18/08/2026
The boardroom smelled like expensive leather and betrayal.
Aria Vale stood at the head of a twenty-foot mahogany table, her hands steady despite the tremor in her chest. Seventy-two slide decks. Fourteen late nights. Three months of work that had cost her sleep, sanity, and the last remnants of her social life.
And now Bianca Hale's laugh cut through the room like a scalpel.
"Did you steal that... or just get lucky for once?"
Soft laughter spread. A few nervous chuckles from the junior executives who needed to keep their jobs. Aria's fingers tightened around the laser pointer until her knuckles went white.
She looked at Lucas.
Her fiancé. The man who had proposed six months ago with a ring that cost half his bonus. The man who had sworn he'd always have her back.
He was staring at his phone.
Of course he was.
Aria swallowed the lump in her throat. Kept her voice level. "The Q4 restructuring plan projects a seventeen percent increase in operational efficiency. The data is modelled from three separate acquisition scenarios, each accounting for—"
Adrian Wolfe flipped his file shut.
The sound echoed off the glass walls like a gunshot.
"Ms. Vale." His voice was quiet. Controlled. The kind of quiet that had made grown men cry in this very room. "This level of thinking... isn't yours."
The words landed like a physical blow.
Not because they were true.
Because he said them with such certainty.
And no one disagreed.
Bianca smiled. Lucas kept typing. The board members shuffled their papers, eager to move on, to pretend they hadn't witnessed what was happening.
Aria's vision blurred for exactly half a second. She blinked it away. She would not cry in front of these people. She would not give Bianca that satisfaction. She would not let Lucas see her break.
"I can walk you through the projections," she said. Her voice was steady. She was proud of that. "The acquisition synergy metrics alone show a fortytwo percent reduction in redundant overhead. If you'll just look at page—"
"You're done here."
Adrian didn't even look up. He was already flipping through the next agenda item, his attention already moved on to whatever crisis required his attention next.
Bianca stood. Walked to the front of the room. Placed her hand on Aria's slide deck like it had always been hers.
"I'll take it from here," Bianca said. "Ms. Vale... security is waiting outside."
Aria looked at Lucas one last time.
He finally looked up—but not at her. At Bianca. With a small, private smile that told Aria everything she needed to know.
She gathered her things. Walked to the door. Her heels clicked against the marble floor, each step a small act of defiance.
No one stopped her.
The door clicked shut behind her.
And through the glass walls, she watched them move on. Bianca took over her presentation like she'd prepared it herself. Lucas nodded along. Adrian Wolfe asked a question about quarterly projections—her projections, her numbers—and Bianca answered as if they were her own.
Aria's phone buzzed.
Lucas: "I'll explain tonight. Don't do anything dramatic."
She didn't respond.
She walked to the elevator.
And somewhere deep inside her chest, something that had been warm and hopeful for twentynine years went cold.
Read Fired then I bought the Company by moon on Novora. A Romance novel. She was humiliated. Fired. Betrayed by the man she… Read the first 5 chapters free.
