Roses Revenge novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: All-Hands
Rose's pay is cut, her fiancé's assistant posts a new Porsche, and Rose quits in front of the whole company, then finds the condo locked and pauses a transfer.
Colton brought me coffee in bed, told me the company was losing money, and cut my salary in half.
He said it over breakfast on Tuesday, standing at the counter in the condo, and he squeezed my shoulder when he said it. He checked his phone twice.
I said okay.
I am head of operations at Brewer Labs. I know our numbers better than he does.
An hour later I was at my desk, scrolling through stories on my phone on my lunch break.
The first one was from his personal assistant, Paisley.
She was sitting in a brand-new white sports car, wearing designer sunglasses and grinning at the camera.
Her caption said: "My boss gave me a raise AND a car. Goodbye, subway. He spoils me!"
An arm hung out of the driver's window beside her.
It was Colton's arm.
The watch on his wrist was the one I had bought him for his thirtieth birthday.
I did not call him.
I tapped the little heart under her post, so she would know I had seen it.
My phone buzzed with my monthly reminder: "Gran, 1st."
I swiped it away.
That evening, at six, Colton called an all-hands in the big meeting room.
Forty people stood along the glass walls with their drinks. Paisley stood at the front with a tablet.
Colton wore his serious face.
"I'll be direct," he said. "We have a morale problem, and it comes from operations."
He did not look at me, but everybody else did.
He said my mistakes had shaken the team's confidence this quarter.
He said my quarterly bonus was cancelled.
He said my stock options for the year were cancelled too.
"That money," he said, "goes into a retention package for key talent."
Paisley studied her tablet.
My coworkers watched me with pity on every face.
They were waiting for me to cry.
The woman from payroll mouthed the word sorry at me across the room.
I did not cry.
I walked back to my desk and packed it into the one box I kept under it for deliveries.
My mug. My plant. My charger.
I printed one page, signed it, and carried it back into the meeting room.
I laid my resignation letter on the table in front of Colton.
"Keep the bonus," I said. "Keep the options. I quit."
Nobody made a sound.
Paisley got to me first.
She crossed the room fast, with her hand over her heart.
"Rose, no. You're not really quitting over this, are you?"
Her eyes were wide and wet, and her voice shook.
"You've been here since the beginning. Colton has been so good to you."
She turned to the room.
"People will talk. The investors will ask questions. A founding team member walking out in the middle of a quarter?"
Then she turned to him.
"Colton, say something. Please."
Forty people looked at him.
Colton picked up the letter, read the first line, and set it back down.
He did not ask me to stay.
He did not ask what I meant.
"Let her go," he said. "She needs a night to cool off."
He smiled at the room.
"She'll be in on Monday, and we'll all forget this."
A man in accounting coughed. Someone near the door put down a cup.
I looked at the man I was supposed to marry in June.
"I won't be in on Monday," I said.
I picked up my box and walked out.
Paisley followed me as far as the elevators.
"Wait. Let me carry that."
She took the box out of my arms before I could answer and pressed the elevator button for me.
"Call me when you've slept," she said. "Please. I mean it."
The doors closed on her worried face.
I took a car home, and I paid for it myself.
Colton had not offered to drive me, or to call, or to text.
My phone stayed silent the whole ride.
At the condo, I held my key card to the reader.
It blinked red.
I tried again. Red.
I tried the keypad code, which I had set myself two years ago on my birthday.
The lock beeped three times and refused me.
Through the door I could hear Colton's voice, loud and relaxed, on a speakerphone call.
"No, don't worry about her. She'll be back by Friday."
A woman laughed on the line. It was Paisley's laugh.
"Where is she going to go?" Colton said. "She has nobody. She has me."
I stood in the hallway with my hand flat on the door.
Then I sat down on the stairs with my box in my lap and took out my phone.
The first of the month was Thursday.
On the first, every month for three years, I had sent the biggest transfer in my account, and I had never once been late.
I opened my banking app and found the standing order.
I tapped Pause.
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