Chapter 2

The moment the door shut, Percy raised his hand and slapped me across the face.

"Muriel Simmons, are you really that desperate? As long as it's a man, you don't care who it is?"

My cheek burned, and the taste of blood spread through my mouth.

I refused to let it go and threw the question back at him.

"Why fire me? I'm the one who landed the big account. Someone's jealous of me, so they started that rumor, and that's why Everard put his hands on me—"

He cut me off, cold.

"Bridget wouldn't lie to me. She landed big accounts too. Why doesn't anyone smear her? Why doesn't Everard harass her?"

Bridget wouldn't lie to him. And I would?

Ever since Percy was found by his birth parents, our relationship had been kept in the dark.

Because as the true heir, he had a fiancée on paper. Bridget Vance.

For that, I'd thought about giving this up.

But Percy wouldn't have it. He said it was me or no one.

To be worthy of him, I threw myself into every project I could in college, and in the end I got into his family's company on my own merit.

Then he decided a bachelor's degree wasn't respectable enough, and had HR pull the offer.

I worked my way through a master's at a top-ranked school and got hired again.

Then, in the name of toughening me up, he blocked me at every performance review.

To prove myself, I clawed my way through the sales assistant role and landed one big account after another.

Then he said he needed those accounts to beat out the false heir.

So I handed him every account I closed, to give him something solid to stand on.

While my coworkers laughed that I'd been here three years without a single client worth mentioning, he made me a promise.

"Muriel, the next big one is yours to keep. When that happens, I'll go public about us, and I'll get you promoted."

But when I landed the fifty-million account, and Percy finally had his footing at Zenith Group, the first thing he did was promote Bridget.

And appear in her social feed.

Everyone was certain Bridget would be the future Mrs. Whitney.

Who would smear her?

Who would dare touch her?

I stared down at the termination notice in my hand, my eyes stinging, raw.

Those few reasons for dismissal, bolded and blacked in, were everything Percy thought of me.

The tears came anyway, in a rush I couldn't stop.

Before, the sight of me crying used to send him into a panic. Now it only made him more impatient.

"Muriel, can't you be reasonable for once?"

"When the time is right, I'll take you to meet my parents, and then I'll marry you!"

He'd said that line more times than I could count.

Before, I'd taken this dead-end love as proof that I wasn't good enough.

Now I knew going public had nothing to do with being good enough.

"If you want to marry Bridget, you can break up with me out in the open. There's no need to team up with her and use something this disgusting to force me out."

Percy rubbed the space between his brows, his face worn from a night without sleep.

"You behaved badly. Don't drag Bridget into it!"

"And don't use a breakup to pressure me into marrying you. It's really pointless!"

"Mr. Lambert is old enough to be your father. With the reputation you have now, how am I supposed to take you home to my parents?"

With that, he threw a photo in my face.

In it, Mr. Lambert's hand was at my waist.

It was from last night, when my stomach perforated and I threw up blood. Mr. Lambert saw me about to fall and steadied me on instinct.

"Muriel, you're too hungry for quick wins. I never said I wouldn't marry you, but you can't just..."

He didn't finish.

But the disappointment in his eyes said all of it.

Anyone in the world could doubt me over that photo. Percy couldn't.

If I hadn't clawed one big account after another to give him a foothold in the Whitney family, he'd have been nothing but the sidelined true heir in that game of real and fake sons.

I couldn't tell which hurt more, my face or my chest.

"You don't believe I landed Mr. Lambert's account?"

"You don't believe there was nothing between me and the client either?"

Percy pulled out more photos of me drinking with clients.

"How am I supposed to believe you?"

"Clients I couldn't close, and somehow you can?"

"You're going to tell me there wasn't some dirty deal behind it?"

So it turned out he'd never seen any of what I gave.

He'd taken it all with a clear conscience, and then turned around and doubted the kind of person I was.

My phone buzzed. Mr. Lambert had messaged again.

【Muriel, I know everything now. The contract with Zenith is void, effective immediately.】

【If you're interested in coming to my company, this order's whole supply chain is yours to run. And if you'd rather not, once you've lined up your next place, I'll sign directly with you.】

Mr. Lambert's loyalty and trust warmed something in me.

Even a client I'd worked with for the first time could believe in me like this, while the man I'd loved for eight years wouldn't.

But Percy had gotten one thing right. What isn't mine, I shouldn't cling to.

And what is mine, I have to fight for.