Chapter 4

Lena hid Austin at her company. To make room for him, she fired me without hesitation and told everyone I'd been the one chasing her, that I was a shameless homewrecker who'd forced my way in.

She said that if it weren't for me, she and Austin would have been happy together.

But she was generous enough not to hold my mistakes against me, apparently. She slotted Austin straight into a director-level position and made it official at a company meeting.

"Austin is mine. He's young, he's got energy, and he's here to learn the ropes. All of you are going to make way for him.

"Anyone who gives him trouble is giving me trouble, and you won't have a job here anymore. Whatever he wants, you give it to him. I'll handle the rest."

I couldn't wrap my head around it. Lena was the girl who once reported an orphanage director for corruption, who swore she'd be a fair businesswoman. She'd thrown all of it away for a man who walked out of the backwoods.

She turned the company into a toy, something to keep Austin entertained. She knew exactly what she was doing.

She knew how hard the people under her worked, how many of them would suffer for it. She just didn't care. Because now, she was the one with all the power, and she was willing to use every bit of it for him.

Lena went back on deals multiple times for his sake, even handing him major projects to cut his teeth on. When he lost money, she didn't blink.

Looking back, I felt like a joke. She'd always told me that positions went to the most capable, so I'd stay up all night perfecting every proposal I ever wrote.

She wouldn't even spare me feedback. Half the partnerships she closed had me working behind the scenes to smooth things over. Every deal I brought in, I'd earned by showing up day after day without fail.

And she'd torn it all down like it was nothing.

I tried to go out and set the record straight, but the way people looked at me was strange and unsettling.

I couldn't take it. I locked myself in my room and flinched at every sound from outside.

I didn't know how many days passed before Lena came back, like she was doing me a favor. She threw a proposal at my feet.

"Did you sabotage this on purpose? It worked fine when you used it, so why can't Austin make it work? He got reamed out by the client because of this.

"You just can't stand to see him succeed, can you?"

My body was already breaking down. I kept shrinking back against the wall.

"I didn't… I'd never—"

She slapped me across the face and ground her heel into my hand. "Now go apologize, and figure out how to fix this. Otherwise…"

She didn't need to finish. The threat was clear enough. She wiped her hand with a tissue, not even bothering to look at me.

"Jude, you need to understand that without me, you're nothing. So don't even think about fighting back.

"If you still want to be my husband, you'll do as you're told."

I wanted to charge at her. I wanted to kill them both. But I couldn't bring myself to walk away, not after all those years of hardship, not when it would mean leaving with nothing.

I dragged my body, which felt like it was falling apart at the seams, and stayed up rewriting the proposal. I went to the client's door three times and got turned away each time.

They said they didn't do business with people who played dirty. They jabbed their fingers in my face and told me I looked like someone who couldn't be trusted.

I begged for half a month. I stood in the pouring rain for three days straight. That was what it took to get one more chance at the partnership.

During all of that, Lena didn't call once. She didn't go to the office either.

She was on vacation with Austin. They walked along the beach hand in hand, shared his leftover lunch, and took photos together.

Lena was happy.

Even though I was the one who wrote the proposal for the new deal, Austin was the one who got to present it.

She'd completely forgotten the man who'd been by her side for over a decade.