---- Chapter 4 Erika POV: The days that followed were a surreal performance of normalcy. Coleton was attentive, almost sickeningly so. He brought me coffee in bed, drove me to and from the office, and filled my evenings with takeout from my favorite restaurants. He' d scaled back his social life, his weekends suddenly wide open. It was a picture-perfect illusion, but | could see the cracks. The seed of doubt, once planted, had taken root, its tendrils wrapping around my heart and squeezing tight. | found myself obsessively checking Kyra' s social media, a masochistic ritual of scrolling through photos of the life Coleton had built without me. | saw the way he smiled when a text lit up his phone while he was driving, a private, easy smile that was never directed at me. | knew he was still in group chats with his "friends," a circle | was pointedly not invited into. One Saturday, he approached me with a cautious, hopeful expression. "The gang is going for a ride up to the lookout point. Just a scenic drive. You want to come?" A part of me, the foolish, hopeful part | couldn' t seem to kill, flickered to life. Maybe this was his attempt to merge his two. worlds. Maybe he was finally ready to let me in. ---- "Okay," | said. "I'd like that." The smile on his face faltered. "Oh. | mean, are you sure? You 've never really been into the motorcycle thing." "lcan learn," | said, my voice quiet. "Well, it' s more of a... fast ride. Maybe you just come for the drive? You can wait at the viewpoint while we do the run up the mountain." The condescension in his voice was a tiny, sharp sting. But | ignored it. | needed to see this for myself. We met his friends at the base of the winding mountain road. They were a loud, boisterous group, and | felt like an alien among them. Then Kyra arrived, a sleek black racing bike roaring to a stop beside us. She was dressed in full leathers, looking like a movie star. "Hey, Ruiz!" she yelled, flipping up her visor. Her eyes found me on the back of Coleton' s bike, and a smirk played on her lips. "Brought the precious cargo today, | see. Try to keep up." Before | could even process the jibe, Coleton' s engine roared to life. He laughed, a competitive glint in his eye. "You wish, Boyd!" He twisted the throttle, and the bike shot forward like a bullet. The world dissolved into a terrifying, high-speed blur. | squeezed my eyes shut, my arms wrapped around his waist in a death grip, my face pressed against his back. | could feel the ---- vibrations of the engine through his body, the thrill that coursed through him. "Coleton, slow down!" | screamed, my voice swallowed by the wind. He didn' t hear me. Or he didn' t care. All that mattered was the race, the chase, the girl on the bike just ahead of us. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, terrified bird trapped in a cage. | felt sick, the adrenaline curdling into pure fear. When we finally reached the top, | stumbled off the bike, my legs like jelly. | lurched to the side of the road and threw up, the acidic taste of bile burning my throat. Kyra was there in an instant, holding out a bottle of water. "You okay?" she asked, though there was no real concern in her voice. It was triumphant. "Guess you don' t have the stomach for this kind of fun." Coleton glanced over at me, his face impassive, before turning his attention back to his friends, laughing and replaying the highlights of their reckless race. He hadn' t won. Kyra had. The ride home was silent. "Look, I' m sorry," he finally said as we pulled into his driveway. "| guess this just isn' t your scene." The words were an apology, but the tone was an accusation. | looked down at my hands, my voice barely a whisper. "It won ---- 't happen again." And | meant it. In my heart, | made a vow. Never again. Never again would | let him make me feel so small, so insignificant, so terrified, all for the sake of his ego and another woman's amusement. The following week, | threw myself into my work, using the complex lines of code as a shield against my crumbling personal life. | was in my office late one afternoon when a piercing shriek echoed from the operations floor below. My assistant burst in seconds later, her face pale with panic. "Erika, it' s the OmniCorp contract. The final version that was sent over... it' s the wrong draft. It has the old pricing structure. The one we revised a month ago." | shot to my feet. "What?" "The deal is off. They' re saying we tried to pull a fast one. All our work... half a month of the entire team' s work... it' s gone." Chaos had erupted on the floor. People were shouting, pointing fingers. "Who was the last one to review and send that file?" | demanded, my voice cutting through the noise. My assistant wrung her hands. "The final sign-off came from upstairs. From Coleton' s new project assistant. Kyra Boyd." A cold, white-hot rage, unlike anything | had ever felt before, ---- surged through me. | grabbed a copy of the contract and stormed out of my office, taking the stairs to the executive floor two at a time. | didn' t knock. | slammed the door to Coleton' s office open and threw the contract down on Kyra' s desk. "Explain this," | said, my voice shaking with fury. Heads popped up over cubicle walls. Coleton' s door opened. "Erika? What' s going on?" he asked, seeing the scene. "Your assistant," | said, my voice dripping with ice, "just cost this company millions of dollars and weeks of work because she couldn' t be bothered to check a file name." Coleton picked up the contract, his brow furrowed. He scanned the first page and then looked at Kyra, who had shrunk in her chair, her face ashen. "It was just a small mistake, Erika," he said, his voice placating. "We can fix it." "A small mistake?" | laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. "This isn 'ta game, Coleton. This is our job. And your person just jeopardized our biggest account of the year." Kyra suddenly stood up, her eyes welling with tears. "I'm so sorry. I'll... ' ll resign. I' Il leave." | stared at her, dumbfounded by her audacity. She was playing the victim. ---- "Resigning doesn' t fix the problem, Kyra," | said, my patience gone. "This is about accountability. About being part of ateam." "That' s enough!" Coleton' s voice boomed through the office. He was looking at me, his face a mask of cold fury. "It was a mistake. People make them. You don' t have to humiliate her in front of the entire office." | stared at him, my mouth agape. "Humiliate her? She made a colossal error, and you' re defending her?" "She's a junior assistant, Erika! You' re the lead architect! Maybe if your team had better oversight, this wouldn' t have happened in the first place!" The accusation hit me like a physical blow. He was blaming me. To protect her. "So this is my fault?" | whispered, my voice trembling. "You' re the manager. You tell me," he sneered. "Frankly, |' m tired of this. Ever since you got here, you' ve been nothing but miserable. If you can' t handle the pressure here, maybe you should just go back to headquarters." He was firing me. In front of the entire floor. My boyfriend was telling me to leave. My blood ran cold. The entire office was silent, every eye on us. | felt a hundred pairs of eyes on me, felt their pity, their shock. ---- Just as the floor was about to swallow me whole, the elevator doors chimed. A man in a perfectly tailored suit stepped out. A man | knew better than anyone. Edison Moreno. My mentor. The CTO of OmniCorp. "Am | interrupting something?" he asked, his sharp eyes taking in the scene-me, pale and trembling; Coleton, red-faced and furious; Kyra, crying silently at her desk. My legs gave out. The strength I' d been holding onto completely dissolved. Tears | hadn't even realized were there began to stream down my face. Edison was at my side in an instant, his hand on my arm, steadying me. He offered me a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket. Coleton' s face paled. "Mr. Moreno. Sir. | didn't know you were coming to Austin." Edison ignored him completely. His focus was entirely on me. "Don' t you cry, Erika," he said, his voice low and full of a paternal warmth that broke my heart all over again. "There is no one in this room, in this entire building, who is worth a single one of your tears." He looked from Kyra' s tear-streaked face to the contract on her desk, his expression hardening. "Ms. Boyd, you' re fired. Our legal team will be in touch regarding the financial ---- damages caused by your negligence." Then, his gaze, cold and sharp as a shard of ice, fell on Coleton. "And you," Edison said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "You have the audacity to speak to the owner of this company in that tone?" 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