My CEO Boyfriend Kept Me Secret and Gave My Promotion Away novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Curb
Tamara watches the Maybach drive past with her replacement inside, then quits at the promotion cake; Porter answers: bring a pen, it's August.
At ten that morning, Kylie Rutledge was handed my promotion.
At four that afternoon, she was sitting in my boyfriend's car.
I watched it from the curb outside our office tower, where I had been sitting for an hour with my badge still clipped to my belt.
The job was mine.
I had run our biggest account for five years and taken it from two million a year to nine.
Kylie had been here eight months.
She had still brought me a coffee that morning, squeezed my arm, and whispered, "You should have gotten it. I'm so sorry."
Her badge opened the top floor.
Mine never had.
Our CEO, Porter Hollister, had stood at the front of the room that morning and clapped for her.
He had also been my boyfriend for twelve years, and nobody in the building knew it.
We had been together since I was twenty and he was twenty-two.
Secrecy was his rule, because his father was chairman and Porter said the board would call me a liability.
I had never argued.
I texted him with thumbs that wouldn't hold still: "I just lost the job I've worked five years for. Can you drive me home?"
His answer came in under a minute.
"Leaving now. Wait at the garage exit."
My chest loosened.
Ten minutes later the black Maybach rolled up the ramp.
I stood.
The car passed me without slowing.
The tinted glass flashed in the sun, and for one second I saw the passenger seat.
Kylie was in it, laughing, with her hand on his sleeve.
The Maybach turned into traffic and was gone.
My phone buzzed.
"Too many people from the office still around. Walk to the corner of Dearborn and I'll pick you up there."
It was ninety-four degrees, and Dearborn was four blocks away.
I was still staring at the screen when the company group chat lit up.
Someone had taken a picture of the Maybach at the exit.
Kylie's profile was clear in the window.
Underneath, the comments came fast.
"Boss and his favorite."
"They look married."
"Somebody tell Tamara her ride got upgraded."
"Tamara's probably still on the curb waiting for him, lol."
That one had four laughing faces under it.
My phone buzzed again.
Porter: "It's only for show. The board needs to see me close to Kylie. You know you're the only person I trust with everything."
I did trust him with everything.
Every August for twelve years, he had put one page in front of me with a pen on top and said, "Same tax form as always, Nor, sign here."
I had signed it every time without reading it.
I had never needed to.
Now I read his message again, and it said nothing at all about the promotion, or the curb, or me.
I stood up.
Maggie Dunn, who sat next to me on the sixth floor, texted: "Where are you? Don't read the chat."
I was already walking back through the glass doors.
Two coworkers were in the lobby with their phones out.
They saw me and grinned.
One of them lifted her phone.
I looked straight at the lens until she lowered it.
I rode the elevator to six.
Across the open office, under a banner that said CONGRATULATIONS KYLIE, there was a sheet cake with her name on it in blue icing.
Forty people were standing around it with plastic forks.
They went quiet when they saw me.
I walked to the cake, unclipped my badge, and set it down on the paper plate beside her name.
"I quit," I said.
Nobody answered.
"The Marlowe Foods renewal meeting is Friday at nine. The files are in the shared folder, labeled by year. Whoever the new director is can read them."
Somebody near the back coughed.
Maggie put her fork down and stood up.
"Tamara," she said.
I didn't stop.
I walked out past the elevators, through the lobby and into the heat, and I didn't look back at the building I had given five years to.
On the sidewalk I typed to Porter with a steady hand: "I quit. The job and you."
I hit send and watched the three dots appear.
They stayed a long time.
Then his answer came.
"You're upset. You'll feel different by Friday. Dinner at my lawyer's at seven, and bring a pen, it's August."
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