Her shoulders curled forward as an acute sense of grief struck her dead in the chest. She had no idea when or where it happened, but the guilt she’d observed on his face was unmistakable. He’d taken her access card and used it to breach Trendsetters’ security.
He’dusedher. All this time, he had been using her.
Pain—stark, vivid, and soul-crushing—speared her chest, searing through her like a fiery lance, and the foundation of trust she’d slowly begun to rebuild all but crumbled.
***
Samiah tilted her head from side to side, stretching her neck as she read the same paragraph on her monitor for the fourth time without comprehending a damn thing. Her shoulders ached with the need to relax, but the ability to do so continued to elude her.
Her breath caught in her throat as a silhouette appeared on the other side of her office’s frosted-glass door. There were three sharp knocks, followed by a soft “Trash collection.”
Air whooshed from her lungs as the wave of alarm retreated.
“Not today,” Samiah called.
Dammit! She had to get a handle on this. She dove straight into a fit of edgy panic the moment she heard footsteps clomping down the hallway.
She abhorred this feeling. Absolutelyhatedit!
The memory of the last time she’d felt anything even remotely close to this stole over her. She could still smell the pine-scented cleaner the janitor had just used on the floor outside Principal Parker’s office as she sat in that hard plastic chair, waiting for her fifth-grade math teacher, Mrs. Shoals, to arrive. Samiah had been summoned to the principal’s office after leaving her own desk and walking over to Damarias Lewis to offer aid. The girl had asked Mrs. Shoals for help with a math problem, but the teacher continued to explain the issue in the exact same way. Samiah had grown tired of their back-and-forth and decided to take matters into her own hands.
She’d learned two things that day: Teachers don’t like it when students show them up in class, unwittingly or otherwise. And her old grade school principal had a soft spot for those very same students.
Actually, she’d learned a third thing that day. She discovered that she didn’t like being called to the principal’s office. And that’s exactly how she felt right now.
Justin had given her a heads-up twenty minutes ago. He and Barrington wanted to meet with her to discuss what occurred this morning. The entire office was still stunned that a group of criminals had been working right under their noses. Longtime coworkers or not, there was a consensus that it was a good thing they were now behind bars.
But that was all beside the point as far as Samiah was concerned. What mattered is that she’d allowed her access card to be compromised. She had to answer for that.
Except shecouldn’tanswer for that. She had no idea when Daniel had taken her card. She was diligent when it came to securing it, the one who constantly reminded her fellow coworkers that their access card was more valuable than anything else they carried. How was she supposed to explain to her bosses that she’d been so careless with something so important?
The only reasonable explanation was that Daniel had taken it after they’d slept together, either while she showered or as she lay naked and vulnerable in her own bed. She hoped she was wrong, but the nausea in her gut told her she was spot on.
How could you?
She wanted to scream the words in his face. She’d been hurt by men in the past, but Daniel’s betrayal surpassed anything she’d ever experienced. And that was before she considered the detriment he’d likely caused to her career.
For a few moments after receiving Justin’s summons, Samiah had considered giving it all up. Just pack up her office and quit. Thanks to life lessons courtesy of her dear father, she had enough money in the bank to cover a year’s worth of mortgage payments and living expenses. She could walk away from this job and not worry about addressing these questions for which she had no answer.
She thought about all the work she could get done on her app if she didn’t have to spend the majority of her waking hours here at Trendsetters, and had to stop herself from grabbing a cardboard box from the storeroom and dumping everything from her desk drawers in it.
But what if potential investors caught wind of what happened today?
Cold dread rushed through her veins. It felt as if she was going to lose the few bites of the granola bar she’d had for lunch.
She was often amazed by just how small this vast tech world could seem at times. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility to think that investors could discover her part in the breach and question her ability to keep customer information secure.
God, the repercussions of Daniel’s betrayal reached so much further than she first imagined. The fallout from this could very well sink her dream.
A message popped onto her screen. It was from Justin.
Can you please come to Barrington’s office?
The knot that had been slowly tightening in her stomach over the past few hours pulled taut. She could practically feel the deluge of adrenaline flooding her bloodstream, sense it in the uptick of her pulse beat, the sweat that instantly pebbled her hairline, the restive twitch in her muscles.
Samiah flattened her palms on her desk, sucked in a deep breath, and slowly blew it out, reminding herself that no matter what happened in these next few minutes, she still controlled her own destiny. She’d put herself in a position to survive whatever came her way. That realization smothered her apprehension, replacing it with a calmness she wouldn’t have thought possible just five minutes ago.
“You’re going to be fine,” she whispered. Straightening her shoulders, she pushed her chair back, stood, and confidently strolled out of her office.
