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Chapter 8
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I Won’t Be Stand-In Anymore Chapter 9
Ethan's trial moved fast.The amount of money involved and the severity of the online harassment pushed the judge toward the higher end. Three years in federal prison.I didn't attend. Jenna went in my place.She came back bursting to tell the story."You should have seen him. He's gone completely to bones. Looked like a ghost.""When the verdict came down, he fell to his knees on the courtroom floor. Cried for you. Begged your name.""The bailiffs had to drag him. Literally drag him."I was marking up a design on my screen. My reply was flat."That's what he earned."On top of three years, he was saddled with more than two million in civil damages. No way he'd ever climb out of it.As for Celeste, her landing was even uglier.Out of the country, she blew through the three million she'd stolen. She caught the attention of an international fraud crew who relieved her of what was left, and then she got picked up by local police for suspicion of money laundering.Rumor had it she had no o
I Won’t Be Stand-In Anymore Chapter 8
Ethan's harassment didn't stop after the garage.It got worse. With nothing left to lose, he tipped into open revenge.If he wasn't going to survive this, he didn't want me to, either.A few days later, a long-form exposé dropped across every major feed.The headline was weaponized: "The Dirty Truth About 'X': New York's Darling Designer Slept Her Way to the Top."The piece purported to be an inside account. It said I'd been sleeping with clients back at Whitmore & Co., that I'd discarded my five-year boyfriend to climb into Adrian Sterling's bed, that I'd fabricated evidence, that I'd framed my innocent ex and driven his company into the ground out of pure malice.The article ran a grainy photograph, one of those candid shots taken at a bad angle over dinner, Adrian leaning in to hand me a napkin. You couldn't see what he was actually doing. You could read it as a kiss.It caught fire immediately. Trending list, front page.Strangers by the thousand started tearing into me. My DMs ove
I Won’t Be Stand-In Anymore Chapter 7
On an evening of torrential rain, he finally caught me in the underground garage.I'd just stepped out of Adrian's car and was heading for the elevator when a soaked shape stumbled out from behind one of the concrete pillars and hit his knees in front of me."Emily. I found you."Ethan looked wrecked. His hair hung in lank strings plastered to his scalp. The suit he wore was rumpled, and the wet fabric gave off a sour, stale smell.No trace left of the boss who'd held court on a yacht.He wrapped his arms around my calves. Tears and rainwater ran together down his face."Emily, I was wrong. I swear to God I know it now.""Celeste lied to me. The company's under. I've lost everything.""For the love of the five years we had, please, let me live."I looked at the heap of wet human at my feet, cold and unmoved."Want me to spare you? Sure."I pulled out my phone and brought up the court enforcement order."Two and a half million, principal and interest.""Pay it in full and we're even."E
I Won’t Be Stand-In Anymore Chapter 6
The morning after I dropped the alias, I sat down for an exclusive with the most influential trade magazine in the industry, under my own name, as X.In front of the camera, I spread out five years of original drafts and timestamped files. Every blueprint stamped with my personal watermark."For the last five years, for reasons that were personal, I chose to work anonymously.""My generosity was repaid with theft and public humiliation.""As of today, I am rescinding Whitmore & Co.'s commercial rights to every design I produced while associated with them."The interview dropped. The design world and half the business world detonated."Holy. This is the bombshell of the year. Whitmore's 'lead designer' was X the whole time.""Ethan Whitmore is a garbage person. Five years of leeching off a woman's talent and he called her a drafting machine?""I cannot stop laughing. He kicked the real talent out and kept the pretty girlfriend. He must be spitting up blood right now."Public rage rolled
I Won’t Be Stand-In Anymore Chapter 5
I smiled, slow and easy. My voice was light.The bouquet in Ethan's hand hit the floor with a wet thump.He stared at me like he'd seen a ghost."Emily? What the hell are you doing here?"He whipped his head around to Adrian."Mr. Sterling. What is this? Where's X?"Adrian's eyes went flat. There was no warmth in his voice."Look harder, Whitmore. She's X."Ethan went white. His whole body locked up.His brain couldn't process it. Emily? The woman he'd called a free drafting machine? The one he'd told the industry was nothing without him?Emily was the genius who'd just broken him on live television?"No. That's impossible."Ethan shook his head, backing away."Emily can't be X. I taught her everything she knows. She's nothing without me."I unhooked my arm from Adrian's and walked toward Ethan, one slow step at a time."Ethan. Have you been gaslighting me so long, you started believing your own lines?""You taught me? You didn't even know how to open the drafting software in college.
I Won’t Be Stand-In Anymore Chapter 4
The news hit New York like a shockwave.Adrian Sterling's instincts were legendary. Anyone he rated this highly had to be something extraordinary.Meanwhile, Ethan was drowning.The designers he'd hired to replace me couldn't carry the weight I'd been holding. The new season rolled out to thin applause, and then to open accusations from long-time clients that Whitmore's work had "lost its soul."The quarterly earnings were cut in half. The board started closing in.To claw his way back, Ethan bet everything on one thing: the Starwater Bay Landmark Tower competition, New York's next billion-dollar landmark project. Whoever won it could plant a flag in this city for good.Ethan poured every resource into it. He pulled staff off other accounts. Mandatory overtime. All hands on Starwater Bay.Celeste couldn't stay out of it. She demanded her "artistic vision" be integrated into the design.When Jenna called me with the leaked intel, she was laughing so hard she couldn't breathe."Celeste,
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