My Boss Used Me, I Kicked Him Out After Rebirth

"Chloe. You'd consider pair-binding with me, right?"

Jared was standing next to my desk. His voice had a question in it. His face didn't. He was sure I'd say yes.

I'd been yanked back out of my own death by only a few hours.

A synthesized chime had gone off inside my head a moment earlier, and that's when it all came back to me.

Same as the first time around, every working adult in the country had gotten the Performance-Share System today.

It was lunch hour. The whole floor of Summit Tower had lost its mind over it. People were talking over each other.

Jared had come to me first, as I knew he would.

My numbers were the best in Client Solutions. But my network — the old-money connections, the relationships — were nothing. Zero.

And Jared was exactly the inverse.

If the two of us paired, we were the odds-on favorites for this year's top bonus.

The System almost seemed built for us.

In my previous life, I'd been thrilled. I'd said yes immediately. I hadn't even flinched when he pushed Stephanie — his supposed "cousin," a summer intern — into the partnership alongside us.

I was twenty-five, brand new in the office, and I genuinely believed it was a three-way win.

Then, at the tail end of the project —

I still couldn't think about that period directly. The numbness. The cold. The feeling of nothing holding my weight anywhere.

The last clear picture I had was of myself standing in a hospital corridor with a termination letter and a burnout-syndrome diagnosis in my hands. Jared, freshly promoted to Director, was strolling out of the OB-GYN wing with his arm around Stephanie. He glanced at me.

"Chloe. For old times' sake, I'll do you a favor."

"There's still an electronics plant hiring out on the West Side. Assembly line work. Screwing bolts onto circuit boards. Should suit you at this point."

"Don't say I never did right by you. Job market's rough right now. Any work is work."

I didn't answer.

Walking out of that corridor, I could hear something inside me break. Cell by cell.

In the dark months that came after, I kept telling myself one thing, over and over.

My life has to be in my own hands.

"No."

"I'm not going to pair with anyone."

The flatness of it wiped the smile off Jared's face.

He clearly couldn't accept my answer. Even his voice went edged.

"Why? Give me a real reason."

"Your skills, my network. In this firm, we're the best team we could build."

I met his gaze without flinching.

"Because the front-end of the project requires months of hard work, and I can't trust, when the bonus is split, that you'll honor the agreement."

At this stage, Jared probably hadn't even consciously decided yet to screw me over. Hearing it said plain to his face like that, he actually looked hurt.

He shook his head, in disbelief.

"Chloe. I have been your biggest backer here. You don't trust anyone else, fine. But me? The last project that went sideways — who took the hit for you?"

"I expected more from you."

And it was true. As my immediate supervisor, Jared had protected me on a few occasions. There had been a time when I had trusted him. When I had thought of him as a mentor.

I could even believe that, at this moment, he genuinely wanted the partnership.

But the truth is, under a big-enough payday, the people you trust are the ones who can hurt you worst.

With one whole life's worth of data on exactly how this plays out, his "I'm only saying this for your own good" routine wasn't landing anymore.