“Get up yourself,” he said after I fell in the rain, then pulled his lover closer beneath the umbrella and walked away without looking back. I said nothing, but the resignation letter on his desk—and the client contract missing from his portfolio—gave him an answer he would never forget........

At nine o'clock that morning, the executive floor of Westbridge Strategy was in a state of absolute chaos.

Camille Ward sat at her glass-walled corner desk in the downtown Seattle tower, holding a gold pen, impatiently checking her diamond wristwatch. She had arrived early, wearing a vibrant blue designer suit, expecting to spend the morning receiving congratulations from the senior partners for securing the Harrow & Finch account.

Instead, she saw the CEO of Westbridge, Arthur Vance, marching down the carpeted hallway with three corporate attorneys trailing behind him.

"Where is Nolan?" Arthur demanded, slamming his palm against Camille’s glass door.

Camille jumped, dropping her pen. "Arthur! Good morning. Nolan is... he’s just finishing a personal matter. He should be here in twenty minutes."

"Get him on the phone right now," Arthur ordered, his face purple with rage. "Rebecca Harrow’s legal counsel just delivered a formal notice of contract cancellation to my desk. They are demanding a full refund of their three-million-dollar advance retainer and threatening a public fraud suit against Westbridge."

Camille turned pale. "What? Why?! The pitch was a total success! Rebecca loved the presentation!"

"She loved the presentation because she thought Maya Lin was leading the execution!" Arthur spat. "Maya submitted her resignation four hours ago, along with a ninety-page forensic report proving that you and Nolan altered the metadata on twelve major client deliverables over the past eighteen months to strip her name from the firm's portfolio!"

Camille’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. "Maya... Maya wouldn't do that. She’s terrified of confrontation! She’s just throwing a tantrum because she slipped in the rain last night!"

"She isn't throwing a tantrum, Camille," Arthur said, leaning over her desk, his voice dropping into a deadly whisper. "She’s systematically dismantling this firm. And if I find out that you and Nolan lied to the board about who wrote the Harrow proposal, you won't just be fired—I will personally ensure the bar association revokes your legal consulting credentials."

Just then, the elevator doors slid open, and Nolan hurried into the suite.

He looked unraveled. His tie was slightly crooked, his eyes were sunken, and he was clutching a leather briefcase as if it were a life preserver.

"Arthur," Nolan began, rushing toward the CEO. "I know you received a call from Rebecca. Let me explain—Maya had an emotional breakdown last night after an accident. She’s acting out of personal spite—"

"Save it, Nolan," Arthur snapped, turning his back on him and walking toward the main boardroom. "Both of you. Inside. Now."

Inside the boardroom, six senior partners sat around the thirty-foot mahogany table, their expressions dark and unreadable. On the wall projector, a live document audit was running, highlighting hundreds of file creation timestamps in red and green.

Green for Maya Lin. Red for Camille Ward and Nolan Pierce.

The red lines were almost non-existent.

"Nolan," one of the senior equity partners, Victoria Sterling, said, adjusting her glasses. "According to these server logs, Maya worked ninety-two hours last week. You billed sixty-five hours to Harrow & Finch, but your server access logs show you spent fifty-two of those hours playing golf in Bellevue or logged into luxury hotel Wi-Fi networks in Oregon with Camille."

Camille gasped. "Victoria, that was for client business development!"

"Client business development at a wine resort in Willamette Valley, Camille?" Victoria asked dryly, sliding a sheaf of expense reports across the table. "While Maya was sitting in this very office ordering takeout at three in the morning to re-index Harrow’s international supply chain data?"

Nolan stepped toward the table, placing his hands flat on the wood. "Listen to me! Maya is a brilliant strategist, yes, but she lacks executive presence! She couldn't present to a board of directors if her life depended on it! I provided the leadership, the polish, the relationship management! Clients don't buy spreadsheets, Victoria—they buy us!"

"Well," Arthur Vance said, opening a fresh document that had just arrived via email, "it seems Rebecca Harrow disagrees with you, Nolan."

Arthur pressed a button on the conference phone in the center of the table.

"Rebecca," Arthur spoke into the mic. "You are on speaker with the executive board of Westbridge."

"Good morning, Arthur," Rebecca’s voice echoed through the high-end speakers, clear as ice. "I am calling to inform you that Harrow & Finch has officially retained new master counsel for our global rebranding."

Nolan took a step forward, leaning over the phone. "Rebecca, please! Give us twenty-four hours! Camille and I can come to your headquarters and—"

"I didn't finish, Mr. Pierce," Rebecca interrupted, her voice like steel. "We have not hired another agency. We have retained an independent consultancy firm founded two hours ago."

Nolan blinked. "An independent firm? Who?"

"Lin Strategic Holdings," Rebecca declared proudly. "Maya Lin has just accepted the position of Chief Brand Officer for the Harrow & Finch account, with a five-year, ten-million-dollar exclusive advisory contract. And her first act in her new role was to instruct me to issue Westbridge a formal demand for all working files, raw creative assets, and client deposits by five o'clock today."

Camille gasped, clutching Nolan’s arm.

Nolan felt the room spin beneath his feet. The floor, the mahogany table, the faces of the senior partners—everything seemed to blur into a nightmare from which he couldn't wake up.