Seven.

I had barely stepped out onto the polished tiles before Susan rushed up to me, her eyes practically sparkling with curiosity.

“Girl, what happened up there?” She blinked at me expectantly, a huge grin spreading from ear to ear across her face.

“Nothing much,” I muttered, keeping my head down and continuing to walk toward my old cubicle. “He just wants me to be his new personal assistant.”

I reached my desk, pulled a clean cardboard box from underneath, and started picking up my personal belongings. My favorite mug, my desk plant, and my collection of fashion sketchbooks.

“Oh my freaking goodness!” Susan shrieked loudly right beside me, causing a few co-workers at nearby desks to turn and stare.

I stopped packing for a second and frowned back at her. “Why are you being so dramatic?”

“This is completely drama worthy! In fact, it deserves a massive party,” Susan insisted, grabbing my forearm and bouncing on her heels. “Girl, you just got promoted to a fucking personal assistant to the CEO!”

I rolled my eyes so hard it hurt. I placed a stack of color swatches into the box with a heavy sigh.

Susan’s smile faltered slightly as she watched my miserable expression. “Wait... Is it just me, or are you actually not happy about this?”

“Of course I’m not happy!” I hissed, dropping my voice so the rest of the floor wouldn't hear us gossiping. “I will be working directly beside Derick freaking Stone. My entire design career has completely been ruined, Susan. Not only will I have to see his arrogant face every single day, but I now have to answer to his every command. What humiliation could possibly be worse than that?”

Susan crossed her arms, tilting her head as if inspecting me. “Girl, I honestly still think you are exaggerating all of this.”

I froze. I stopped what I was doing, set down the glass frame containing a photo of my dad, and turned around to completely face Susan.

“Exaggerating what, exactly?” I snapped, my voice shaking with raw, built up emotion. “The fact that I walked into Sam’s apartment last night and found him in bed with that damn bitch V, he swore was just his female best friend? Or is it my mother, who is about to marry that dickhead Derick’s father and turn us into legal step siblings? And on top of all that, I am forced to work for him as his servant, because if I refuse, he promised to blackball me so I can kiss my entire career goodbye!”

Susan’s mouth dropped open. Her eyes widened in genuine shock as the words finally sank in. “Sam cheated on you... with what’s her name again? Vivian? Vanessa?”

The sudden surge of anger made my blood rush to my head, and I felt a wave of dizziness hit me. The brutal hangover from all the cheap tequila I had drowned myself in the previous night hadn't fully left my system yet. My brain felt like it was bouncing against my skull.

I sank heavily into my office chair, my knees giving out. I closed my eyes and began massaging my thumping temples, trying to stop the world from spinning.

“Oh, pookie,” Susan said, her voice instantly softening from excited to deeply concerned. She stepped closer and rested a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Are you alright?”

“No,” I whispered, staring blindly at the cluttered desk. “But I will be.”

The truth was, the full magnitude of what Sam had done hadn't even truly settled on me yet. Last night, I had completely spun out of control, using alcohol to mask the deep pain and humiliation ripping through my chest.

When I woke up this morning, I hadn't allowed myself a single second to process it. I had dressed up in a hurry and practically sprinted to the office, using every distraction available to avoid thinking about it. To avoid facing the heart shattering betrayal I had just been served by the man I loved and trusted.

“That son of a bitch,” Susan gritted out, stamping her heel against the carpet in pure outrage. “I never liked his lazy ass anyway!”

“He even had the nerve to use that cliché line,” I said, letting out a weak, humorless laugh. “He literally sat up in bed and said, ‘It’s not what you think, Ava. I can explain.’”

“What the fuck was he going to explain, anyway?” Susan threw her hands up in the air.

“Maybe he wanted to explain the fact that she had been his fuck buddy all along,” I said bitterly, my fingers tightening against my forehead. “And that they had just been cosplaying as innocent best friends right in front of my face.”

I let out a long, shuddering sigh, wishing with everything in me that there was a magic button to erase those images from my memory. The sight of them together was burned into the back of my eyelids. I knew forgetting it was impossible, and the only way to ease the crushing hurt was to keep myself continuously busy, regardless of how exhausted or sick I felt.

Even though I had little to no energy left in my body, I forced myself to stand back up. I gripped the edges of the desk to steady my balance and continued packing my work files into the box.

“I know a lot of insane stuff has happened to you in the last twenty four hours, my friend,” Susan said gently, patting my back as I stacked my notebooks. “But I still think you should try to cheer up a little and look on the bright side.”

I didn't stop packing. “And what bright side is that, Susan?”

“Getting a promotion!” she said, trying to inject some optimism back into the room. “Your salary tripled, Ava. Your career in this company just skyrocketed to the top floor, and you haven't even fully realized the power that gives you yet.”

“As far as I'm concerned,” I said, placing the final pen into my box and folding the top flaps closed, “there is no good thing coming out of this trap.”

Susan narrowed her eyes at me, a sly, dangerous smirk suddenly forming on her lips. She leaned over my desk, dropping her voice to a low whisper.

“Why does something tell me that you are going to end up falling completely in love with your handsome boss slash stepbrother... and you two are going to live happily ever after?”

I stared at her in utter disbelief, holding the heavy cardboard box against my chest.

“You must be out of your damn mind, Susan.”