She rummaged through her purse for a moment.
Then she pulled out a fast-food coupon and tossed it at me along with the hundred-dollar bill from earlier.
"Here, sweetie. Take this and treat yourself to a meal at the fast-food place across the street. There's even a coupon so you can save a little. Can't have you going hungry."
"But don't come around here again. Clem is a real financial elite now. He's way out of your league, you unemployed little nobody."
Clement preened at his new girlfriend's flattery, smugness plastered across his face.
I looked at him.
"Clement, a brain is a wonderful thing. Too bad you don't have one. You really think you've climbed the social ladder and reinvented yourself? All you did was go from being a cheap errand boy to a slightly less cheap errand boy."
Clement's face twisted with rage. He lunged forward and grabbed the worn canvas tote bag right out of my hands.
"Let's see what's in this ratty bag of yours. Cardboard scraps and empty bottles you picked out of the trash?"
The moment his fist closed around the opening of the bag, I clamped down on his wrist and held on.
He snarled at me.
"Let go of me, Cecily! What kind of garbage are you hiding in this thing?"
I smiled.
"Clement. Do you have any idea how much rent this building collects every month?"
The question caught him off guard. He blinked, then his fury doubled.
"What the hell does that have to do with you? You can't even afford to feed yourself, and you're asking about rent? What, you want a job at the front desk? Dream on. You'd be lucky to get hired as a janitor."
He wrenched his arm free.
The bag tore apart in the struggle.
Everything inside scattered across the marble floor.
A yellowed, dog-eared notebook. An old fountain pen. And a thick stack of documents.
Clement rubbed his wrist and glanced down at what had spilled out.
Central Tower — Outstanding Rent Collection Notice.
He bent down and picked up the notice, scanning it once.
"Ha! Oh, this is rich!" He threw his head back and laughed. "Cecily, you've completely lost it!"
He held the notice up high, waving it for everyone around to see.
"Look at this, everyone! This woman forged a rent collection notice for the Central Tower just to win me back! What, did you binge too many soap operas and think you could wave a few pieces of paper around and pass yourself off as some billionaire heiress?"
My blood ran hot. "Clement, look at it properly. There's an official seal on that document!"
The office workers crowding around erupted into murmurs. Every pair of eyes that turned my way dripped with contempt.
"So she's a scammer? That's pathetic."
"That seal's probably carved out of a potato. Gutsy, though, I'll give her that. She did a decent job faking it."
"People like that deserve what they get. Someone call the cops. A couple nights in a holding cell would do her good."
I stared at their faces, and the absurdity of it all hit me like a wall. I'd come here to collect rent. Nothing more. How had that turned into me trying to win him back?
Constance sauntered toward me, triumph radiating from every pore.
Her stiletto came down on my fountain pen.
The pen shattered.
Every drop of blood in my body rushed to my head.
"No!"
That pen was the one my grandfather had used to sign his very first deal when he built the Summers empire from nothing. On his deathbed, he'd placed it in my hands himself and told me never to forget where we came from. I never used it. It was too precious. I'd brought it with me today only because I wanted it close while I collected rent, a reminder of everything the Summers family had sacrificed to get here.
"Constance, get your foot off it!"
I threw myself forward, desperate to pull the pen free, but she ground her heel down harder.
A jagged shard of the barrel drove into my fingertip.
Pain, white-hot and blinding.
But I didn't care about my hand. My fingers trembled as I gathered the broken pieces, one by one.
