Cerita Pendek Familial Bond & Novel Mistress Workplace

Every year, Callum Walker gave me exactly five hours of his personal time. A meal with me cost forty minutes. A trip to visit my parents together cost two hours. Even sex was on the clock, starting the second he kissed me. Callum was the youngest senior partner at an elite white-shoe law firm, and his private consulting rate was 8,000 dollars an hour. I'd always assumed he was simply meticulous about his time. Then, at the firm's annual gala, Mia Garfield, the young lawyer he'd mentored himself, asked with a laugh, "Callum, how much time does your wife have left this year?" Callum glanced at his phone. "Seventeen minutes." Everyone in the room laughed. Mia tilted her head up at him. "What about me?" Callum ruffled her hair. "You're not on the clock. Dress shopping, late-night snacks, midnight movies... When have I ever kept time with you?" I swallowed the laughter filling the room and held on to those last seventeen minutes. A month later, my father, Russell Merriott, died suddenly of a heart attack. I used my final seventeen minutes to ask Callum to come with me to sign Dad's cremation authorization form. But I broke down afterward, clutched his sleeve, and kept him ten minutes longer. He didn't push me away. I thought that in the face of my father's death, he had finally made an exception for me. The next day, his secretary, Leon Barrymore, sent me a bill for 4,000 dollars. That same day, I pawned my wedding ring for 5,000 dollars. Four thousand went to settling the bill. The remaining thousand covered the first tuition installment at a language school abroad. This time, I wasn't going to waste any more of his time. Or any more of mine.

My mom stole my dad's name and his status as the top-ranked student in the state, then gave them to her childhood sweetheart. From then on, the two thieves soared to the top. One was admitted to Ashford University and went on to become a computer science professor at one of the country's top universities. The other attended Westbridge University and became a nationally recognized expert in education. … Meanwhile, my dad was left without a legal identity, spending his entire life scraping by through odd jobs and backbreaking labor. Years later, I inherited his talent and founded a leading AI technology company, making a name for myself in the industry. Potential partners were constantly coming to me with offers. One company, in particular, approached me several times seeking a partnership. The contract they offered was tempting, with generous terms and impeccable credentials. I casually flipped through their background information. But when I reached the page introducing the founder, my hand stopped. After a long silence, I finally said slowly, “Forget it. I won’t work with you.”

The day my mother, Dahlia Moone, gives birth to my younger brother, she goes into obstructed labor and suffers a catastrophic hemorrhage. My CEO father, Graham Kovane, orders every doctor and nurse out of the delivery room because his mistress, Selena Langford, says, "Her crying is giving me a headache." That day, both Mom and my unborn brother die. Not long after, I'm framed for a mistake I never made, driven out of the family, and left to survive on the streets. Living on the kindness of strangers, I fight my way up from nothing. Step by step, I rise until I become the head of Rockstone Tech, controlling a fortune worth billions. On the day of the annual evaluation for promoting interns to full-time employees, five candidate files are placed on my desk. My assistant, Ingrid Nelson, taps the file at the top of the stack, her voice full of admiration. "Ms. Campbell, Monica Kovane is exceptionally capable. Her performance has earned full marks from every department manager." I open Monica's profile, and my eyes stop on the family information section. Even in the worst of times, I will never forget those two names on the paper. After a long silence, I tell Ingrid to bring all five interns into my office. The employment contracts are handed out one by one. When only the last person remains, I look up and meet her confident gaze. She's almost certain the position is already hers. Calmly, I slide a termination letter across the desk. "Unfortunately, Ms. Kovane, you didn't pass."