When she smiled, when she smiled and meant it, it felt so damn good.
“Let me echo your good luck sentiment there. Legally, it’s mine. I’m selling it and donating the money to a women’s shelter. You need to move, Brandon, or I call Laine’s office and report you.”
He stepped aside.
“You’ll be sorry for this,” he told her when she opened it.
“No, I won’t. But I am sorry I wasted over a year of my life on someone like you.”
She considered it done, finished, closed.
And she spent what she deemed a productive day finalizing the designs for the Baby Mine account. She moved forward on the Kettering account, creating her mood boards, sharing them and her pitch with her design director.
She noticed the looks—especially the ones who pretended not to look. She noticed the awkward pauses in conversations when she walked in or by.
She suspected Brandon of doing exactly what he’d accused her of planning to do. He’d twist the story, lay blame on her head, outright lie.
She wouldn’t let it matter. And it would all die down in a week or two.
She made it through a week, then two, then a month. And another two weeks.
Every time she thought it had died down, he managed to resurrect it all again.
She caught wind of a rumor she’d cheated on him. Another went around that their wedding planner had dubbed her Bitch Bride from Hell.
He covered his tracks there, as he hadn’t with her cousin, and the rumors seemed to pop up out of nowhere. And they lingered.
Someone keyed her car.
She came in one morning to find a design she’d worked on wiped off her computer, and her backup corrupted.
She spent fifteen straight hours reconstructing it, and when she finally left the office that night, she had four flat tires.
Knowing he was behind it meant nothing. She couldn’t prove it. But she’d had enough.
The next morning, she knocked on Laine’s door.
“I’m sorry. I need to talk to you.”
“Come sit. You look tired.”
“I am tired. I worked until midnight. The Happy Pet account. The design I’d worked on, had nearly completed, was gone. Wiped off my computer. My backup was corrupted. It wasn’t user error, Laine. I think you know I’m more careful than that. I reconstructed it—maybe even improved it—and when I went out to my car, I had four flats.”
“Oh Jesus, Sonya.”
“I know you hear the rumors that come and go. Most people don’t believe them. But there are always a few. I could handle that. I have been handling that. But this was my work, a lot of hard work. If I hadn’t been able to replicate it in a timely fashion, we might have lost the account. My tires weren’t slashed. Someone let the air out. Regardless, I had to take an Uber home and arrange for a garage to deal with the tires.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll talk to Brandon, believe me.”
“Please don’t. I can’t prove any of this is on him, and I won’t. He’ll be shocked, appalled. Why, he’s moved on. Isn’t he dating other women?”
She shrugged. “But it won’t stop as long as we both work here.”
“Sonya, I can’t fire Brandon over the possibility—I’m going to make that probability—he had some part in this.”
“I’m not asking you to. I don’t expect you to. I know he does exceptional work.”
“He does. So do you. It’s time for a full staff meeting.”
“No, Laine, it’s time for me to resign. I thought I could weather this. But I dread coming to work now. I loved working here, and now I dread it.”
“We’ll find a way to fix this, Sonya. You know we value you.”
“I do know, but I don’t want you to fix it. You and Matt? You’ve built such a good company, and I’ll always be grateful to have been part of it. I just can’t work here anymore, so I’m giving you my two weeks’. Longer if you need it, but Gina Tallo? She’s ready. She could move up. I could work with her for those two weeks. But I need to go, for me, Laine. I need to go.”
Laine sat back. “This sucks. It just sucks.”
“It really does. But, Laine, I’m so unhappy. I don’t want to be unhappy in my work. I don’t want to get up every morning and have a hole in the pit of my stomach because I have to go to work. I have to move on.”
“To a competitor. I’m going to hate that, but Matt and I will give you bright and shiny references. We don’t want you to be unhappy, and I’m furious you’ve been made to feel unhappy.”
“I think this is what’s best for me. But I don’t plan on going to a competitor, at least for now. I’m going to freelance. I need the time, the space. And I need to see what I can do on my own.”
Head back, Laine stared up at the ceiling. “We’re going to lose accounts. I’m going to hate that.”
“I won’t go after By Design accounts.”
“Then you’re stupid. Don’t be stupid. Take the Baby Mine account, they’re going places. It’s a gift,” Laine said before Sonya could think of anything to say. “Not much of a gift, seeing as they came to you—you—on a recommendation of another account you worked on. I’m telling you that’s your account, and Matt will agree with me.”
“Thank you. Really, it’s more than I could ask.”
“You’re right about Gina. We’ve had our eye on her. She needs a little more polish, and we’ll see she gets it. Now, listen to me—on a personal level, as I’ve got a daughter about your age. You’ve got two weeks’ vacation you haven’t used for a honeymoon you can celebrate not going on. Take it. Take today to clear up any projects to the point they can be passed on. Then walk out of here, and be happy.”
“I can’t leave you in the lurch.”
“You won’t be. Or hell, damn right you will be, whether you leave today or in two weeks. You’re a talented woman with a solid work ethic. But Matt and I will handle your projects—we still know how it’s done. And we’ll give Gina the polish she needs. And we’ll miss the hell out of you.”
Laine waved a hand in the air. “No crying. You’ll start me up. Finish out the day. And keep in touch.”
“I will. I owe you and Matt so much.”
“Pay us back. Make us proud.”
When Sonya went out, Laine sat back again, stared at the ceiling again.
And after a long sigh, said, “Fuck.”
Chapter Three
She got through the day. Though she skipped lunch to focus on current projects so she could leave them in good shape for whoever took over, she chatted with coworkers in the break room.
Casual. Situation normal.
As she went through the motions, she realized in her mind, in her heart, she’d already moved on. And because she had, the stress melted away.
At the end of the day, she boxed up her things, her personal tools, her emergency power bars, spare chargers, the fluorite obelisk Cleo had given her, her African violet, and all the little things that had made her office her work home.
A single box, she thought, to sum up seven years—two as an intern—of her professional life at By Design.
The whole, so far, of her professional life.