Chapter 4 - TWO HEARTBROKEN: ENEMIES BECOME ALLIES!

SUMMER.

Another call flashed across my phone screen. I answered on the first ring.

"Madam! Someone is causing a nightmare at the store!" my employee's terrified voice cried out. "She ruined two designer gowns and is threatening to destroy the shop! She says her father is the mayor!"

My mind clicked immediately: Rihanna.

A rival heiress who lived to make my life hell. Since the store was directly on the route to Levi's meeting, I slammed my foot on the gas.

When I arrived, the showroom was in utter ruin. Mannequins lay shattered across the floor, dresses were shredded, and my head staff was kneeling on the ground in tears. Rihanna stood in the center of the destruction, preening like a queen.

"What do you think you're doing?" I snapped.

Rihanna spun around, sneering. "Ah, the owner appears. I didn't realize you ran a cheap boutique selling counterfeit trash."

I stared at the ruined inventory, my blood boiling. "Get up," I told my staff, before turning to Rihanna. "You're paying for every single piece."

"Pay for fake dresses?" Rihanna scoffed. She snatched a full cup of hot coffee from a nearby customer's hand, walked deliberately to a pristine white bridal gown, and tipped the cup over.

The dark brown liquid soaked through the lace.

My staff gasped.

Something in me snapped.

Before she could even blink, I reached out, grabbed Rihanna by her styled hair, and yanked her back.

"Ow! Let me go, you bitch!" Rihanna shrieked, completely caught off guard.

"You will pay for this," I hissed, my chest heaving, "or I swear to God you won't walk out of here in one piece."

"I'm not spending a dime!" she yelled, her eyes wild. "I'm telling my father, and your store will be shut down by nightfall!"

I let go of her hair with a sharp push. "Then you can explain that to the police yourself. Get in my car."

"Hell No." She resisted angrily trying to use her hand bag to hit me.

I grabbed her designer bag, threw it into my trunk, and dragged her toward the passenger seat.

Driven by pure fury, I locked the doors from the driver's side and slammed on the accelerator.

As the engine roared, Rihanna's smugness vanished. "What the hell? Are you trying to kill us? Slow down!"

I ignored her, weaving recklessly through traffic.

"You are over speeding!"

Tears of sheer terror streamed down Rihanna's face.

"Summer, stop! You're insane!"

At a red light, my phone buzzed on the dashboard. Location sent. It was Jerome with the exact address of Levi's meeting.

My heart leaped into my throat. I pulled a violent U-turn, tires screeching as Rihanna hit her shoulder against the door frame.

She caught a glance at the GPS map on my phone and the name Levi Kingston.

"Look at you," she gasped, her fear turning into disdain. "Desperate for a husband who doesn't even want you. Didn't I hear you were begging him for a divorce?"

My knuckles turned white against the steering wheel. I pressed the gas harder until the speedometer hit the red zone.

By the time I slammed the brakes outside the corporate complex, Rihanna threw her door open and stumbled into the bushes, vomiting violently.

I got out, my legs trembling from adrenaline.

Wiping her mouth, Rihanna glared at me with watery eyes. "Look at you. He won't even look at your face. You're embarrassing yourself."

"Shut up," I said softly, grabbing her wrist and dragging her toward the glass observation hallway above the conference room. "Just shut up and walk."

We peered through the one-way glass into the executive suite.

Suddenly, Rihanna froze. Her grip on my arm tightened so hard her nails dug through my sleeve. "Felix... what is Felix doing there?"

Felix was Levi's top executive—and Rihanna's fiancé. Beside him sat a stunning woman, laughing and leaning close into his space.

Rihanna lunged toward the doors, her eyes bloodshot, but I threw my arm across her chest, holding her back.

"Don't," I whispered fiercely. "Do you want to humiliate yourself in front of his entire board? Save your father's reputation, you fool."

Rihanna collapsed back against the wall, tears spilling over her mascara. "How could he..."

Her eyes scanned the room, looking for Levi—and landed right on the head of the table.

Sitting directly next to Levi, her hand practically resting on his knee, was Brielle.

"Look at that," Rihanna whispered bitterly through her tears. "You and I are the exact same. Except you're worse off... because you're actually married to him."

The sight of Brielle leaning into Levi made my mouth taste like blood. I had bitten my lip so hard it bled.

Rihanna kept muttering insults to make herself feel better until she finally broke down completely. "Take me somewhere I can drink," she demanded.

"Find your own way. I'm going home," I said, turning away.

"You literally locked my bag in your trunk!" she yelled, running after me.

Ten minutes later, we were sitting at a quiet corner booth in a dimly lit lounge nearby.

Rihanna, a tse-tse fly had followed me here and was sobbing uncontrollably into her arms while I stared blindly ahead at my untouched glass.

"Can you shut up, please?" I muttered, sliding a phone across the table.

Rihanna blinked, sniffing. "My phone?"

"It fell out of your bag. Now call someone and stop crying in my ear."

Rihanna wiped her face with a napkin, staring at me. For the first time, she noticed I wasn't shedding a single tear—just sitting there, hollow and bleeding from the inside, deeply hurt.

"I guess karma really is a bitch," Rihanna mumbled quietly. "I treated people terribly, and now look at me."

She dabbed at her eyes. "He told me he liked long hair. So I grew mine out. But that girl back there? She has a bob! Bobs are ugly!"

A small, dry chuckle escaped my throat before I could stop it.

"If I were you, I wouldn't let Brielle walk all over me," Rihanna hissed, her voice trembling again. "Every time Felix missed dinner lately, he said he was working late. Executive meetings. Client dinners. And I believed him."

My eyes shifted. "Levi told me the exact same thing."

"Tragic," Rihanna laughed bitterly. "Their secretaries probably know more about their private lives than we do."

I frowned, a cold chill running down my spine.

Rihanna suddenly snapped her head toward me. "Summer... what do those women have that we don't?"

"What?"

She slapped my shoulder hard. "They work in the same damn building as them every single day, fool!"

I froze.

"You don't like getting your hands dirty," Rihanna said, a sly, vengeful smirk finally breaking through her tear-stained face. "I do. Why sit here crying when we can dismantle them from the inside?"

She snatched her phone and dialed a high-level executive contact at Kingston Enterprises.

"Do it," she instructed the voice on the other end, her tone imperious. "Process it immediately."

Hanging up, she turned to me with a triumphant smile. "Done."

My breath caught. "Done with what?"

"Your new job starts Monday," Rihanna purred, sliding her phone across the table. "You're Levi's new personal secretary.”