Chapter 25
Ibarrel downstairs and into the kitchen like a woman possessed, finding my mom standing over the stove with a wooden spoon poised at her lips, taking a taste of the tomato soup that I like so much. But I have no appetite.
“Have you decided?” she asks, eyes locked on my frazzled state.
Once I give her a resolute nod and tell her I need to go downtown immediately, Mom springs into action with a decisiveness I’ve always admired.
The stove clicks off beneath her fingers, her apron sails onto the counter, and the car keys jingle in her grip before I can even finish a proper explanation. “When do we leave?”
“Now,” I say from the foyer, already jamming my feet into shoes.
Normally, I’d hesitate to ask Mom for a ride considering her relationship with traffic laws is tenuous at best.
Her driving style falls somewhere between NASCAR champion and getaway driver—definitely not the safest chauffeur in the family, but speed is exactly what I need right now.
We’re flying down the highway, every muscle in my body locked as Mom weaves through traffic like a pro, when my phone buzzes with Wendy’s text: Where are you?
My fingers tap out a quick reply that I’m en route, and her response makes my stomach churn with nausea.
Tim’s presentation is apparently in full swing, and according to Wendy’s play-by-play, they’ve hijacked every single concept from our campaign without even bothering to change the fonts.
That backstabbing, bottom-feeding weasel with his smug face and empty brain!
Amanda’s sudden interest in joining our team after Judy announced the presentation order was well thought out. Her real intention was to funnel everything to Tim like a corporate double agent.
Yet it’s not the betrayal alone that makes my heart pound within my chest. It’s what Wendy reports about Jake that sends electricity shooting through every nerve ending in my body.
He’s apparently red-faced, white-knuckled, and looking ready to vault across the conference table at any moment.
We need to hurry before he does something stupid that ruins his career faster than you can say assault and battery.
“Step on it, Mom.” I’ll just keep my eyes closed for the remainder of the ride. I’m already feeling queasy—watching mom’s stunt work would just make me barf.
When we finally screech into the hotel parking lot with smoking tires, I practically tumble from the car and run toward the entrance.
Making my way to the banquet hall, I hear applause filtering through the ornate double doors.
I slip inside and press myself against the back wall while my eyes adjust to the dimmer lighting.
On the stage, Tim wraps up his presentation, his voice dripping with unearned confidence.
Every slide confirms my worst fears—every tagline, every image, every concept is ours, down to the exact color schemes we painstakingly selected during those late-night brainstorming sessions.
Beatrice Castellano rises from her seat with an impressed smile, her enthusiastic applause directed at the most despicable man I’ve ever met.
Tim bows his head in false humility, soaking in praise that should rightfully belong to Jake’s team—to our work.
I desperately scan the room for Jake, needing to intercept him before he can take the stage and inadvertently look like the plagiarist.
As I edge closer to the front, hushed voices drift from behind a decorative column to the side of the stage.
I inch closer, letting the fiddle-leaf fig next to the column hide my presence.
“Our plan worked like a charm,” Amanda’s voice floats through the air. She’s so proud of herself, it makes me sick.
Tim’s self-satisfied chuckle makes me want to lunge out and slap him across the face. He’s got no shame. Bastard.
“I told you,” he whispers, unaware that I’m catching every incriminating syllable, “Jake never stood a chance. We’ve got this in the bag.”
“Sarah’s transfer to your team worried me at first,” Amanda says, “but it worked out to our advantage. We can just accuse her of spying on us.”
Tim nods with a malicious grin. “Judy doesn’t trust her—not after she hid their relationship and the AI debacle, which was a brilliant idea, by the way.”
Amanda lifts her chin, relishing his praise. That—that bitch!
“She’ll take our side,” Tim continues deviously, “I’m sure of it—and when she does, the promotion is as good as mine. Of course, I’ll recommend you as my replacement.”
How can these two be so completely, unapologetically vile? Not just garden-variety office politics but straight-up criminal masterminds.
A cocktail of fury and hurt swirls inside my chest, threatening to explode with each heartbeat. They’re trying to paint me as the villain while they parade around in stolen ideas—our ideas.
I need to stop this travesty before it goes any further. My feet start moving of their own accord, but before I can reach the front of the room, Jake steps onto the stage.
His expression is wound tighter than a spring, that easy confidence I find charming to this day visibly shaken. Something in my chest cracks seeing him like this—vulnerable in a way I never imagined possible.
Attempting to maintain his composure, he begins the presentation, but the atmosphere shifts immediately like someone cranked the air conditioning to arctic. Beatrice’s enthusiastic smile transforms into confusion, her sculpted eyebrows drawing together.
Judy, elegant and intimidating at the head of the table, leans forward in her chair. Her sharp gaze fixes on the screen, as baffled as Beatrice.
“This is the same presentation,” she says, cutting Jake off mid-sentence, her voice razor-sharp and echoing through the suddenly silent room. “What’s going on here?”
Jake freezes up there, glancing between the screen and Judy. The room buzzes with whispers as tension thickens.
I can’t let him take the fall. I won’t.
“It’s my fault!” The words just tumble out of me, desperate.
Every head in the room swivels toward me as the murmurs screech to a halt. My heart hammers chaotically as I walk toward the stage.
When I’m close enough for Jake to see my face clearly, I meet his eyes. “I’m sorry, Jake,” I say, my voice trembling. “For everything. For the way I’ve treated you, for not warning you sooner about what Tim and Amanda were planning.”
Confusion flickers across his face, but mercifully, he doesn’t interrupt.
Facing the audience feels like facing a firing squad, but I take a shaky breath and continue. “The idea for this campaign was mine. And I’m the one who leaked it to Tim’s team.”
The utter shock blossoming across Tim’s and Amanda’s faces offers minimal consolation considering I’ve just torpedoed my career into smithereens. “I…I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was angry—angry at Jake, at everything that happened between us. I wanted to hurt him for breaking my heart in the past.”
Judy rises from her chair, her expression a volatile mixture of disbelief and fury. “I’ve never been so disappointed in anyone in my entire life,” she says through gritted teeth. “You’re fired, Miss Lake.”
Tears blur my vision, turning the room into a watercolor painting. I walk off the stage, shoulders hunched.
The dull thud of a body falling to the floor stops me in my tracks. I whirl around to see Jake standing over Tim, who clutches his jaw where a trickle of blood escapes his split lip.
“I always knew you were trash,” Jake growls at Tim before turning to Judy. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I quit.” He then strides toward me.
“Jake, what are you doing?” The whole point of coming here was to save his career, not sink it along with mine.
He just smiles and says, “I’m done. I can’t work with people like them anymore.”
“But—“
“You asked me once how I ended up in marketing.” He takes my hand. “It was always your dream, and I thought it would somehow bring me to you if I entered your world. All I ever wanted was a second chance, and then you just left a note on my door.”
Lifting my hand to his chest, he places my palm flat against the steady thrum of his heartbeat. “This right here is yours; it always was. Nothing matters to me more than you. I never stopped loving you.”
The confession hits me with the force of a tidal wave, unexpected and overwhelming, washing away years of erected defenses in an instant.
My chest tightens with a peculiar ache, not painful exactly, but the sensation of something long-frozen beginning to thaw. Heat blooms beneath my ribs, spreading outward until I’m certain I must be glowing.
After all these years of convincing myself that anger was easier than longing, safer than vulnerability, the walls I’ve built crumble beneath the sincerity blazing in his eyes.
Tears well up and spill over onto my cheeks.
“Now that you’re back in my life,” Jake continues, his voice dropping to a reverent whisper that wraps around me like velvet, “I can’t let you go again. You are my life, Sarah. Where you go, I go.”
Blinking rapidly, I try to clear my vision, needing to see him—really see him—without the distortion of tears. “I was so angry for so long,” I say. “But the truth is, I never stopped loving you, either.”
My confession feels simultaneously terrifying and liberating, like jumping from a cliff and discovering mid-fall that I can fly.
This moment between us feels suspended in time, ethereal and dreamlike, as though we’ve stepped into one of those movie scenes where the background blurs and the music swells. My breath catches in my throat as he moves closer.
Cradling my face in his hands with heartbreaking tenderness, he brushes away a tear with the pad of his thumb. “Then let’s not waste any more time.”
His lips meet mine in a kiss that tastes like forgiveness and possibility, like coming home after being lost for far too long.
My heartbeat thunders in my ears as I melt into him, the familiar contours of his mouth fitting against mine as though we were designed as complementary pieces of the same whole.
Breathless and dizzy, I pull back just enough to look into his eyes. The world around us—our professional implosion—seems distant and inconsequential compared to the enormity of what’s happening between us.
“What are we supposed to do now?” The pragmatic question escapes before I can stop it. “We’re both unemployed.”
Jake’s mouth curves into that crooked smile that’s always made my knees weak. “I’ve been thinking about it for some time now. Let’s start our own company.”
“Well, this is unexpected.” Beatrice Castellano’s voice slices through our bubble of bliss, yanking us back to the reality of the crowded presentation room.
To my absolute shock, her expression holds more amusement than anger as she approaches us with quick steps. “Tell me, was it really you who came up with the idea for the campaign?”
“It was a team effo—“
“She’s the talent behind everything,” Jake interrupts without hesitation, his arm sliding protectively around my waist. “And she’s the brains behind the RainSafe campaign that you liked so much.”
“Well, that’s quite a revelation.” Digging into her purse, Beatrice extracts a business card and hands it to Jake.
“Seeing how you two have made a mess of things, and I can’t use an impeccably designed stolen campaign, I’ll give you one more chance.
Come up with a brand-new proposal. You’ve got one month. ”
Her gaze drifts toward Judy, who’s currently unleashing what appears to be an apocalyptic meltdown on Tim. “Looking at the spectacular fallout happening over there, I’d say my friend will be too busy salvaging her reputation to remember her own name, let alone run a proper agency anytime soon.”