone said my face alone made me look like trouble.

After that, even other departments were spreading it around, saying the new girl in Brand was set on throwing herself at the people upstairs.

The first person to tell me all this was Chloe Quinn from Admin.

We'd gone to the same college. We weren't close, but she was a decent person.

While we were standing in line at the cafeteria at lunch, she quietly nudged my arm.

"Did you get on Vanessa's bad side recently?"

I turned to look at her. "Why?"

She lowered her voice. "Yesterday afternoon she sat in the Admin office for half an hour saying your work is mediocre but you've got plenty of schemes going. She even told everyone not to help pass your files upstairs anymore, so you can't use it as an excuse to run up to the CEO's Office."

I gripped the edge of my tray and said nothing for a long time.

Seeing the look on my face, Chloe added, "Don't tell anyone you heard it from me."

I nodded. "Don't worry."