I Decide if She's Promoted

In the conference room, Bryan Shepard was whining pitifully, "Caitlin, Zane ruined the deal with Mr. Eaton and framed me for it. A suspension is way too light a punishment, don't you think? You can't keep covering for your veteran employees."

Covering for me?

I let out a cold laugh.

When Bryan was badmouthing Uncle Donovan, Caitlin Wiggins was right there and witnessed Uncle Donovan's outburst firsthand.

At the time, she had come to me begging, promising she would punish Bryan severely afterward. She even swore that as long as I could win back Uncle Donovan's favor, she would finally make our relationship public.

I had waited seven whole years for that promise. I really thought she'd finally noticed all the effort I'd put in over the years, and that I was about to get my happy ending.

For that, I staked my dignity and begged Uncle Donovan on my knees to win him back.

But never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that instead of making our relationship public, I would be framed, lose the project, and get suspended.

Caitlin waved her hand dismissively, as if trying to smooth things over.

"Zane is a veteran employee who has contributed a great deal to this company, and the mistake he made isn't that serious. We'll just deduct his year-end bonus and cut his salary in half. Bryan, you're a newcomer—you need to respect your seniors. Don't be so aggressive."

Bryan immediately lowered his head and apologized, yet the smug satisfaction of a successful scheme was written all over his face.

As for Caitlin, she might have sounded like she was defending me, but she was really just playing along with Bryan to smear my name and strip me of my power.

I chuckled coldly and set my employee badge down on the table. "No need to go to all that trouble. I'm resigning right now!"

My colleagues were stunned. None of them expected that after spending years at the company and fighting tooth and nail to reach the position of supervisor, I would quit on an impulse like this.

Caitlin raised an eyebrow and said, "Zane, you made a mistake and now you're throwing a tantrum? Anyone can sit in your position. If you weren't a veteran employee, I would have promoted someone else ages ago.

"Enough—stop fooling around. Support Bryan well on this. Once this project is successfully completed, I'll promote you to director."

The others looked at me with envy, one after another growing jealous of Caitlin's apparent favoritism toward me. Little did they know she had dangled this exact carrot in front of me countless times before.

And every single time, I would throw myself into whatever she asked with desperate hope, only for her to hand the promotion and raise to someone else.

Her elegant excuse? I was family, and she needed to win over outsiders to pave her way to becoming the company's CEO.

"Zane, we're a team. My achievements are yours too."

I could almost tolerate it with the others, because they at least possessed some competence. But I had seen the paperwork—Caitlin had already submitted Bryan's name for the exact director position she was promising me now.

What made Bryan so deserving? He couldn't even remember a client's name, and the only reason the projects under his name succeeded was that I was forced to carry them out.

My guess was that his initial application had been rejected, which was why Caitlin was now in such a hurry to steal my project and hand it over to him. It wasn't enough for Bryan to just be involved anymore—he had to be the lead.

Her favoritism toward Bryan had reached the point of being an open secret, yet she still turned around and pinned the blame on me.

How utterly laughable.