CHAPTER FOUR

For a long moment Charlotte didn't move.

She exhaled slowly letting the breath slip past her lips as she rested her forehead on her knees. Her pulse was still fast, like she hadn't fully processed that the knocking had stopped.

It took almost a full minute before she finally pushed the blanket off her and stood up. Her feet felt numb from sitting too much, and she had to ease herself with another deep breath before walking towards the door.

She opened it cautiously, with her hands trembling slightly.

The hallway was empty, but laying neatly on the floor, almost intentionally; was an envelope. White and clean. With her name written in a handwriting she recognized as belonging to her landlord.

She didn't need to open it, but she crouched anyway.

Her fingers hovered over the envelope for a moment, as if touching it would make everything more real.

Then she picked it up.

She sighed softly, something between frustration and resignation, before she closed the door behind her and leaned on it.

Overdue rent.

Her stomach sank as she turned the envelope in her hand. There was no anger in her chest, no panic exactly. Just that quiet feeling of reality doing what it always does; reminding her she didn’t have the luxury of breaking down.

Not right now.

She placed the envelope on her bedside table and sank onto the edge of her bed. The resignation letter still lay on the blanket, exactly where it fell earlier. She stared at it. This thing that had given her a sense of escape just one hour ago. A sense that maybe she could walk away.

But now?

The landlord’s envelope made the decision for her. Rent was due. Bills were coming. Food didn’t fall from the sky. It wasn’t free.

She sighed and rubbed her forehead.

“I can’t quit,” she muttered under her breath yet again, the words tasting like swallowed pride. “Not yet.”

Her chest tightened, but not painfully, but with the weight of responsibility sliding back into place. She didn’t like it, but she understood it.

By the time sunlight crept into her room the next morning, Charlotte was already awake, sitting at the edge of her bed with her work clothes on and her hair pulled back. She didn’t feel rested, but she felt steady enough.

And steady was enough.

Her phone rang from her work bag, pulling her from her thoughts.

It was Jaina.

She quickly answered the call as a smile slowly graced her face.

“Jaina…”

“Don’t ‘Jaina’ me,” her best friend cut in. “Are you standing up straight?”

Charlotte blinked. “I mean… I’m standing.”

“Stand like you own the building you're going to. Shoulders up. Chin up. Chest out.”

Charlotte let out a small laugh. “You’re dramatic.”

“Dramatic? Babe, you just survived the most humiliating week of your career. And now you're walking in there like they didn’t break anything.”

Jaina paused. “They didn’t break anything, right?”

“Not really,” Charlotte said. “Just… bent some pieces.”

“Well the good news is, bends can be straightened. Listen, today isn’t you starting from the bottom. Today you are recovering your story. You’re still Charlotte freaking…”

“Don’t say my last name dramatically,” Charlotte warned.

“...Charlotte freaking George!” Jaina yelled anyway. “You’re smart, you’re stubborn, and honestly? You make people nervous. So go in there and type those data entries like you’re the CEO taking a vacation.”

Charlotte snorted. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Shh. It doesn’t have to. Just go. You’ve got this. And if anybody looks at you funny, remember I’m only one phone call away and I’m in the mood to fight.”

“You can’t fight my boss, Jaina.”

“I can try.”

Charlotte shook her head, smiling widely into the phone for the first time that morning. “Thank you.”

“You better smash the day,” Jaina said. “Talk to you later, love.”

“Bye…” Charlotte said.

The call ended.

Charlotte stood a little straighter. The room didn’t feel so heavy anymore. Her heartbeat wasn’t dragging, she actually felt… electric.

She slipped her bag over her shoulder and exhaled, long and steady.

She was still here. She was still her. And she was grateful… deeply, for the one friend who never let her forget it.

She walked out the door, ready to face the day.

Monday morning felt heavier than usual. Charlotte’s bag swung against her hip as she stepped into the office, the hum of computers and printers greeting her like a reminder that the world hadn’t stopped while she’d been figuring out her life.

Her new desk, smaller, tucked in the corner, stared back at her. “Data Entry Clerk,” the nameplate read. She sat down, her fingers brushing over the edge, the weight of last week still pressing down.

She told herself she could handle this. She had to. Rent didn’t care about pride or embarrassment.

A few minutes later, the intercom crackled.

“Strategy and Communications Department, please assemble in the conference room. All staff present.”

Charlotte’s stomach sank. Her department. Her old team. And she had no choice but to go.

As she entered the conference room, her eyes immediately found him. Nathan. Standing at the front, papers in hand, projecting calm authority. The man who had dismissed her concerns, who had looked through her explanation about her demotion and walked away like it didn’t matter.

Her chest tightened. She looked down at her notebook, pretending she had all the focus in the world.

Nathan began speaking. His voice was calm, controlled, carrying effortlessly over the murmurs.

“Good morning, everyone. I’ll get straight to the point. Our department has been awarded a major project.”

The room shifted. Whispers ripple. Charlotte’s stomach fluttered, hope mixed with tension.

“This project comes from a leading marketing and branding firm,” Nathan continued. “They need us to handle a rebrand campaign for a luxury client. Timelines are tight, accuracy is critical, and this could significantly restore the company’s reputation.”

Charlotte nodded silently, letting the words wash over her.

Nathan’s gaze swept the room and landed briefly on her. No smirk. No pity. Just a flash of acknowledgment, professional, cold, but not dismissive.

“Charlotte,” he said, his tone even, “you’ll be responsible for data support throughout the project: client records, research indexing, and accuracy checks. Mistakes will not be tolerated.”

She swallowed hard. Her fingers tightened around her pen.

“Yes, sir,” she said quietly.

The rest of the meeting passed in a blur… deadlines, deliverables, team roles. Charlotte wrote furiously, not daring to look up. She felt Nathan’s eyes on her now and then, sharp and assessing, a reminder that he still held the authority she had tried to appeal to last week and failed.

As the meeting wrapped up, Nathan straightened the papers in his hands, glancing at the department one last time.

“Prep begins immediately,” he said. “Everyone will be called in for smaller strategy briefings starting this afternoon. Make sure you’re ready.”

Charlotte exhaled slowly, gripping her notebook. Demoted, overlooked, and now responsible for critical data in a high-stakes project. The irony wasn’t lost on her.

She started to rise to leave, hoping to slip out quietly, when Nathan’s voice stopped her.

“Charlotte.”

Her pulse jumped. She froze.

“Yes, sir?”

“I need you to come to my office after this,” he said. Calm, clipped—Controlled.

She nodded, trying to keep her expression neutral.

Her stomach turned. Not fear exactly. Not panic. But that tight tension she had felt last week, the one she thought she’d left behind, returned with full force.

She watched him gather his papers and walk toward the door, the room buzzing behind her, unaware of the storm she was trying to steady inside.

Charlotte stayed in her seat, gripping her pen. She didn’t know if this meeting with him would be corrective, constructive, or something worse.

All she knew was that when Nathan called her into his office… Nothing good ever came easy.

And she wasn’t sure she was ready.

Charlotte stood outside Nathan’s office for a few seconds longer than she intended. Her hand hovered near the door, her heartbeat annoyingly loud. This office was where everything went wrong a few weeks back; where he dismissed her concerns without even blinking.

But running wasn’t an option. Rent didn’t disappear just because she was nervous.

She knocked softly on the glass door.

“Come in,” Nathan’s voice called, steady and unreadable.

Charlotte pushed the door open and walked in as calmly as she could.

Nathan didn’t look up immediately; he was flipping through a file, expression sharp, jaw set in that calm, controlled way she had started to resent. His office was neat, too neat; like every pen knew its exact place.

“Sit,” he said.

She did. With a speed she never knew she possessed.

Nathan finally lifted his eyes to her. They were cool, calculative; the kind that made you sit straighter whether you wanted to or not.

“We’re beginning prep for the rebrand project today,” he said. “Your role is data support. But I need to be clear, Charlotte… your department will be relying on accuracy, consistency, and speed. There’s no room for errors.”

Charlotte nodded. “I understand.”

“I’m not finished.” Nathan dropped the file on the desk. Her eyes unintentionally followed the trail of his veiny hand.

“You’ll be coordinating all the client records and cross-checking inconsistencies in the initial brand information from the client. If you fall behind, the entire team falls behind. And that’s not an option on this project.”

It was more than what her role required. A lot more.

Charlotte inhaled slowly. “Alright. I’ll get it done.”

Nathan raised a brow. “Are you sure? This isn’t the kind of task you can approach halfway.”

“My work has never been halfway,” Charlotte said before she could stop herself.

Nathan blinked; not offended, not annoyed. If anything, something flickered there. Something like… surprise. Or interest. The smallest shift in his expression, gone as quickly as it came.

He leaned back slightly. “Good. Let’s hope your confidence matches the output.”

“It usually does,” she replied swiftly again.

And that; that earned the faintest ghost of something on his face. Not a smile. Not approval. Just… a tiny break in that perfectly stoic expression, like he hadn’t expected her to answer him that boldly.

Charlotte realized what she’d said a beat too late.

“Oh,” she muttered. “I mean… professionally. Output, as in work output.”

Nathan nodded once, but the corner of his mouth looked suspiciously less tight than before.

“Dismissed,” he said.

Charlotte got up quickly, hoping her legs wouldn’t betray any of the adrenaline shooting through her.

Her pen slipped from her fingers and hit the floor with a soft tap.

She froze. Just for a second. The room went quiet; or maybe it just felt that way to her. Heads flicked up. Nathan’s gaze landed on her instantly.

“Oh!” Charlotte muttered, bending to pick it up, her cheeks warming. “Sorry…”

Nathan didn’t say anything. He just watched, a flicker of something in his expression she couldn’t quite place… curiosity? Surprise? A hint that he had noticed her.

Charlotte straightened again, careful, trying to shove down the nervous flutter in her stomach. She mentally facepalmed herself as she rushed out of the office, desperately trying to escape the awkwardness.

Charlotte threw herself into the work. Literally.

She skipped breaks, stayed glued to the screen, organized files, indexed documents, cross-checked inconsistencies, and corrected errors she didn’t even cause. The groundwork for the project slowly became hers. Her structure, her system, her fingerprints.

Her supervisor walked past twice, nodded once… and then later presented her work in a team group chat as if it were his.

'Typical.'

Charlotte stared at the message for a long moment. A part of her felt hurt, while another part wasn’t surprised.

But she kept working anyway, because proving her worth was the only thing she had control over.

What she didn’t know was this…

Nathan had walked past her desk three times throughout the day; once in the morning, once mid-afternoon, and once when everyone else was packing up. Each time noticing the speed of her typing, the stacks of files she’d organized, how calmly she worked through the chaos.

He said nothing.

But he noticed.

And what she failed to notice; someone else did...