Chapter 2 2

Monday morning, I was back at Sterling, Cromwell & Finch.

Not as an employee, but as a temporary contractor.

Chloe had pulled some strings.

"Thompson needs someone to handle the overflow from the Keston appeal," she'd explained. "It's only for a few weeks. Good money. And you already know the case files inside out."

I set up at a vacant desk in the paralegal pool, far from Ethan's corner office suite.

I kept my interactions brief, professional.

My resignation was common knowledge. Most people were polite, a little distant.

No one mentioned Ethan.

The first sighting was inevitable.

Mid-morning, I was at the industrial-sized printer, collating documents.

The elevator doors dinged open, and they walked out. Ethan and Seraphina.

He was laughing at something she said, his arm around her waist.

She was radiant, dressed in white, her blonde hair shimmering under the harsh office lights.

They looked like a power couple from a magazine spread.

My breath caught. The carefully constructed wall around my emotions threatened to crumble.

He saw me. His smile faltered for a microsecond.

Then his eyes slid past me, as if I were part of the furniture.

Seraphina, however, met my gaze. A small, triumphant smirk played on her lips.

She leaned into Ethan, possessively.

It was a public branding. He was hers. I was nothing.

I turned back to the printer, my hands trembling slightly.

Later that day, Ethan blew off a crucial pre-trial conference call with a major client.

Mr. Thompson was furious.

Chloe told me the details later, her voice tight with anger.

"He said he had a 'personal emergency'," Chloe relayed. "The 'personal emergency' was that Seraphina wanted to go shoe shopping. Shoe. Shopping. While a ten-million-dollar account circled the drain."

The client was irate. Threats were made.

It was chaotic.

Ethan waltzed back in hours later, looking unconcerned, Seraphina clinging to his arm, a dozen designer shopping bags carried by a hapless junior associate.

He didn't even apologize to Mr. Thompson.

The fallout landed on me.

Mr. Thompson, apoplectic but unwilling to directly confront his star partner's glaring lapse, needed a scapegoat for the client.

Since I was technically still familiar with the Keston account from before and was on-site, I was dispatched to the client's office to smooth things over.

"Just explain the... unforeseen delay, Hayes," Thompson had grumbled. "And offer our sincerest apologies."

I spent two hours being politely but firmly lectured by the client's CEO.

I apologized for Ethan's irresponsibility, for the firm's lack of professionalism.

I promised it wouldn't happen again, knowing it was a lie Ethan would make me live.

It was humiliating, taking the blame for his arrogance.

I felt like a human shield.

The next day, Seraphina Blake decided she needed a personal assistant.

And apparently, I was it.

She found me in the firm's kitchen, making tea.

"Maya, isn't it?" she said, her voice syrupy sweet, but her eyes cold.

"Yes," I replied, keeping my tone neutral.

"Ethan tells me you're quite efficient. I need some errands run. My regular girl is off."

She handed me a list.

Dry cleaning. Picking up a custom-ordered dog collar from a boutique on Madison Avenue.

Reservations at three different exclusive restaurants because she "hadn't decided" where she wanted to dine that night.

"Oh, and my favorite peonies. From that little shop on Lexington. Make sure they're freshly cut. And charge it all to Ethan's account, of course."

She smiled, a flash of perfectly white teeth. "Don't dawdle."

I was a paralegal, not a gofer. But I was a contractor, desperate for the paycheck.

I took the list.

Her entitlement was breathtaking.

The final errand was the peonies.

I found the boutique. The flowers were exquisite, and expensive.

As I was paying, using Ethan's black card he'd given Seraphina, who'd then passed to me, a woman brushed past me, jostling my arm.

My purse, unzipped, fell. The contents spilled.

Lipstick, keys, my wallet. And a small, antique silver locket – a gift from my grandmother.

It skittered under a display table.

Before I could react, Seraphina, who had apparently followed me or timed her arrival perfectly, shrieked.

"My bracelet! That woman stole my diamond bracelet!"

She pointed directly at me.

The store manager rushed over. Other customers stared.

"I didn't steal anything!" I protested, my face burning.

"I saw her!" Seraphina insisted, her voice rising dramatically. "It was on the counter, and she distracted me and snatched it! Check her purse!"

My heart hammered against my ribs. This was insane.

The manager, flustered, looked at me. "Ma'am, if you wouldn't mind..."

Humiliated, I upended my purse on the counter.

No bracelet.

"She probably hid it!" Seraphina cried. "Check her pockets!"

Then, with a gasp, she "spotted" something glinting under the display table.

She darted forward, picked it up.

It was a diamond tennis bracelet, undeniably expensive. One I'd never seen before.

"There!" she exclaimed, holding it aloft. "I knew it!"

She turned to the manager. "I want her arrested!"

Ethan arrived just as two security guards were flanking me.

Seraphina rushed to him, feigning distress.

"Ethan, darling! She tried to steal my bracelet! The one you gave me!"

He looked from her to me, his expression unreadable, then hardening as he focused on me.

"Maya? What the hell is going on?" His voice was ice.

"I didn't do it, Ethan," I said, my voice shaking. "She planted it. I swear."

Seraphina let out a sob. "How can you say that? After I caught you red-handed?"

Ethan put his arm around Seraphina, comforting her. He didn't even look at me.

"This is a misunderstanding," he said to the manager, his tone clipped. "My fiancée is distressed. We won't be pressing charges."

Fiancée. The word hit me harder than any accusation.

He was announcing it. To the world. To me.

"However," he continued, turning his cold gaze on me, "Sterling, Cromwell & Finch does not tolerate theft among its employees. Or contractors."

He nodded to the manager. "We'll handle this internally."

The security guards stepped back, but the damage was done.

Everyone in the shop was staring at me, branded a thief.

Back at the firm, Mr. Thompson was waiting.

Ethan and Seraphina stood beside him, Seraphina looking pale and victimized.

"Ms. Hayes," Thompson said, his voice grave. "Given the... incident... and Ms. Blake's distress, your contract with the firm is terminated, effective immediately."

"But I didn't do anything!" I pleaded. "She set me up!"

Thompson's face was impassive. "Ethan has vouched for Ms. Blake's version of events. His word is final here."

"You'll be paid for the days you've worked," he continued. "But I expect you to clear out your temporary desk now."

I looked at Ethan. He wouldn't meet my eyes.

He chose her. He believed her. Or, more likely, he didn't care about the truth.

He just wanted the problem – me – gone.

My career in New York, already on life support, was now officially dead. Blacklisted.

The accusation of theft, even without charges, would follow me.

Chloe found me in the ladies' room, splashing cold water on my face.

The hot tears of anger and injustice had finally come.

"I heard," she said softly, handing me a tissue. "It's bullshit, Maya. Everyone knows Seraphina is a viper."

"Not everyone," I added bitterly. "Not Ethan."

"He's an idiot," Chloe said fiercely. "Blinded by... whatever that is."

Her support was a small comfort in a sea of humiliation.

A few other paralegals offered quiet words of sympathy as I packed the few items I'd accumulated at the temporary desk.

They knew. They saw. But they were powerless, just like me.

No one dared cross Ethan Sterling, or his precious, vindictive fiancée.

As I walked out of Sterling, Cromwell & Finch for the second, and undoubtedly final, time, I thought about the Ethan I used to know.

Or the Ethan I thought I knew.

The man who, despite his emotional distance, had shown flashes of brilliance, even kindness, in the early days.

The man who'd discussed case strategy with me late into the night, treating me, for those brief moments, as an intellectual peer.

Where was that man now?

Had he ever really existed?

Or had I just projected my own desires onto a charismatic, emotionally stunted shell?

This new Ethan, so quick to believe the worst of me, so easily manipulated by Seraphina, was a stranger.

A cruel, indifferent stranger.

And I was finally, definitively, done with him.