"I appreciate your concern, Mr. Henson, but I'm fine."
"I've led this project from day one. Pulling me now would be a disservice to the client."
"If you want to fire me, fine—but not until I've finished this presentation."
A flicker of surprise crossed Drew's face.
His brow creased slightly.
Displeasure, faint but unmistakable, though he didn't stop me again.
Instead, he kept raising objections throughout my presentation, making sure everyone in the room could feel his disapproval.
What should have been a two-hour pitch dragged out the entire afternoon.
I'd walked in brimming with confidence. By the end, every minute felt like an hour.
Nobody in that room cared how good my presentation was, how thorough, how polished.
They were all speculating about when I'd be forced out of Stellaris.
Every single one of them could see it.
Even without the incident.
Today's presentation was the end of my career.
Because Drew already had a new girl by his side.
By the time I finally stepped off that stage, my ankles were near collapse.
Every step drove pain straight up through the bones of my feet, like walking on the tips of knives.
Drew didn't give me a moment to rest.
He had someone escort me straight to his office.
When I walked in, he was going over the project with Shelagh.
He left me standing there for over half an hour before finally, unhurriedly, lifting his head.
"Delilah, you were too impulsive today."
"In that condition, you had no business being up there. You put your pride ahead of this company's future."
"You're thirty now. You don't have the stamina you used to."
"Stepping aside for someone more capable would be better for everyone, yourself included."
Someone more capable? Shelagh?
Six months as an intern and she still couldn't get basic punctuation right.
All she had was pouting and playing cute—her actual work was hopeless.
How could I hand over everything I'd fought for to someone like that?
I kept my chin up, refusing to bend.
"Drew, I've been with you since I graduated college."
"You know better than anyone how much I've given and how hard I've worked."
"I can accept being let go because I'm not good enough. What I will never accept is Shelagh using filthy tactics like this to get ahead."
"The reason I lost control of my bladder in front of everyone was because—"
"I know."
Drew cut me off.
He looked up, his expression calm and unyielding.
"I reviewed the footage. But I run Stellaris. The company's long-term future has to come first."
"And for that future, I need you to be the one who takes the hit."
Something cracked inside my chest.
Quietly, irreversibly, like a thing that would never fit back together.
All the fight drained out of me at once.
I nodded, set the proposal on his desk, and left.
I held myself together all the way to the break room.
I just wanted a cup of coffee to steady my nerves.
That was when I overheard a few colleagues talking.
"Is Delilah really getting fired? She's so talented, and she's been here since the beginning. Would Mr. Henson actually let her go?"
"You don't know? Our brand-new director is the one that got away for Mr. Henson."
"He only confessed to Delilah back then because he didn't have anyone useful by his side."
"Now the company's stable, and the one that got away is back. Today was him trying to force her out on purpose."
The evening light stretched my shadow long across the floor.
And dragged me back—all the way back to college.
Drew Henson. The boy I'd loved in secret through every year of school.
Handsome, top of his class, already running his own company when most people were still figuring out their first job.
And I was just a girl from a nowhere town, ordinary in every way that counted.
