CHAPTER TWO #2
I wanted to disappear. Wanted to sink through the floor and cease to exist. My face was burning, my hands were shaking, and I couldn't breathe.
Bart lunged toward her. "Give me that—"
"Don't." Summit's voice cracked like a whip. He was looking at Bart with absolute contempt. "Don't touch her."
Bart froze.
Summit turned to me, and the look in his eyes made me want to vomit. "Ms. Drewble. You're dismissed. Clean out your desk. Security will escort you from the building."
"Mr. Wilder, please—" My voice was shaking. "I didn't—we didn't mean—"
"You didn't mean to fuck a married man? A colleague? In violation of company policy?" His tone was arctic. "Or you didn't mean to get caught?"
I couldn't answer. Couldn't think. Couldn't do anything but stare at him in horror.
"Get out," he said quietly.
I grabbed my bag with trembling hands and ran.
I made it to the bathroom before I started hyperventilating.
This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening. I was supposed to be the one in control. I was supposed to be playing the game, manipulating the pieces, winning.
Instead, I'd been played.
Karrie had known. Had evidence. Had waited until the perfect moment to destroy us both in the most public, humiliating way possible.
I pulled out my phone with shaking hands and saw the notifications already flooding in. Texts from coworkers. Emails from HR. And then—
A link to a video.
My hands were trembling so badly I could barely tap it.
It was the confrontation. All of it. Someone had recorded the entire thing through the glass wall of the conference room and uploaded it to social media.
The caption read: "When the wife shows up to the office and ENDS her cheating husband. This is what karma looks like."
I watched in horror as the view count climbed. Hundreds. Thousands. The comments were brutal:
"The mistress running out like a roach when the lights come on ??"
"She really thought she was going to win lmaooo"
"Imagine being dumb enough to fuck a married man at work"
"That boss firing her on the spot was SAVAGE"
"She's never getting another job after this"
I was going to be sick.
I stumbled into a stall and vomited, my whole body shaking. When I was done, I sat on the cold tile floor and stared at my phone as the video spread like wildfire.
Ten thousand views. Twenty thousand. Fifty thousand.
My face was everywhere. My humiliation was public. Permanent.
I'd thought I was seducing Bart. Thought I was climbing the ladder. Thought I was winning.
Instead, I'd been a pawn in someone else's game. And Karrie Parsters-Hillson had just checkmated me so thoroughly I'd never recover.
Security escorted me out of the building twenty minutes later.
I had to walk past the open-plan office where everyone was staring at their phones, watching the video, watching me. Some of them didn't even bother to hide their laughter.
Lyndsey Kimmble—the junior associate who'd recorded the whole thing—gave me a little wave as I passed. "Bye, Jen! Good luck with your next job!"
The security guard walked me to my car in silence. When I got in and closed the door, I finally let myself cry.
I'd lost my job. My reputation. Any chance of a career in this industry.
The video was viral—by tomorrow, it would have millions of views.
Every future employer would Google my name and find it.
Every person I met would recognize me as "that woman who fucked her married boss and got destroyed by his wife. "
I pulled out my phone and called Bart.
He didn't answer.
I called again. And again. And again.
Finally, he picked up. "Jen, I can't talk right now—"
"What the fuck, Bart?" I was sobbing now, ugly and desperate. "You said you loved me. You said you were going to leave her. You said—"
"I never said that," he interrupted, his voice cold. "And even if I did, it doesn't matter now. She's taking everything. The house, the kids, the money. I'm fucked, Jen. Completely fucked."
"We're both fucked!" I screamed. "That video is everywhere! I just lost my job! My entire career is over!"
"Then I guess we're both paying for our mistakes." His voice was bitter. "I have to go. My lawyer's calling."
He hung up.
I sat in my car in the parking lot and screamed until my throat was raw.
By that evening, the video had two hundred thousand views.
I'd gone home to my tiny apartment and locked myself inside, but it didn't matter. The internet had found me. My social media accounts were flooded with messages—some pitying, most vicious.
"Homewrecker."
"You got what you deserved."
"Hope it was worth it, slut."
"Imagine being this pathetic."
I deactivated everything. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. But it was too late. Screenshots of my profiles were already circulating. People were posting photos of me, dissecting my appearance, my clothes, my entire existence.
I was a cautionary tale. A meme. A punchline.
I called my mother, desperate for comfort, for someone to tell me it would be okay.
"Jennifer, what were you thinking?" she said, her voice sharp with disappointment. "A married man? At work? How could you be so stupid?"
"I didn't think—"
"No, you didn't think. And now you've humiliated yourself and this entire family." She sighed. "I can't help you with this. You made your bed. Now you have to lie in it."
She hung up.
I sat on my couch in the dark and watched the view count climb.
Five hundred thousand.
Seven hundred thousand.
One million.
I'd wanted to be noticed. Wanted to be powerful. Wanted to matter.
Now I was famous for all the wrong reasons.
Three days later, I got an email from HR officially terminating my employment. The severance package was minimal—just enough to cover two weeks of rent. No references. No recommendations. Nothing.
I applied to twelve jobs that week. Every single one rejected me within hours.
One recruiter was honest enough to tell me why: "Your name is all over the internet, Ms. Drewble. No company is going to hire someone with your... reputation."
I'd been blacklisted. Completely and utterly destroyed.
And the worst part? I couldn't even blame anyone but myself.
I'd thought I was smart. Thought I was playing the game. Thought I could seduce my way to success.
Instead, I'd underestimated Karrie Parsters-Hillson so catastrophically that I'd destroyed my entire life.
She hadn't just confronted us. She'd annihilated us. Strategically. Publicly. Permanently.
And she'd done it without breaking a sweat.
I sat in my apartment, scrolling through job listings I'd never get, watching the video that had ruined my life play on an endless loop, and finally understood the truth:
I'd never been the seductress. I'd never been in control.
I'd been a weapon. A tool Karrie had used to justify destroying her husband.
And now that she was done with me, I was nothing.
Just another cautionary tale about what happens when you fuck with the wrong woman.
A week after the confrontation, I saw a photo online.
Karrie Parsters-Hillson, looking radiant in a black dress, standing beside Summit Wilder at some charity event. His hand was on her waist. She was smiling—genuinely smiling—in a way I'd never seen in any of the company photos.
The caption read: "New power couple alert? Summit Wilder and the viral revenge queen spotted together. She upgraded. ??"
I stared at the photo until my vision blurred.
She hadn't just destroyed Bart and me.
She'd won everything.
The man. The money. The respect. The future.
While I sat in my shitty apartment, unemployed and unemployable, watching my life crumble into nothing.
I closed my laptop and lay down on my couch, staring at the ceiling.
I'd wanted to be powerful.
Instead, I'd learned exactly what power looked like.
And it looked like Karrie Parsters-Hillson, standing in that conference room in her white dress, burning my entire world to the ground without even raising her voice.
I'd never stood a chance.