By the time the city lights glowed deep orange, I was tucked into Tasha's apartment, a glass of red wine in hand and my heels finally off. She had already called in reinforcements — two of our girlfriends from college who always lived for nights like these. The air was warm with laughter, gossip, and the faint smell of popcorn she burned trying to "set the mood."
Tasha leaned forward, chin in her hand, eyes glittering. "So tell me again… you really pulled out a damn slideshow?"
I sipped my wine slow, savoring it like I was savoring the memory. "Slide by slide. Elaine's 5 a.m. logins. Cassandra's little email forwarding tricks. Screenshots, hard copies, the works."
The girls burst into laughter, the kind that fills a room until it feels like the walls are in on the joke.
"You're a menace," Tasha said, wiping her eyes. "A straight menace. I wish I could've seen their faces."
"Oh, you'll hear enough tomorrow," I said, leaning back. "That boardroom was the best theater I've ever been in."
One of the girls clinked her glass against mine. "And what about him? Don't tell me Mr. Julian Archer sat there like a statue."
I smiled, heat rising just from remembering the way his smirk had flickered, restrained but blazing. "He tried to stay stern. But I saw it — that smirk. That look. Like he was proud and furious at the same time. Like I'd done something dangerous and he loved it."
Tasha narrowed her eyes, grinning. "Uh-huh. And after? Don't think you're sliding past that part."
I let my lips curl slow. "After hours, I paid him a little visit. Locked door. Closed blinds."
The room went wild — gasps, shrieks, someone clapping their hands over their mouth like I'd just confessed to a crime.
"Girl!" Tasha practically launched across the couch. "Spill!"
I toyed with my glass, drawing it out. "Let's just say… he's not just good at running this firm. He's good at… everything."
They screamed, laughter and disbelief mixing, and I didn't hold back — I painted the picture in colors they could feel. His grip on me, his mouth on mine, the fire in his eyes when I slapped him and dared him not to doubt me again. How he responded like a man who'd been starved too long.
"His sex game," I said, breathless even as I spoke it, "is lethal. Hands, lips, tongue… he knows exactly what he's doing. Like he's been waiting for me as much as I've been waiting for him."
One friend fanned herself dramatically with a napkin. Tasha shook her head, laughing. "So basically, you've got the boss wrapped around your finger and the wife seething. You're insane. And I love it."
We toasted then, glasses clinking high. For now, it felt like victory.
The next morning the office was alive before I even walked in. Gossip buzzed louder than the coffee machines, carried in hushed whispers at desks and bold side-eyes in the elevator. I could feel it the second I stepped through the lobby: they all knew. Or at least they knew enough to stare.
I didn't shrink. I strutted.
Heels clicking, hair perfect, blouse cut just enough to whisper that last night's confidence hadn't burned off. I smiled at the receptionist, at the intern pretending not to stare, at the associates whispering too loudly by the copy machine.
When I reached my desk, Tasha was already there with her coffee, grinning like the cat who stole the cream. "It's everywhere. Cassandra's fit to be tied. Elaine looks like she hasn't slept. You're a legend, babe."
I slid into my chair, crossing my legs with deliberate slowness. "Let them seethe."
And seethe Cassandra did. She stormed in not twenty minutes later, her heels stabbing the marble floor, her pearls swinging with every furious step. Her eyes cut across the office like blades, but all it did was feed the whispers. People leaned out of cubicles just to catch the show.
I caught her glare and smiled. Not sweet. Not apologetic. Just a smirk that said: I won yesterday, and you're still bleeding today.
The office hummed louder than ever, and I let it. Gossip was power, and today, all of it belonged to me.
Chapter Fourteen part two – The Thrill of the Chase
I walked into the office that morning not like a woman on the defense, but like one walking into her own coronation. For once, I wasn't smoothing out fires or trying to guess what Cassandra and her pet lapdog Elaine might do next. I'd already pulled the trigger. The complaints had been filed. The evidence submitted. My trail of receipts was so airtight it might as well have been laminated in gold.
Tasha clocked me instantly, strutting over with a steaming cup of coffee like my personal hype-woman. "You've got that look, Mira. What did you do?"
I let my lips curl into a slow smile, crossing my legs deliberately as I slid into my chair. "Just filed some paperwork."
Her brows shot up. "Paperwork?"
"Mm." I tapped the folder beside me, the one that had already been couriered to HR with attachments so damning it would take a miracle—or divine intervention—to save my enemies. "Paperwork for justice."
The whisper mill was already spinning. I could feel eyes on me, the quiet murmur of assistants and paralegals speculating. Good. Let them wonder. Let them sense something was shifting in the atmosphere.
At ten sharp, my inbox pinged. A formal HR summons.
I didn't even blink.
The conference room was already tense when I walked in. HR reps sat stiff-backed at one end of the table, their pens poised like weapons. Cassandra was pacing, her heels stabbing the carpet, a silk scarf tied tight at her throat as though she needed it to hold herself together. She looked like a queen forced to sit in traffic—a petty kind of rage, brittle and loud.
Elaine sat beside her, pale and twitchy, fingers worrying the edge of her blouse. Her eyes darted between the HR reps and the door like she was looking for an escape route.
And then Julian walked in.
The room shifted. His presence had that effect—commanding, magnetic. He glanced at Cassandra first, jaw ticking as if bracing himself, then at Elaine with a look of thinly veiled disgust. Finally, his gaze landed on me. And though his face stayed stern, I caught the faintest flicker—a spark of something that looked an awful lot like pride.
"Let's begin," one of the HR reps said, adjusting her glasses.
Cassandra jumped in before anyone else could. "This is ridiculous. I don't even work here, and you're dragging me into this farce? I'm Julian Archer's wife. If I want to come to this office to bring my husband lunch, I will. You can't bar me from—"
"Actually," the HR rep cut in crisply, "you can be barred. And given multiple reports of disruptive behavior and harassment of staff, we are reviewing your access immediately."
Cassandra's mouth snapped shut. The sound of it nearly made me laugh.
Elaine cleared her throat, trying to sound professional. "There's clearly been a misunderstanding. Some files may have gotten misdirected, but that's hardly—"
"Oh, please," I said smoothly, leaning forward, my voice dripping with sarcasm. "A 'misunderstanding'? Is that what we're calling deliberate tampering these days?"
I slid a thick folder across the table, then another. Inside: side-by-side comparisons of original client files versus the altered versions, complete with timestamps and login trails. Next came printouts of forged email headers, screenshots highlighting discrepancies. Every single page screamed sabotage.
"I'd hate to bore you with technicalities," I went on, "so I brought visuals. Think of it like storytime."
Elaine's face drained. Cassandra sputtered. The HR reps leaned in, pens scratching furiously.
"Here," I added sweetly, pulling a final stack from my bag and passing it down the table, "is evidence of defamatory statements, conveniently traced back to both of you. Whisper campaigns, email threads, falsified reports. It's amazing what a digital trail reveals, isn't it?"
I leaned back in my chair, crossing my legs slowly, deliberately. "Any questions?"
The silence was glorious.
"Based on this," the lead HR rep said after a beat, "Elaine, you will be placed on immediate suspension pending further investigation."
Relief flashed across her face. Suspension, not termination. She might survive this.
And then Julian spoke. His voice cut through the room like a blade.
"No."
Every head turned.
Julian's eyes were locked on Elaine, his expression carved from steel. "She's not suspended. She's finished. Fire her."
Elaine gasped. Cassandra shot up from her chair. "You can't just—"
"I can," Julian said, not raising his voice, but with enough finality that the air seemed to freeze. "And I will. I won't have my firm contaminated by liars and incompetence."
Elaine crumbled, tears spilling as she stammered protests. Cassandra grabbed her arm, as though the two of them drowning together would somehow make them float.
But HR simply nodded, jotting notes. "Termination effective immediately."
"And Cassandra," Julian added coldly, finally turning to her, "you are not to enter this building again without clearance."
The fury in her eyes could have set the carpet on fire. She gathered her bag, her pride, and what was left of her dignity, and stormed out, dragging Elaine behind her.
I stayed seated, calm, unruffled. My victory tasted like champagne on the tongue.
By the time I returned to my desk, the whispers had become a roar. Word traveled fast in this place. Elaine—fired. Cassandra—barred. Amira—the one who toppled them both.
Tasha met me halfway down the hall, eyes wide with glee. "Girl! You did not—"
"I did," I said simply.
"You're savage."
"Defense was fun," I said, brushing an invisible speck from my blazer. "But offense? Oh, it tastes better."
She cackled, clutching my arm. "They're never gonna recover from this."
As if on cue, Julian passed by at the end of the hall. His expression stayed stern for everyone else watching, but as his eyes brushed mine, he let the corner of his mouth tilt into the faintest, most dangerous smirk. Approval.
The kind of smirk that promised this war was far from over—but for now, I was winning.