Chapter 1 Nina #2
“I tried to pull it up—everything was gone. From my cloud, from my local folders. I checked the version history. It just … stopped.”
Curt let out a slow, incredulous laugh. “So unless our server suddenly developed a personal vendetta, your explanation is …? Sabotage?”
“No.” My breath caught. Accusations of sabotage were no joke. Losing a file would lose me a job. Throwing the “s” word would get me blacklisted. “I mean … I don’t know. I’m not accusing anyone. I just—That wasn’t my work, that’s the truth.”
I caught sight of Lincoln’s dimpled smile through the glass doors just outside the office, trying to avoid Curt’s gaze. Lincoln’s hand covered his mouth, as if he didn’t want to be caught laughing, but the shake of his shoulders was unmistakable.
Curt stood, bringing my focus back to him, straightened his blazer, and nodded to Irma. “Nina, regardless of how it happened, what you presented today was unacceptable. You were lead on the project. The responsibility stops with you.”
I opened my mouth, then decided against arguing. No excuse would fix this.
“You’ll be paid out for your remaining PTO,” he said coolly. “We’re also offering an additional two weeks’ severance. Termination’s effective immediately.”
The words struck with the weight of a verdict. Irma slid an envelope toward me. I didn’t even reach for it.
“I’ll give you thirty minutes to clear your office,” Curt stated, opening the door. “Security’ll escort you if you’re still in the building.”
I nodded, pretending the floor wasn’t tilting under me. My mind was already running through my living expenses, and I walked out without a word—because if I opened my mouth, I might scream.
As I walked back to my office, I felt numb, humiliated, hollowed out. Even then, a slew of eyes tracked my every step, and former coworkers whispered my name as if it were a dirty word. I was used to people gossiping about me, it usually rarely registered … but it did then.
A sharp, dark laugh yanked me back into awareness. With the small conference room’s door ajar, daring me to listen, I stood quietly at the end of the hallway, my heels sinking into the carpet as I homed in on the voices.
Natasha stood with her hand resting on Lincoln’s elbow. He absently curled a lock of her bright-red hair around his fingers, the soft strands spilling over her shoulders in silky ribbons.
They were comfortable, and their touch was intimate. Too intimate.
He leaned in slightly, lowering his voice, but I still heard everything.
“I can’t believe that really happened,” Natasha laughed, her voice light, careless, and her honey-brown eyes shimmered as she gazed up at him.
“I know,” Lincoln said with a low chuckle. “You’d think she would have checked the slides before setting up the presentation.”
Natasha snorted. “Did you see her face? She truly thought we’d help her out. As if she did anything but give stupid feedback on your designs.”
“Natasha …”
“I know, I know …” She traced patterns on his forearm over his jacket with her index finger. “Still, she added nothing to the graphic rebrand.”
“Please,” Lincoln replied, his voice dripped with condescension. “She was so desperate to prove herself.”
“I almost feel bad. She worked hard. You could tell.”
My stomach twisted, and I put my hand on the wall to support myself, vision blurry.
Lincoln shrugged. “You shouldn’t. She isn’t cut out for this.”
Natasha stepped into Lincoln, and he stepped back, their chests a hairsbreadth away. “Yeah, well, that’s what happens when you’re out of your depth.” She laughed. “How are you feeling? After that, you’re pretty much the only pick for associate creative director.”
Lincoln smirked and pulled her red curls to one side of her neck. “I was the best all along, Tasha.” His jaw ticked, and Natasha shrugged his hand off her shoulder. “Don’t you doubt that.”
She tilted her head. “Jeez, Linc, you could at least pretend I have a chance.”
“Why?” Lincoln said, dropping his hand. “You don’t. It was always Nina or me.”
She closes her eyes, the wrinkles at their corners sharpening with the tightness of her eyelids, but Lincoln’s not looking at her. She then adds, “What do you think she’ll do now?”
He stepped away from her. “Why do you care?”
Natasha shrugged. “I don’t.” She shifted subtly, closer to him. “But I thought she was your friend or something.”
“Please,” Lincoln said, turning away from her.
“Her cousin is my friend. She’s not. All she does is work hard.
She would’ve cracked under pressure, anyway.
” His back was to her. “It’s all she did in high school, doesn’t even have a sense of humor.
How’d she thrive in a cutthroat environment like marketing?
Maybe she’ll be lucky somewhere else in the world …
and I get to keep this company for myself.
” He glanced at his watch. “It’s almost a small mercy. ”
My ears and face burned, his words too close to those of the song I’d been listening to when I’d first met him.
The melody sprang in my memory, soft and slow, aching to comfort me.
When I met Lincoln, I’d been seventeen, lost, and alone.
About to move in with my cousin Vinny and his parents—Lincoln’s neighbors.
I was dragging because crossing the threshold to their home somehow made it more real that my parents were truly never coming back.
Lincoln came up and stood next to me. “Songbird” played on my phone as he moved in front of me.
His eyes shone with worry and a sadness so familiar I thought it was my own.
Vinny had told him about my parents, so he asked if I wanted to take a walk instead of going inside their house right away.
He hadn’t been charming or extravagant, he’d been real.
Something about my pain spoke to him. Looking into his sorrowful blue eyes, I thought maybe I’d have a friend there. Maybe I’d be okay there.
So I took one more night to mourn my parents and decided come morning I’d embrace the lifeline he’d thrown at me.
I told him not then, but we’d do it another time.
Soon. I even smiled at him, basking in his concern for me, in the way I’d felt drawn to his sorrow that mirrored mine.
And even after I said no, he gave me a dimpled smile, fooling me into believing it was the beginning of a friendship, but it’d been the start of my torture.
Recalling my first time meeting him only made his words ring sharper, colder. The original lyrics carried a sweet tune, but it soured as his words plagued my mind, echoing the verses with the mocking truth that anywhere I went, I wasn’t wanted. That I should just go anywhere else.
It’d happened today, too, I thought I’d start something, and all I got was more torment. And again, Lincoln’s at the core of it. Mocking and teasing. I’d lost something important, and my name was trashed.
Once again.