my worst enemy

Stephanie’s POV

The glass walls of Damian’s office offered a perfect view of Chicago’s skyline, sharp towers cutting into the late afternoon light. I barely saw it. I stood rigid in front of his desk, hands locked at my sides, while the man who had never raised his voice in five years of running Rowan & Vance finally lost control.

“You cost us one hundred million dollars.” Damian’s voice cracked across the room like a whip. “You had just one job, just a presentation with one client, our top client. And you handed them the entire account because you couldn’t get the fucking numbers right.”

My throat tightened. I kept my eyes on the polished surface of his desk.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you.”

I lifted my gaze. Damian Cross looked like he was carved from stone even now—dark hair precise, shoulders broad under the tailored black shirt—but his face was flushed with a fury I had never witnessed. My hands were starting to get sweaty as I clenched them hard by my side. To make the matter worse, I could feel my colleagues hovering just beyond the frosted glass door. I could feel their presence like heat.

“You are a liability,” he continued, each word deliberate and cruel. “Incompetent. Careless. A waste of the salary this firm pays you. I should have fired you the day you walked in here looking like you didn’t belong.”

The insults landed one after another. “Useless. Unprofessional. Soft,” he continued and I took them all in silence, thank goodness I woke up with a strong will power to repel anger, but I could not tell how long my will power will last for. My teeth clamped on the inside of my cheek until I tasted copper. I had spent years absorbing his cold precision without flinching. Today the cold had turned white-hot and personal.

“You know what, You are fired. I can’t deal with this.”

But after those words were done blurting out of his mouth, Something inside me snapped.

My head jerked up, and the words that had lived in my chest for months finally tore free.

“Fired?” I repeated and paused before continuing. “After everything I’ve done for this company?” My voice rose, sharp and raw. “I stayed up all night finishing that presentation. I audited over fifty documents and sent them to every department that needed them. I didn’t sleep. I didn’t eat dinner or breakfast. I showered in the office bathroom and put on yesterday’s clothes because no one told me the client was moving the meeting up this morning. I walked into that room with no underwear under my trousers because I didn’t get time to go home.”

Damian stared at me, stunned into stillness. No one has ever spoken back to him. Ever.

I kept going, the dam broken.

“While everyone else leaves at six, I stay. I turn my phone off the second I text my husband so he doesn’t call and start a fight. I work until my eyes burn and my back locks up, and not once—not once—have you offered a promotion or even a raise. You just take. You order people around like puppets and expect us to be grateful for the privilege of bleeding for your company.”

My chest heaved. Tears stung but I refused to let them fall.

“I hate you, Damian. Screw your fucking job.”

I ripped the company badge from my blouse and slammed it onto his desk, and the plastic cracked against the wood.

Damian remained frozen, mouth slightly open, the first genuine shock I had ever seen on his face since I started working with him. I’m sure he had thought he was the only one with madness and arrogance. Nah—he needed to meet me first.

I turned at the door, voice low and venomous. “Good luck with your stupid company, you arrogant bastard,” I added.

I yanked the door open, and ten of my colleagues stumbled backward, like they’ve had their ears pressed to the glass all along. They scrambled for their desks as I strode past, I went straight to my desk and packed my box from the certainty that this day would end exactly like this. Whispers followed me—praise, disbelief, quiet awe—but I did not look back. The elevator doors closed on the open-plan floor and the life I had just set on fire.

I rushed into the cab I called and went straight home with the hope of cuddling into my husband’s arms to forget all my problems. But the moment I stepped into the apartment, it smelled like sex.

I stopped in the narrow hallway, keys still in my hand. Soft, wet sounds drifted from the bedroom. A woman’s low moan. The rhythmic slap of skin. I exhaled shakily, trying to keep my heart steady so I don't collapse.

I could tell they were deep in the act that they couldn’t even hear me open the door when I pushed it open.

Trent was on his back in the center of our bed, the same bed where I had woken every morning for six years. A blonde woman straddled him, riding hard, her bare breasts bouncing with every downward stroke. His hands gripped her hips, guiding the pace, thrusting up to meet her. The wet sound of her cunt sliding over his cock filled the room. Sweat shone on both of them. The woman’s head was thrown back, mouth open, one hand working her clit in tight circles while she fucked herself down onto him.

I stood in the doorway and watched every detail.

Trent’s cock disappeared inside the woman again and again, slick and thick, the base of him shiny with her arousal. The blonde leaned forward, bracing her palms on his chest, grinding in short, desperate rolls of her hips. He groaned, low and satisfied, the sound he used to make when I was the one underneath him. He lifted his head and sucked one of the woman’s nipples into his mouth, teeth scraping, while his other hand spanked her ass hard enough to leave a red mark.

The woman cried out and came, cunt clenching visibly around him, thighs shaking. Trent flipped them without pulling out. He drove into her from behind, one hand fisted in her hair, the other gripping her waist. The bed frame slammed the wall. Wet, filthy sounds filled the air—skin meeting skin, her moans turning into broken pleas for harder, deeper. He gave it to her, hips snapping, balls slapping against her clit with every thrust until he buried himself to the hilt and came with a guttural curse, pulsing inside her while she milked every drop.

My voice cut through their heavy breathing.

“I’m getting a lawyer.”