Back at my desk, I opened The Aureate Awards website to see what it took to enter as an individual.
Violet Lin materialised like a ghost behind me, peering over my shoulder.
‘Ah, checking out the website?’ she said, her tone smug.
She placed her cup of black coffee down on my desk with an exaggerated clink, as if making a point.
‘I guess you’ve heard the news, huh?’
‘The way your voice carries, the janitor and his broom on the basement floor would have heard the news.’
‘But you are stubborn. Still trying to get in, huh? Well, I wouldn’t waste time. Unless you’ve got thirty million spare cash lying around.’ She covered her mouth with a dainty hand. ‘Oops, I forgot. You don’t.’
‘Do you plan on buying your way to the finals? I’m afraid all the gold in Fort Knox won’t suffice. You’d have to kill every other contestant.’
‘Still sarcastic, I see. But I guess that’s all you can do now—talk. Meanwhile, I’ve got things to do.’ She picked off an invisible lint from her dress. ‘Don’t you worry about me, dear. Worst-case scenario, I’ll just hire a top-tier designer to do the work for me. Simple.’
I gawked at her. ‘Does Savannah know that’s your plan? Having created one scandal isn’t enough? What, you’ve got some kind of quota to fulfil?’
‘She doesn’t, and she doesn’t need to know. If I win, it’s good for Nyx. If she knows what’s good for her, for the company, she’ll keep her mouth shut.’
I looked at Violet in a new light.
I hadn’t expected her to have this kind of balls, to be this... brazen.
The office was full of people who could hear every word, and she wasn’t even pretending to keep it quiet.
Clearly, she’d stopped caring about what people thought after the online backlash.
‘I suggest you start looking for a new job,’ she said as a parting shot. ‘You’ll never get ahead of me as long as I’m at Nyx. You have some talent, sure, but if you want to make a name in this industry, you need cash, you need backing. And you?’ She shook her head at me in mock pity. ‘You have nothing.’
‘And you have coffee breath.’
‘What?’ She huffed out a breath against her palm instinctively, then realised she’d been tricked. ‘That’s low.’
‘Whatever works.’ I shrugged.
She scowled. ‘You’re such a juvenile.’
‘What?’ She turned around.
‘Would you at least admit that without you, I would have won the spot hands down?’
Thinking I was fishing for acknowledgement, she allowed like a gracious winner, ‘Sure, but it doesn’t matter.’
‘So, that means you spent thirty million dollars just to be where I would have been. Huh.’ I tapped a finger on my chin. ‘It’s nice to know how much I’m worth, thanks.’
Violet’s face went stiff.
Her lips moved soundlessly, struggling but failing to deliver a clever comeback.
Everybody else in the open office was busy—busy pretending they were working and not eavesdropping, busy hiding their sniggers behind file folders, busy livestreaming every word that was said in group chats.
Violet stood there like a statue trying to come alive.
I handed her coffee cup back to her. ‘FYI, the final round’s live sketches. I’m afraid your hired designer can’t help you then.’
She gripped the cup. Coffee sploshed over the rim. ‘You think you’re so smart. You think you’re so—Married?!’
She grabbed my left hand. ‘Is that a wedding ring?’
I snatched my hand back. ‘It is. And it’s also none of your business.’
‘You are married?’ she repeated, still incredulous. Then her eyes narrowed in suspicion. ‘Wait, today’s Rhys Granger’s wedding day, right? How could—? Ah, I see.’
‘He’s marrying another woman. You must be devastated, so you’ve gone and put on a ring to make yourself feel better, haven’t you?’
Every pair of ears within a 50-metre radius rotated towards my cubicle like auto-tracking satellite dishes.
A girl in front of me was tilting her head back so hard her face was parallel with the ceiling.
‘No, I’m not devastated. And yes, I’m married. Is that a problem?’ I scanned Violet from head to heel. ‘You spotted it the second I put it on, huh? Looks like you’ve been watching me a bit too closely. Got a crush on me, maybe?’
A few snickers rippled through the office.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she hissed. ‘And what a load of bullshit. You can’t really be married. Nobody’s heard a thing. And what about the wedding? Announcement in the papers? Or, what, did you elope?’
The last thought seemed to give her some satisfaction, as the smug smile returned to her face.
Ashton had been wrong; the ring didn’t save me any hassle—it caused more.
‘Why can’t I be married? Just because every man you meet sprints in the opposite direction doesn’t mean I have the same problem.’
‘Fine. Who did you marry, then?’
‘That is none of your business.’
Violet squinted at me. ‘Oh, I get it. You’re definitely hiding something. I bet your husband’s some nobody, some broke guy, and that’s why you didn’t have a wedding. Couldn’t afford it. Did you just pick up some random old man off the street?’
She sneered at the ring on my finger. ‘That ring doesn’t look like anything special. Where’d you get it, out of a cereal box?’
The office had gone quiet.
I didn’t notice it until I realised how loud Violet’s laughter had gotten.
Every other sound—typing, chair scraping, mouse clicks—was gone.
Even the copier seemed to have stopped mid-print.
Violet was more oblivious than me. Tʜe sourcᴇ of thɪs content ɪs novel-fire.net
‘What? Cat got your tongue? Can’t think of a plausible story now, can you?’
I looked up at the sound of footsteps.
More than one person.
Coming from behind Violet.