Chapter 1: The Green Stain of Betrayal
The first person to insult me on my first day as CEO was my husband’s secretary.
She stood in front of the executive elevator in the grand lobby of Vance Global, looked me over, and smiled as though she had already appraised my worth and found me bankrupt.
“Custodians and interns use the service elevator,” she said, her voice a practiced purr that echoed off the Italian marble.
For a second, I thought she was joking. I wore a plain beige dress and low heels. For six years, I had managed Vance Global’s overseas projects where hard hats, steel-toed boots, and functional laptops mattered more than designer handbags. Apparently, while I was out building the company’s infrastructure in the dirt, the New York headquarters had turned clothing into a rigid caste system.
“I’m not a custodian,” I said, keeping my voice even.
“Then you’re an intern. Interns use the service elevator too.”
Her nameplate, pinned to a flawless silk blouse, read Chloe Thorne — EXECUTIVE SECRETARY TO PRESIDENT VANCE.
My husband’s office. My husband’s secretary. I had been married to Julian Vance for ten years and had never formally met her.
A junior employee standing nearby whispered, “Please. Just take the service elevator. Miss Thorne can make your life a living hell.”
“Does it go to the sixty-eighth floor?” I asked the employee.
“No. It stops at sixty-three.”
“So what do employees do?”
She hesitated, her eyes darting nervously toward Chloe. “Take the stairs.”
“Five flights?”
“Every day.”
Chloe laughed, taking a slow sip from a large, iced matcha latte. The green liquid sloshed against the plastic cup. “If five flights of stairs are too much for them, maybe they don’t belong at a top-tier firm.”
A cold, heavy knot formed in my stomach. Three days earlier, the board of directors had voted in a secret session to place all company operations under my control. The formal announcement was scheduled for ten o’clock this morning. Julian knew I was returning to headquarters, but he had been strangely vague, claiming he was “buried in meetings.”
He did not know the board had finalized my title as Chief Executive Officer. Neither did his arrogant secretary.
I ignored her and moved toward the polished steel doors. Chloe stepped sideways, physically blocking me.
“This is for executives,” she sneered.
“I heard you.”
“Then why are you still standing here?”
“Because,” I said, reaching out to press the call button, “I am going upstairs.”
Her face tightened into a mask of pure malice. “Don’t dirty the elevator.”
When the doors slid open with a soft chime, I stepped inside. Chloe followed me, her eyes flashing with a sudden, vicious anger.
“You’re finished,” she hissed. “I’ll have your internship canceled before you even sit down.”
Since when does an intern’s future depend on the whims of a secretary? I thought. But before I could speak, Chloe made her move.
Whether it was a calculated strike or a moment of unhinged spite, she took a sudden step forward, feigned a stumble, and flicked her wrist.
A shock of freezing cold hit my chest. The iced matcha latte cascaded down the front of my pristine beige dress. The dark, mossy green liquid soaked instantly through the fabric, clinging to my skin. Ice cubes clattered against the mirrored floor of the elevator, echoing in the suffocating silence.
I stood there, dripping, freezing, and utterly humiliated. The employees in the lobby gasped. Chloe stood over me, swirling the few remaining drops in her cup, a victorious smirk playing on her lips. She casually flicked a drop of green water from her manicured fingernail.
“Oops,” she whispered. “Looks like you really do need a custodian now.”
Just then, the adjacent doors to the private conference room swung open. Julian emerged. He looked exactly as he had the day I married him—devastatingly handsome, wearing a bespoke charcoal suit, his silver tie perfectly knotted.
His eyes swept the scene and landed on Chloe. His face instantly softened into a look of deep concern.
“Chloe, sweetheart,” Julian said, rushing forward. “What’s all this noise? Is someone bothering you?”
He hadn’t even looked at me.
Chloe pointed a perfectly manicured finger at my dripping, pathetic form. “Just an arrogant newbie. She tried to force her way into your elevator and made me spill my drink.”
Julian finally turned his head. He froze.
For three agonizing seconds, my husband stared at me. He saw the green sludge dripping from my collarbone to my knees. He saw the ice melting at my feet.
Instead of shock. Instead of anger on my behalf. Instead of rushing to his wife of ten years, Julian Vance reached into his breast pocket, pulled out a monogrammed silk handkerchief, and gently handed it to his secretary.
“Here,” Julian said softly to Chloe, wiping a microscopic splash of matcha from her wrist. “Are you alright?”
Then, he turned a cold, furious glare on me. “What is wrong with you? Look at the mess you’ve made. Go to the restroom and clean yourself up before the board members see you and you embarrass this entire firm.”
The air left my lungs. The humiliation of the spilled drink was nothing compared to the absolute, blood-freezing betrayal in his voice.
And then, as Chloe reached up to take the handkerchief, her sleeve slipped back.
My breath caught. On her wrist sat a white ceramic watch. Diamond markers. A tiny silver crescent moon above the six o’clock dial. Only ten existed in the world. A month ago, I had begged Julian to leverage his connections to buy that exact, sixty-thousand-dollar watch for his mother’s birthday because I was stuck in London closing a deal.
Now, it was ticking on his secretary’s wrist.
Julian saw my eyes lock onto the watch. The color drained from his handsome face.
I am going to destroy you, I thought, the cold matcha suddenly feeling like war paint. But first, I had an appointment to keep.
I hit the button for the top floor.