Chapter 1

I, Dianne Hayden, was still sorting through the documents that'd been stained with coffee when Lizzie Dalton barged in again.

Lizzie tossed her phone onto my desk without the slightest hint of courtesy.

"Can't you read, you old hag?" She spat the last three words through clenched teeth before fixing me with a look of pure contempt.

I slowly turned my gaze toward the group chat displayed on her screen. Messages from my childhood friend, Julius Sanford, were still flooding in.

He tagged everyone in the group and wrote, "While I'm away from the company, everyone is to follow Lizzie's instructions. Her word is my word. Anyone who's unwilling to comply can leave immediately."

The next moment, my phone rang.

"Lizzie already told me what happened. She's part of the company too. Why did you refuse to reimburse her when she came to you? Why are you singling her out?" Julius shouted impatiently at me from the other end of the line.

I was just about to explain when his next words shut me down completely.

"Consider this a warning. You'd better know your place. At best, you're just the company's finance officer. To put it plainly, you're nothing more than my lapdog. Lizzie's your mistress now!" he seethed.

Lizzie couldn't hold back and burst out laughing the moment his words fell. Pitching her voice higher, she called out to Julius on my phone in a sickly sweet tone. "Hubby, you—"

"Are you sure you want me to reimburse Lizzie?" I cut her off coldly as I threw the question back at Julius. At the same time, I opened the recording function on my phone.

"Cut the crap. I'm telling you to approve it now!" he snapped.

A smirk crossed my face. "Alright."

The moment I hung up, I immediately signed the receipt without the slightest hesitation. "The money will be transferred back to your account within five minutes."

Lizzie looked visibly pleased. She gazed at me disdainfully and lightly slapped the receipt against my face twice.

"I'll let it slide this time. But you'd better watch your tone the next time you talk to me, you mutt," she mocked.

I seized her hand in one swift motion and tightened my grip. Her face instantly contorted in pain.

"You're in no position to talk to me like that!" I snapped.

After all, Mitheria Group wouldn't have made it without the Haydens' help. My family even held the majority of the company's shares.

Although Julius was the CEO of the company, the main shareholder behind the scenes was me.

I flung Lizzie's hand away violently. Caught off guard, she fell hard to the floor.

Lizzie widened her eyes in shock. "How dare you hit me?" she shrieked.

However, her phone buzzed the very next second. The sound of the push notification confirming the transfer rang out across the office.

Lizzie shot a glance at her phone. Then, she hurled a vicious threat at me before storming off.

I could still hear her shouting clearly as the door closed. "Just you wait. I'll get you for this."

With next quarter's workload in mind, I didn't give much thought to it. But half an hour later, Bianca Fletcher, one of the colleagues who got along well with me, rushed in.

"This is bad, Dianne. Y-You've been exposed! Everyone in the group chat is in an uproar now," she exclaimed.

My heart fell into my stomach. Panic crept over me when I saw how pale Bianca's face was.

"I've been exposed? What exactly do you mean by that?"

It'd been three years since I joined the company. All this while, no one knew that I was the only daughter of the Haydens, the wealthiest family in the city, except for Julius.

Could it be that…

I was still lost in thought when Bianca held her phone out toward me. "But I don't think you're that kind of person," she whispered.

Bianca let out a deep breath. Then, she patted my shoulder reassuringly before continuing, "I've known you for so long, so I believe in your character. You're definitely not the type of person to become a mistress, right?"

Her words immediately snapped me back to my senses.

"A mistress? And whose mistress would I be?" I questioned.

I quickly glanced at my phone at her words, only to see that Lizzie had posted a flood of my private photos in the company group chat.