All Chapters of My Assistant’s Girlfriend Called Me a Poor Old Hag: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

10 Chapters

Chapter 1

I am the CEO of the illustrious Sinclair Group, a publicly traded company ranked among the top 50 globally.I never thought I'd see the day when I got jabbed in the face by some twenty-something and called a freeloading old hag.Especially since the black card was mine. The room was booked under my name.Five minutes after I hung up, the manager Mr. Davis showed up at the door with two security guards.Justin saw them and dropped his fork. It clattered against the plate.Davis stepped over to me and kept his voice low. "Ms. Sinclair. Which one took your card?""Him." I tipped my chin at Justin.Davis turned. His tone went cold. "Sir. Return the card. We've already called the police."Vivienne still hadn't caught up. She slammed her palm on the table and shot up."Return? That's my boyfriend's card! Who do you think you are, some middle manager waltzing in here?"Davis didn't even look at her. His eyes stayed on Justin.Justin was sweating. "Boss, I mean, Ms. Sinclair, let me explain."

Chapter 2

After that, Justin behaved himself for a while.Daily reports came in on time. The restaurants he booked were ones I actually liked. My calendar ran clean.Vivienne didn't show her face again.I figured he'd learned his lesson.Then last week, he started coming in late.Monday—twenty minutes late. Subway signal issue, he said.Wednesday, fifteen minutes. Broken elevator.Friday, half an hour. Dead phone, alarm didn't go off.I didn't bother calling him out. I was busy. And there was still his mother to think about.What finally caught my attention was an expense report.Friday afternoon, Connie from finance brought me a stack of receipts to sign off on.I flipped to the back and stopped.Seven restaurant charges in a row. All billed to my business entertainment account.Amounts ran from three thousand to twelve thousand.Six different Michelin-starred restaurants. Plus one private club.All this month.Every line read the same: "Business entertainment, Ms. Sinclair."I had never set fo

Chapter 3

I didn't confront Justin right away.Not because I felt sorry for him. I wanted to see how far he'd go.The answer came faster than I expected.Saturday afternoon. I was heading out to my place in the hills for a couple of days off.I'd bought the property three years ago. Quiet area. I stayed there now and then.Before I left, I called Justin out of habit. Wanted him to check that the cleaning service had been by.He sounded edgy on the phone."Ms. Sinclair, there's actually some plumbing work going on at the house today. Property management said it's not livable until next week.""Plumbing? I had it inspected last week. Everything checked out.""Must be a new issue. They just told me. Maybe stay in the city this weekend?""Fine." I hung up.Twenty minutes later, I drove out there myself.From half a block away I could see four or five cars parked at the gate.One of them was a company sedan.Justin had the keys.I pulled over and walked up to the front door.It was cracked open.Musi

Chapter 4

"Your house?"Vivienne was the first one out of the gate."What did you just say? This is Justin's house. I've seen the deed on his phone!"Justin grabbed her arm and yanked. "Viv, let's just go. Please."She shook him off and got in my face, finger jabbing at me."What is your problem, lady? Wasn't getting kicked out of the restaurant embarrassing enough? Now you're here trying to grab his house?""Does your monthly paycheck even cover a floor tile in this place? And you've got the nerve to call it yours?"The blonde chimed in. "Yeah, look in a mirror. You look broke."I pulled out my phone to make a call.Vivienne knocked it out of my hand.The phone bounced twice on the floor."Who you calling? Your broke friends?"A guy in a Hawaiian shirt clicked his tongue. "Lady, read the room. His girlfriend's right here. What's a hired hand like you doing in our way?"I bent down to pick up my phone.Vivienne's eyes locked on my neck.The collar of my shirt had shifted. A thin silver chain was

Chapter 5

"Ms. Sinclair?"Vivienne's heel was still on my fingers. She heard the name and froze.She looked toward the door. A dozen people in suits.Wesley was already at my side, dropping to one knee. "Ms. Sinclair. Are you all right?"Behind him, Lou, head of security, didn't say a word. He reached over and shoved Vivienne off me.She stumbled and went down on her tailbone."You. Who are you people? Why'd you push me?" Her voice was shrill.Nobody answered.Lou helped me up. I brushed the dust off my knee and got my feet under me. There was a shoe print on the back of my hand. My fingers were going numb.Wesley looked at the scratches on my arm. He turned to the legal team. "I want photos. Everything."Then he scanned the room. His voice was as flat as someone reading off a memo."Everyone here entered private property without authorization, then assaulted the owner. That's trespassing and aggravated assault.""I'd recommend you all stay exactly where you are."The laughter and music were lon

Chapter 6

Legal moved fast.Wesley had two laptops set up on my dining table within the hour, pulling every account Justin had ever touched.I sat in a chair and let Lou bandage the scratches on my arm.Vivienne's friends were corralled on the couch, ringed by security. Nobody was running their mouth now.The blonde girl, who'd been screaming "rip her face off" twenty minutes ago, sat with her head down. Barely breathing.The police arrived and walked the scene.Unauthorized entry. Property damage. Assault on the homeowner.Everyone who'd put hands on me got logged into the system.When they pulled Vivienne aside for questioning, her lips wouldn't stop shaking.She'd stopped insulting people.She kept repeating one sentence. "I didn't know it was her house. I thought it was Justin's."The officer didn't look up. "We'll verify that. But regardless of whose house it is, you entered without permission, you destroyed property, and you assaulted someone. Those facts aren't going anywhere."Half an ho

Chapter 7

Monday morning. I went into the office as usual.Zoe at the front desk saw the bandage on my arm. Her mouth opened, then closed. She didn't ask.Wesley's report was waiting in my inbox.His team hadn't taken the weekend off. They'd torn through every account Justin had ever touched.Three categories.One: misappropriation of corporate funds. Two hundred and fourteen thousand.Two: leaking of confidential client information to a competitor. Direct stall on seventy million in contracts.Three: unauthorized use of company assets, the corporate vehicle and the villa keys, resulting in property damage.Initial damage assessment on the villa came back ugly. The Persian rug alone was forty thousand. Sofa, coffee table, wall repairs, close to six hundred thousand combined.Last line of the email: All evidence has been turned over to law enforcement. Charges expected to be filed this week.I marked it read. Closed it.Ten o'clock. Zoe called up. Said someone was making a scene in the lobby.It

Chapter 8

The handwriting analysis came back Tuesday.Justin had forged my signature on fourteen separate expense reports.Each one done well enough at a glance. The lab caught the differences anyway.Forging a signature to defraud company finance was straight-up embezzlement.Add the trade secrets, and that was two felonies in one filing. The police took him into custody that afternoon.He was led out the front of the building in front of a crowd. Two officers, one on each side.Before he ducked into the car, he turned and looked up at the building.I don't know if he was looking for me.I wasn't at the window. I was in a meeting.That same afternoon, the case took a turn I hadn't seen coming.Wesley called. "Ms. Sinclair, we have a new development.""Gordon Sutton over at Mercer got rattled when we sent the cease-and-desist. He reached out wanting to settle. During the conversation, he let something slip.""What?""He said: 'I'm not the one who put Justin on the radar. His girlfriend came to m

Chapter 9

Once the evidence was with the police, Vivienne was picked up at her apartment.The story going around was that when they came to the door, she had a half-finished Facebook post open on her phone.A new selfie. Full makeup.Caption typed out halfway: "Life is all about being hap—"She didn't finish it. The knock came.Word got back to the office and the place lit up.The kitchen, the elevators, the hallways. Everyone was talking.It wasn't the money people wanted to talk about. It was the locket.Someone said it was the only thing Ms. Sinclair had left of her mother.Someone said her mother had made it by hand. Three months of work.Someone said Ms. Sinclair had worn it since she was four. Twenty-three years. Never came off.I didn't comment on any of it.That afternoon I got a long text.From Mrs. Brennan."Ms. Sinclair, this is Justin's mother. I heard what happened. This is my fault, I didn't raise him right. I'm sorry for everything you've done for us over the years. I know now tha

Chapter 10

Two weeks later, the locket came back.Edmund Hale brought it to the office himself.He opened a small wooden box. The locket was lying on dark blue velvet.The cracks were filled with gold.Four veins of gold running along the broken lines. They crossed each other on the surface in a pattern that didn't follow any rule.The Y was still there. The gold was a little denser on the right half than the left, but the letter was whole.I lifted it into my palm.Same weight. Same temperature as before."Restoration doesn't hide the damage," Edmund said. "The gold accepts the fact that it broke. When you wear it again, it carries something it didn't have before. Not a scar. A history."I nodded. Slipped the chain back over my head.The gold sat cool against my skin for a second.Like my mother's fingers.When she was making this, she'd cupped my chin with cold fingertips, holding the silver up to my face to check the size. Telling me not to wiggle.Mom. Look. It's back.Not the way it was. But

SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP