Chapter 9: Gold Digger

I watched it anyway.

Henry moved closer on the deck boards so he could see the screen too.

He didn't tell me not to.

Kylie told it like a bedtime story.

A sweet, hardworking girl, three months into her dream job.

A jealous older coworker who couldn't stand that the boss had given the new girl a chance.

"She'd been talking to him for months," Kylie whispered to the camera. "Behind Bryce's back. Sending him our numbers. Our margins. Everything."

She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand.

"And now she sits in his boardroom," Kylie said, "wearing his ring. Who does that?"

She looked down at her lap.

"Today I stood up to present the work I'm proudest of in my life. And she sat next to him and smiled at me while he tore it apart."

Her voice cracked perfectly.

"I'm not saying her name. I just think women should know this happens. Women do this to other women."

She didn't have to say my name.

By midnight, somebody in the comments had found it.

By one in the morning, they'd found my old profile, the one with six photos and a picture of my parents on the ski lift.

By two, the photo of me in the Coral Bay boardroom, taken from somebody's phone through the glass doors, was everywhere.

My hand on the teak table.

The ring.

Henry turned my phone over on the deck.

"Come inside," he said. "Try to sleep."

I didn't sleep.

On Tuesday morning, the video had nine hundred thousand views.

By Wednesday it had two point three million.

Bryce reposted it at breakfast on Tuesday with one line.

I'm heartbroken, but I'm standing by my team. Dorrance Travel doesn't do business with people who use marriage as a weapon.

He'd added a photo of himself and Kylie and the rest of the design team at the Christmas party.