Chapter 1

1: 1

The night before my company went public.

Out of nowhere, I got a video call from myself, ten years in the future.

I answered, excited.

"How is it? Ten years from now, am I living the dream? The company went public without a hitch, and Guy and I got our happy ending, the envy of everyone?"

But the me on the screen was barely breathing, a wreck too awful to look at.

【Don't go public. I'm begging you, whatever you do, don't let the company go public!】

【Tomorrow's IPO is one enormous trap! Half an hour after the opening bell, the company implodes. Every cent on the books, nearly ten billion of the investors' money, all of it moved out through overseas accounts by Guy Delgado and his secretary, Winifred Pruitt!】

【They marked you as the fall guy from the start. They forged every one of your signatures, and in the end you're finished, your name in ruins, cornered in an abandoned factory by hundreds of bankrupt investors and the families of the victims, and beaten to death like a rabid dog!】

【While they stand on your corpse, living it up abroad with your money like a golden couple in paradise!】

My pupils shrank to points.

The next second, Guy's gentle knock came at the door.

"Honey, there's an important project overseas tomorrow. I'm going to fly out first with Winnie to follow up on it. The IPO, I'm leaving that to you."

In an instant, the cold ran through every inch of me.

......

"Honey?"

Outside, the knocking went on.

I forced out a light breath and got to my feet.

It had to be a competitor's dirty trick, some prank meant to drive a wedge between us.

Guy and I had known and loved each other for a full ten years.

We'd built everything from the ground up since college graduation, one step at a time.

We were the model couple everyone in our circle talked about.

How could I let some prank with no head or tail make me doubt him.

But the moment the door opened.

"Honey, what I just said, did you hear me? Why didn't you answer?"

Guy handed me the glass of milk, easy and natural.

I opened my mouth, but something had lodged in my throat.

Inside my head, everything went off at once.

"Ruthie?"

When I still hadn't spoken after a long moment.

Guy started to lose his patience.

"Ruthie, tomorrow's overseas acquisition is critical for us. It's our first step into the international market."

"As for the IPO, all the early contracts, the paperwork, the media coordination, I've already arranged everything. There's nothing that can go wrong. All that's left is for you, as the legal representative, to sign the final documents."

He paused, with the flat certainty of a man who would not be argued with.

"I don't think I need to be there for that. You can handle it perfectly well on your own, can't you?"

It took a while, but I finally found my voice again, tight in my throat.

"Guy, do you really have to bring Winifred Pruitt with you?"

As long as it wasn't her.

I would trust Guy.

But he blinked, then frowned, irritated.

"Ruthie, why would you ask something so unreasonable?"

"Winnie's been with us for so long. She's been the one following up on the project from the start. If I don't take her, who do I take? Don't tell me you still don't trust her?"

"Look at the timing. The company goes public tomorrow, and here you are, the chairwoman, getting jealous over nothing at the worst possible moment, this petty?"

My breath caught.

Suddenly I couldn't speak.

Because Guy's gut reaction gave him away.

The look on his face when he brought up Winifred.

It was the one he used to get back when we were falling in love.

And yet, in the beginning, Guy had hated her so much.

"Ruthie, you have no idea how useless that new intern is."

"She prints the material with the pages out of order. She makes a cup of coffee and somehow spills it all over the documents."

And back then I'd smiled and talked him down.

"Don't be so hard on a girl fresh out of school."

But little by little, that disdain changed into something else.

From flying into a rage and telling her to get out and redo it, to sitting down and fixing her slides himself.

He'd even, the time Winifred cried after her supervisor chewed her out.

For once in his life gone out of his way to buy a strawberry cake and leave it on her desk.

I drew a deep breath, and my shaking voice steadied.

"Guy, I've decided. The company is not going public tomorrow."

I didn't dare gamble.

The words had barely left my mouth.

Guy went rigid, and before he could say anything.

A soft, frail woman's voice came from behind me.

"Ruthie, how can you say something so irresponsible?"

My whole body jolted. When had she come in.

Something like a challenge flashed through Winifred's eyes, then smoothed instantly into the perfect picture of hurt.

"Do you have any idea how many all-nighters Guy pulled for tomorrow's IPO, how much of himself he poured into it? We're right at the finish line, and you'd gamble with everyone's future like this?"

"If this is because you don't trust me going on a business trip alone with Guy, then I just won't go......"

"There's no way I'm going to let myself be the reason all of Guy's work and the whole company get destroyed!"

With that, she covered her mouth, turned, and ran off.

"Winnie!"

Guy's face changed in an instant.

He shot me a vicious glare and snapped.

"Ruth Sullivan, you are absolutely impossible!"

And without a second's hesitation, he went after her.

I stood there, head bowed, hollow with grief.

On the screen now.

The woman who looked exactly like me was already dead.