By the time we reach the ground floor, my face feels raw from burning. Every eye seems to have polished a stare just for me: curiosity, pity, judgment. Take your pick.
I can practically see the story being written behind their eyes:Did you hear about Georgie from IT?The one who was sleeping with Patrick?Sabotaged the whole system when he dumped her.Always the quiet ones, isn’t it?
Humiliation is a heat that burns right through you straight to the soft parts you spend your whole life trying to protect.
For years I measured my worth in problems solved, features built, the occasional “good work” buried in emails. I tried so hard to be useful, reliable, the one who never complained. The girl who made everyone’s life easier even when it cost pieces of herself.
I thought if I was helpful enough, I’d finally earn my place. That one day someone would look at all those solved problems and late nights and say: “You belong here.”
Now McLaren Hotels won’t remember any of that. They’ll remember this: the girl who got marched out by security.
For an anxious person like me, there’s no nightmare quite like this: every eye tracking my shame, the proof that I was never good enough marching me right out the door.
It was Patrick who made this humiliation happen.
I might love him, but I will never, ever forgive him.
This is what will remain when the love finally rots. Not the boat trip or the fishing or the ice bath or helicopter or lying in bed with him watching seagulls outside his window.
This. The guards treating me like a criminal. The receptionist pretending she can’t see me. The revolving door spitting me out onto the pavement like even the building wants me gone.
I don’t have my picture of Riri. It’s still at my desk, along with the coffee mug Roy had made that sayskeep calm and let Georgie do itand the spare flats I stash for emergencies. Mystress ball that’s been squeezed into oblivion. My spare cardigan I keep on my chair for when the AC gets aggressive. The little succulent in a hand-painted pot that Roy gave me for my birthday. Two years of small belongings that made that desk feel like mine.
The succulent will die without me watering it.
I guess they’re the company’s now.
They’ll probably bin them. Why would anyone keep the remnants of someone who never really mattered?
THIRTY-NINE
The kid with the crooked poster
Patrick
“Sorry to disrupt, sir.”Margaret, my PA, hovers in the doorway looking like she’d rather be anywhere else on earth.
Can’t get a moment to breathe. Georgie’s been gone twenty minutes, and my chest still feels like someone’s got their fist wedged in it. Watching security walk her out? Hardest bloody thing I’ve dealt with in years.
“It’s fine,” I bite out.
She flinches like she’s approaching a wild animal, and I can’t blame her. I’ve been like a bear all week, even before this shitshow with the hotels exploded. Snapping at everyone,temper running too close to the surface. Skye started it, London’s made it worse.
I’m still reeling from Georgie walking out. I didn’t want her to quit. I wanted her to own her mistake, take the suspension—with full pay, for fuck’s sake—and let us sort this mess.
A part of me wonders if there’s something worse than losing a spot on the Forbes list. Worse than Jake walking away from a decade of friendship.
I’m not examining that right now.
“Sir. There’s a commotion in IT,” Margaret says carefully.
“I’m aware. The whole company’s in commotion.” The fix went live this morning, the systems are steady again, but the damage is done. Social media hasn’t shut up about it, and the PR team is still fire-fighting.
“Five of them are outside.” She tucks her clipboard against her chest, as if it’s protection from me. “I tried to send them away, but they won’t budge. They’re demanding to speak with you.”
I frown. “Send Craig and his lot in, then.”
She shifts, looking even more uncomfortable. “Craig’s not with them.”
