Chapter 3The Abused Intern Is The Heiress

By the next morning, the department group chat was on fire.

Tina had pinned a message to the top of the channel, tagging the entire team.

"Tina Davis: A quick reminder to everyone—company databases are strictly confidential. Some of our temporary staff need to learn respect and boundaries. Youth and ambition do not make you above the rules."

The responses rolled in almost immediately.

"Jack: Well said, Tina. Some people need a serious reality check."

"Janice: It’s always the ones who don't want to do the actual work who try to find shortcuts. I've noticed she spends a lot of time hovering around certain male colleagues, too."

"Janice: Honestly, makes you wonder how she even got hired in this department."

I sat at my kitchen table, staring at my phone as the screen continuously lit up with new notifications. My fingers felt like ice. They didn't use my name, but everyone knew exactly who they were talking about.

Then, the screenshots started appearing.

They were cropped, heavily edited snippets of old Slack messages between me and Oliver from my first week.

"Fiona: Are you staying late tonight?"

"Fiona: I'll come find you."

The caption underneath read: "Look at this. Our little intern spent more time coordinating late-night 'meetings' with the guys than actually working. Wonder what kind of work they were doing?"

The chat went wild with laughing emojis.

"Janice: So cheap."

"Jack: No wonder Oliver got sent to the warehouse. He got dragged right into her mess."

I closed the app, turned my phone face down on the table, and took a deep, shaky breath.

When I went into the office to pack up my personal things, the change in the air was thick. People avoided my eyes. No one asked me to join them for lunch. When I tried to ask a quick question about an active account, they bypassed me entirely, walking over to Tina's office instead.

I had become a pariah.

On the third day of my suspension, a photo was leaked in the department's private group chat. It was a picture of me walking next to Christian Herman, the CEO, near the lobby entrance earlier that week. We had been deep in conversation, his arm casually resting near my shoulder.

Tina had immediately screenshotted it and blasted it across every channel she had access to.

"Tina Davis: Well, look at this. Our quiet little intern has some seriously high aspirations. She’s already set her sights on the top."

"Tina Davis: Dressing up just to get close to Mr. Herman. Clearly, her professional skills are lacking, but her personal skills are certainly active."

Within hours, the photo had circulated through half the building.

As I walked down the corridor toward the elevators to hand in my temporary badge, I could hear the hushed whispers trailing behind me.

"Is that her? The one from the picture?"

"I can't believe an intern would have the nerve."

"Who knows what she did to get his attention."

I went into the breakroom to wash out my coffee mug one last time. The moment the door swung open, the three women whispering in the corner fell completely silent. They watched me, their arms crossed, as I rinsed the ceramic cup. When I finally walked out, a loud burst of laughter erupted behind the closed door.

I kept my head up, pretending I hadn't heard a thing.

Back at my desk, my phone buzzed again. It was a preview from the department chat.

"Janice: A thief and a homewrecker trying to sleep her way to the executive suite. How is she not fired yet?"

I put my phone on silent.

Later that afternoon, as I was collecting my final notes, I passed Oliver’s old cubicle. It was completely empty. His desk calendar was still turned to last month, and a single plastic pen tray sat in the center of the dust-gathering desk.

He had been moved to the basement warehouse a week ago, all because he had spoken up and told Tina that my Vanguard research was too detailed to have been written by anyone else.

I stood by his empty desk for a long time, the quiet of the office pressing in around me.

No one dared to stand near me. No one dared to speak up.

I sat back down at my desk and pulled up my phone. The group chat had hundreds of unread messages, almost all of them dissecting my character, my clothes, my background.

I didn't cry. I simply opened my drive and began saving every single screenshot. I organized them by date, noted the names of the senders, and filed them away in a secure folder.

Tears wouldn't change anything. Evidence would.

My phone vibrated with a direct notification. Tina had tagged me in the main channel.

"Tina Davis: @Fiona Ellis, tomorrow evening is the Vanguard project celebration at the Grand Plaza Hotel. You are responsible for setting up the banners and the registration table. Do not be late."

I stared at the screen for five seconds.

The project I wrote, the credit she stole, the promotion Reynold took—and I was being ordered to set up the party.

I typed out two words: "Got it."

I closed my laptop and added the final screenshot to my folder.

"Enjoy the spotlight while you can, Tina. The fall is going to be incredibly steep."