He Hid Me Twelve Years and Paraded Her, So I Quit Both novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: My Favorite Person
Everett names Lacey vice president at the all-hands, Nell quits both job and man in front of his staff, and a stranger's email arrives.
Everett announced Lacey Prentiss as our new vice president while I stood at the back of the atrium holding the sheet cake.
I had ordered the cake myself that morning.
It said CONGRATULATIONS in blue icing, and I had not known whose name would go after it.
"Lacey has been here three years," Everett said from his stool, one hand in his pocket.
A hundred and forty people were looking at him, and an intern from accounts was filming it for the company channel.
"She works harder than anyone on this floor," Everett said. "Honestly, she's my favorite person in this building."
Everyone laughed and clapped.
I clapped too, because the cake was heavy and there was nowhere to put it down.
This was the fourth promotion I had lost since he became CEO.
Each time he had told me to wait for the next quarter.
My phone buzzed against the cake box.
It was a text from him, sent while he was still smiling at the room.
"Don't make a face. I'll explain tonight. You know why we have to wait."
I knew the speech by heart.
The board was watching him, his father was watching the board, and a CEO who dates his own strategist loses the room.
I had been hearing it since I was nineteen years old and he was the boss's son who bought me a coffee in the intern kitchen.
I looked up from the phone.
Lacey was pushing through the crowd toward me with her lanyard twisted and her eyes wet.
"Nell, oh my gosh," she said. "Thank you. I'm using your outline for the Harlan pitch, if that's okay. I'd have been lost without it."
"It's fine," I said. "Take the Harlan folder, it's in the shared drive."
She hugged me with both arms, and the cake box tipped between us.
"Will you coach me? I mean it. Everyone says you're the one who really knows how to do this."
"Everyone says that," I said.
She laughed, thinking I was being modest.
Then someone took the cake from me, and I walked out of the atrium and rode the elevator up to the tenth floor.
The human resources office was empty except for the manager, who was eating a salad at her desk.
"Nell, hi. I'm so sorry about today." She said it fast. "I know you were hoping."
"I'm not here about that," I said. "I need to know what I'd need to leave."
She put her fork down.
"Leave? Like, take a vacation?"
"Leave the company."
She turned to her screen and clicked through my file, and I watched the corner of her mouth change.
"Okay. Your release papers are fine. But there's a flag on your file," she said. "It says CEO sign-off required for any change of status or reference."
"Since when?"
She scrolled.
"Since you were an associate. It's been there nine years. I assumed it was a senior-staff thing."
"He'll sign it," I said.
I said it without thinking, because I had said it about everything for twelve years.
He'll sign it. He'll explain. He'll make it up to me.
I sat there looking at the screen, at a line in my own file that I had never been told about.
Then I thought about the cake, and Lacey's wet eyes, and the text on my phone that said we had to wait.
So I quit.
I typed the letter on the HR manager's keyboard, two lines long, and printed it.
I took my badge off its clip.
I walked down the stairs to the ninth floor and across the open office, where people were still holding paper plates.
Everett's office door was open.
His two assistants were inside, going through his calendar, and both of them looked up when I came in.
I set the letter on his desk.
I set the badge on top of it.
Then I took the key to his penthouse off my ring, the one he had cut for me eight years ago, and put it on the letter too.
"Nell," Everett said from the doorway behind me. He had followed me down the hall. "Not here."
"You said it in front of everyone," I said. "You called her your favorite. In front of everyone, Everett."
"That was a joke. Come on. You know what you are to me."
"No," I said. "I don't. Nobody in this building does. You made sure of it."
Both assistants had stopped pretending to type.
"I'm resigning from Stroud Group," I said. "And I'm leaving you. You can both put that on the company channel."
I walked out past the people with their paper plates and took the elevator to the street.
It was ninety-four degrees on Wacker Drive.
I sat down on the curb outside the building, and the heat rose off the asphalt in waves.
I did not cry.
My phone buzzed with nine texts from Everett, and I did not open them.
Then an email came in from an address I did not know.
The subject line said: Fourth try. Please read this one.
The first line said: Ms. Garrity, I'm told the last three never reached you.
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend