The sleepless nights. The missed dinners. The years I traded for success. My blood runs through these walls, and now they look at me like I’m poison.
I can feel it. That tightening in my chest. Panic tangled with betrayal. The whispers in the hallways. The pitying looks. The judgment in every pair of eyes that once looked up to me.
Everything I built, everything I sacrificed, is slipping through my fingers, and I can’t stop it.
All they see now is the scandal. The headline. The fall.
And I’ve never felt so alone.
I confronted Maya the second she walked through the office doors the next morning. She denied everything. Every word. Her voice calm, her eyes wide, wrapped in that fake innocence she wears like perfume.
Whether I believe her or not doesn’t even matter anymore. The damage is already done.
“At least they haven’t found out about the pregnancy,” she said. “It could be worse. But that remais our little secret. For now.”
I grind my teeth at the memory. At the way she smiled. At her hand brushing over her stomach.
The image burns behind my eyes, fury and disgust rising so fast it almost makes me shake.
If she had anything to do with this, with leaking that story, with dragging my name and my family through the mud, then the price she’ll pay will be far greater than she can imagine.
Because I’ve already lost too much. And I’m done letting anyone else take from me.
She’s been placed on leave for the next few weeks. There was an altercation in her department that ended with one of her coworkers slapping her in front of half the team.
What the associate did would have been more than enough reason to fire her, but I told Theodora to handle it differently.A formal warning. An internal memo. No more grace. No more tolerance if anything like that ever happens again.
Because Maya isn’t innocent in any of this. Firing the other associate would only make things worse. It would give the rumors more fuel, more credibility.
And the whispers are already loud enough to drown me.
Our legal team is doing what they can, filing the usual motions, sending the usual letters. But everyone knows that once something is out there, once it’s posted, it doesn’t die.
It just keeps spreading. Like rot. Like blood that won’t stop seeping through the bandage.
But none of that—not the company’s panic, not the headlines, not the calls at all hours—comes anywhere close to the worst part.
Because I might have lost my entire family for good. All of them.
And this time, there’s no fixing it.
As soon as I park, I’m out of the car and taking the stairs two at a time. Neither Ceci nor the kids have answered their phones. I left Jonathan back at the office trying to contain the fire—but I couldn't stay. I need to see them.
To know if they’ve already seen it. If they hate me even more than they already did.
More than I hate myself for everything.
I ring the doorbell and, for the first time, someone opens almost immediately. It’s Ceci.
Her face is pale, her eyes red and swollen. She looks exhausted, the way you do only after crying for hours.
She knows. She’s seen it.
“Cecily,” I croak.
“Come in.” Her voice is barely a whisper before she turns her back on me, leaving me standing there like a stranger.
When I finally manage to move, I step inside and close the door behind me.
