Chapter 1

On awards day, someone locked me in the restroom.

I pounded on the door like a madwoman, but nothing came back from the other side.

Panic set in, and I called my boyfriend, Francis, right away.

He rejected all three calls, and my messages sank without a trace.

By the time I finally clawed my way out over the door and rushed into the ceremony,

I saw Francis onstage, holding up the trophy, smiling with all the warmth in the world.

“For this award, I especially want to thank my partner, Miss Rose Swanson. From the concept to the execution, she led every step of this project.”

The applause thundered below, camera shutters clicking in wave after wave.

Rose, in a white dress, leaned bashfully closer to Francis, took the mic, and said in a soft voice:

“It’s all thanks to Francis for guiding me. Without him, there wouldn’t be this work.”

Someone in the crowd immediately called out:

“A perfect match! When are you two getting together?”

In the laughter, Francis didn’t deny it. He just smiled and slid an arm around her shoulders.

I gripped my staff badge, my fingertips going white.

This underground office romance seemed to have reached its end.

1

The spotlight onstage was blinding.

I stood in the shadows backstage, cold sinking through me like ice.

This design that had just won the industry’s gold award was the one I’d built over forty all-nighters, reworked through seventeen drafts.

And Rose couldn’t even use the design software.

On the final draft, she’d changed the color of two throw pillows.

And only because that was the way to save the file as a new version.

Francis had told me before:

“Rose is new to the field. She needs a design award to polish her name. You’re a veteran, you don’t need the empty glory, and the prize money goes straight into your account.”

I believed him.

I thought it just meant not accepting the award publicly, that at least people would know privately whose work it was.

But now, in front of the whole industry, he’d put my life’s work under his childhood friend’s name.

After the ceremony, I waited for him at the backstage exit.

Francis and Rose came out side by side, talking and laughing.

When he saw me, the smile on his face faded.

“Why are you here?”

He frowned, his tone carrying a reproach he didn’t bother to hide:

“Didn’t I tell you to go back to the studio first and rework the drawings?”

Rose shrank timidly behind him and called out in a small voice:

“Hello, Abby.”

I hadn’t said a single word yet, and she was acting as if I were some monster that ate people.

I stared at the trophy in Francis’s hand, my throat tight:

“It’s my award. Why is her name on it publicly? Weren’t we agreed I’d accept it anonymously?”

“Abigail.”

Francis’s voice dropped low. He pulled me a couple of steps to the side, away from the crowd:

“What did I tell you before? Can’t you be a little more understanding?”

“Rose is my mentor’s daughter. She’s just entered this field, and with no reputation she can’t get a foothold at all. You already have so many works. What’s the harm in giving her this one?”

“Besides, we’re a couple. What’s mine is yours, what’s yours is mine. Why draw such a clear line? Isn’t it enough that I know how good you are?”

He’d clearly planned all of this out in advance.

Which meant locking me in the restroom was probably his doing too.

I looked at his face, so certain he was in the right, and suddenly it all struck me as absurd.

“Fine. I can let all of that go.”

“But it’s been three years. The whole industry knows Francis Harding has a gold-award partner named Rose Swanson. Nobody knows who Abigail Pruitt is.”

He rubbed the space between his brows, impatient:

“Didn’t I already tell you? Once we land the landmark project, we’ll go public. Right now is the critical stage, so we have to avoid any appearance of it. If word gets out that we’re a couple, clients will think we’re a mom-and-pop shop, unprofessional.”

That line again.

Three years, and every time I asked when we’d go public, it was this same line.

Rose called to him from a distance:

“Francis, the client, Mr. Lambert, is over there waiting for us!”

Francis answered at once, then turned and patted my shoulder, his tone softening a little:

“Be good, go back and wait for me. I’ll bring you something nice tonight.”

With that, he turned and walked off, without a shred of hesitation.

Rose took his arm, and the two of them headed toward the banquet hall side by side.

Handsome man, pretty woman, a match so perfect it stung the eyes.

I stood where I was, still gripping the stomach medicine I’d picked up for him that morning.

Now it seemed it had all been for nothing.