Chapter 1

I had just woken up from a brutal hangover after drinking with clients the night before. The moment I walked into the company office, I witnessed a scene that made my blood run cold.

"Heather, our company's success today is all thanks to you! You've worked so hard. Let's drink to that!"

I watched Colton Tiller raise his glass. Amid the cheering and egging on from the crowd, his face flushed red as he drank a toast while linking arms with Heather Sparks.

After finishing the toast, Heather gave Colton an affectionate hug and said, "Colt, as long as I can help you, I'm not afraid of hard work."

A colleague immediately jumped in to suck up to Colton. "Heather, I've never seen Mr. Tiller drink like that with anyone. He must really value you!"

"Heather's the real hero of the company this time. I propose we all raise a glass to her!"

Seeing the cheerful atmosphere in the office, my chest felt crushed under the weight of a boulder.

Today was Saturday. Colton and I were supposed to go out to dinner to celebrate the company's successful year. However, when I woke up from my hangover, he was gone.

If one of my subordinates had not told me about today's company gathering, Colton would have kept me completely in the dark.

At first, I thought he simply did not tell me because I was still sleeping off the alcohol, but now, seeing him drink that toast with his arm linked with his first love Heather, I finally understood.

He did it on purpose. He deliberately kept it from me.

The moment Heather turned her head, she spotted me and put on a look of fake surprise.

"Liana, why are you only getting here now? We thought you'd taken the day off, so we started the gathering without you. Sorry about that."

The words sounded apologetic, but the mockery in her eyes was unmistakable. She even deliberately pressed her body closer to Colton as she sneered at me.

Hearing her words, Colton offered no explanation. Instead, he said with clear irritation, "Liana, you reek of alcohol. You know I hate that smell. And you obviously knew about today's gathering, so why are you showing up this late?”

"Since you're here now, you might as well hand over that design institute project to Heather. At least your drinking won't ruin things then."

Hand over the design institute project to Heather? This was a project I had worked my ass off on for half a year and was about to close!

The project was incredibly complex. Plenty of well-funded companies from out of town were fighting for a piece of it.

Our Apex Design Group was nothing compared to those giants. I spent half a year building relationships across every department. I drank until midnight regularly, to the point where I developed bleeding ulcers.

Now, just when the deal was finally about to close, Colton wanted me to hand over half a year’s worth of my blood, sweat, and tears to Heather.

It was truly laughable.

Back when Colton said he wanted to start an architectural design company, I did not hesitate to give up my permanent government position at the National Design Institute. I brought every penny of my savings to help him build the business from scratch.

With his background in finance, he could not handle the actual design work at all, let alone help the company thrive. As such, over the years, almost all the company's business fell on my shoulders.

I handled both the sales work and the design work. By pushing myself to the absolute limit, I managed to bring the company into the top three in the city's industry.