Chapter 2

Bella leaned closer.

“Gina, did you figure something out?”

She let out a soft laugh, amusement filling her eyes even as her voice turned cold.

“But even if you go to another company, you still won’t escape.

“If you don’t believe me, go ahead and try.”

My stomach sank.

I clenched my fists so tightly that my nails dug into my palms.

No matter how powerful Bella’s system was, there was no way it could follow me to another company.

Right?

The next morning, I submitted my resignation.

Charles approved it without even reading it.

Bella leaned against the doorway of his office and flashed me a smug smile.

“Gina, want to make a bet on how long you’ll last at your new company?

“I don’t think you’ll make it a week before you come crawling back.”

The way she smiled sent a chill down my spine.

She looked almost demonic.

I found another job in the same industry as quickly as I could.

I threw myself into the work, determined to prove her wrong.

With the contacts and experience I had built up over the years, it took me less than a week to land a deal worth more than thirty million dollars.

I stared at my signature on the contract and finally breathed a sigh of relief.

The contract was right here in my hands.

Surely it couldn’t somehow turn into Bella’s deal again.

I placed it on my new boss’s desk.

“Mr. Parker, the Sterling Industries deal is done.”

Mr. Parker nodded approvingly.

But the moment he picked up the contract, his phone rang.

He answered it.

The smile on his face vanished.

“What?”

“Sterling signed with Bella Young from Grant Corporation?”

His head snapped toward me.

Then he opened the contract I had just handed him.

The client’s signature line was completely blank.

My name was the only one left on the document.

“Gina Cole, is this some kind of joke?”

He hurled the contract at me.

“No wonder Charles warned me about you. He said you were always taking credit for deals you didn’t close!

“If you didn’t have such a reputation for working yourself to the bone, I never would’ve hired you in the first place!”

I stood frozen.

Cold spread through my entire body.

Bella had been telling the truth.

I had handled this deal from beginning to end.

I hadn’t let a single person else touch it.

I was even working for an entirely different company now.

And somehow, it had still become Bella’s achievement.

I rushed out of the office and hailed a cab.

By the time I stormed into my old company, Bella was sitting leisurely at her desk, painting her nails.

“Why?”

I stared at her, my voice trembling.

“Why does every contract I sign end up becoming yours?”

Bella slowly screwed the cap back onto the bottle of nail polish.

Then she looked up at me with a sweet smile.

“What do you mean, why?

“I already told you, Gina.

“For the rest of your life, you’re only going to be my stepping stone.”

She reached toward me.

I slapped her hand away.

Then I raised my arm and slapped her hard across the face.