Under my parents' request, I work as the finance officer in my childhood friend, Julius Sanford's company. But the moment he goes on a business trip, the new intern, Lizzie Dalton, rushes into my office and demands that I process her reimbursements.

As I stare at the pile of receipts that come from luxury stores, all I feel is shock.

"Lizzie, I can only use the company's funds to reimburse business expenses. Why are you asking me for reimbursements when all you did was buy clothes and bags of your own?"

But as soon as my words fall, Lizzie splashes a cup of coffee at me instantly. "I'm the lady boss of this company! The company's funds are my funds too! Don't think you can just reject my receipts just because you know my husband!"

I do my best to suppress my fury as I dig out the company's policy and reiterate, "No, I seriously cannot do that. The company's cash flow must be reflected in the books."

Seeing as I refuse to yield to her no matter what, Lizzie calls Julius on the phone and begins whining to him.

"Babe, since when do I need to ask your childhood friend for approval if I want to buy something I like for myself? Or could it be that she's acting so assertively because you two are secretly having an affair?"

Julius panics and tells Lizzie that he has nothing to do with me. After that, he quickly releases an announcement on the company group just so he can defend Lizzie.

"Lizzie Dalton is my wife! She's the second boss of this company other than me!"

After that, Julius tags me in the group. "Hey, finance! You're not my mom here! I don't like you, so please stay out of my private matters!

"I'd like nothing more than to let my own wife spend my own money! If you don't like that, you can pack up and leave!"

Once Julius makes his stance clear, I change my tune and reimburse Lizzie the expenses she's claimed.

But one week later, Julius finds himself staring at the list of debts that's 33 feet long when he returns from his business trip.

I, Dianne Hayden, was still sorting through the documents that'd been stained with coffee when Lizzie Dalton barged in again.

Lizzie tossed her phone onto my desk without the slightest hint of courtesy.

"Can't you read, you old hag?" She spat the last three words through clenched teeth before fixing me with a look of pure contempt.

I slowly turned my gaze toward the group chat displayed on her screen. Messages from my childhood friend, Julius Sanford, were still flooding in.

He tagged everyone in the group and wrote, "While I'm away from the company, everyone is to follow Lizzie's instructions. Her word is my word. Anyone who's unwilling to comply can leave immediately."

The next moment, my phone rang.

"Lizzie already told me what happened. She's part of the company too. Why did you refuse to reimburse her when she came to you? Why are you singling her out?" Julius shouted impatiently at me from the other end of the line.

I was just about to explain when his next words shut me down completely.

"Consider this a warning. You'd better know your place. At best, you're just the company's finance officer. To put it plainly, you're nothing more than my lapdog. Lizzie's your mistress now!" he seethed.

Lizzie couldn't hold back and burst out laughing the moment his words fell. Pitching her voice higher, she called out to Julius on my phone in a sickly sweet tone. "Hubby, you—"

"Are you sure you want me to reimburse Lizzie?" I cut her off coldly as I threw the question back at Julius. At the same time, I opened the recording function on my phone.

"Cut the crap. I'm telling you to approve it now!" he snapped.

A smirk crossed my face. "Alright."

The moment I hung up, I immediately signed the receipt without the slightest hesitation. "The money will be transferred back to your account within five minutes."

Lizzie looked visibly pleased. She gazed at me disdainfully and lightly slapped the receipt against my face twice.

"I'll let it slide this time. But you'd better watch your tone the next time you talk to me, you mutt," she mocked.

I seized her hand in one swift motion and tightened my grip. Her face instantly contorted in pain.

"You're in no position to talk to me like that!" I snapped.

After all, Mitheria Group wouldn't have made it without the Haydens' help. My family even held the majority of the company's shares.

Although Julius was the CEO of the company, the main shareholder behind the scenes was me.

I flung Lizzie's hand away violently. Caught off guard, she fell hard to the floor.

Lizzie widened her eyes in shock. "How dare you hit me?" she shrieked.

However, her phone buzzed the very next second. The sound of the push notification confirming the transfer rang out across the office.

Lizzie shot a glance at her phone. Then, she hurled a vicious threat at me before storming off.

I could still hear her shouting clearly as the door closed. "Just you wait. I'll get you for this."

With next quarter's workload in mind, I didn't give much thought to it. But half an hour later, Bianca Fletcher, one of the colleagues who got along well with me, rushed in.

"This is bad, Dianne. Y-You've been exposed! Everyone in the group chat is in an uproar now," she exclaimed.

My heart fell into my stomach. Panic crept over me when I saw how pale Bianca's face was.

"I've been exposed? What exactly do you mean by that?"

It'd been three years since I joined the company. All this while, no one knew that I was the only daughter of the Haydens, the wealthiest family in the city, except for Julius.

Could it be that…

I was still lost in thought when Bianca held her phone out toward me. "But I don't think you're that kind of person," she whispered.

Bianca let out a deep breath. Then, she patted my shoulder reassuringly before continuing, "I've known you for so long, so I believe in your character. You're definitely not the type of person to become a mistress, right?"

Her words immediately snapped me back to my senses.

"A mistress? And whose mistress would I be?" I questioned.

I quickly glanced at my phone at her words, only to see that Lizzie had posted a flood of my private photos in the company group chat.

"Let me break it down for everyone. The clothes Dianne wore in these photos are from Burberry. The retail price for these is over 30 thousand dollars.

"This bag over here is from Louis Vuitton. You won't be able to get that without at least 100 thousand dollars. Coupled with her shoes, sunglasses, and hair accessories, everything on her would add up to roughly 300 thousand dollars," Lizzie wrote in the company group chat.

Then, she sent another photo. "I'm sure everyone knows what brand this car is. Need I say more? Does everyone really think a finance officer would be this wealthy?" she questioned.

The group chat that'd been quiet just moments ago instantly blew up. With Julius' earlier remarks backing Lizzie up, several of them began fawning all over her.

In fact, some of them even started to make up rumors about me out of thin air.

"I think I saw her getting into someone's car last week. He looked pretty old…" one of them said.

"I always knew she was bad news. We'd still be in the dark if it weren't for Lizzie," another replied.

Lizzie only became more brazen with everyone fueling her ego.

"The reason I'm exposing this is because I want everyone to be the judge of this incident. Dianne would often message Julius behind my back. In fact, she even asked him to go to her place late at night."

Lizzie sent another screenshot after that.

The contents in it were exactly as she'd said. I'd messaged Julius at 1:00 am.

"Come to my place. Now," I wrote.

But that was because Dad found a problem in the contract late at night. I'd only asked him to come over to verify it.

Everyone turned their backs on me at this so-called evidence.

"Doesn't she know that Mr. Sanford and Lizzie are married?"

"I know Dianne's tricks all too well. I used to be a whore like her, and I liked seducing men who'd already been taken…"

Bianca nervously took the phone away from me. "This is all fake, right?" she asked.

I nodded gratefully in response. "Yes, it is. But it's not something I can explain to you in a few words. Thank you for telling me all this."

I'd already noticed earlier that this was a separate group chat they'd created on WhatsApp. Everyone else was in it except for me.

Bianca visibly relaxed at my words. "I'll take your word for it. That really puts me at ease."

I pointed at her phone and asked, "Is it okay if I take a photo of that?"

"You… want to take a photo?"

I smiled in response before replying, "Yes, that's right. I'm going to report this to the police. This is a clear act of defamation."

Bianca handed her phone to me without the slightest hesitation at my words. "You're doing the right thing, Dianne!"

After sorting out the evidence, I sent a copy to my lawyer back home, Lawrence Duncan.

"Don't worry. I'm not the kind of person they say I am," I reassured Bianca.

Confusion, grievance, and fury swarmed inside me when I first saw the messages. I even felt the urge to storm over and tear Lizzie apart on the spot.

But once I'd calmed down and thought things through, I realized that it would do more harm than good. Throwing a tantrum wasn't going to clear my name.

It didn't take long for me to receive a reply from Lawrence. "This constitutes defamation, Ms. Hayden. Should I draft the lawsuit now?"

"Yes, and send it to me once you're done. We can submit all the documents once I've called the police."

I'd just sent the message over when the door was pushed open. Lizzie swept her gaze over the room with her hands on her hips. Then, she pulled out a chair and took a seat across from me.

"It looks like our finance officer has a lot of free time on your hands, don't you?" she mocked.

I remained silent. All I offered was a brief glance in response.

Lizzie didn't get the slightest bit angry. Instead, she played a voice message from Julius.

"You can go shopping if you feel like it. Grab someone to carry your things if you can't manage them all, or just have Dianne do it. She's not busy with work anyway," he said.

Her amused gaze lingered on me as she tried to gauge my reaction when the recording ended.

I kept a smile on my face. Then, I tidied up my desk and stood up nonchalantly. "Let's go then. I'll make sure you shop to your heart's content while I keep you company."

My sudden compliance this time seemed to have caught Lizzie off guard. She even froze for a few seconds.

"That's more like it. You'd be better off knowing your place," she mocked.

I turned a deaf ear to her words as I dutifully played the role of her chauffeur.

Lizzie headed straight for the luxury boutiques once we'd arrived at the mall. "Take that bag down so I can have a look at it," she demanded.

She held the bag against herself before showing it off to me. "Do you think this suits me?"

"You know what? I'll take it," she declared with a wave of a hand.

Lizzie didn't even wait for my response before she decided to buy all five bags she'd just tried.

When it came time to pay, she gestured for me to swipe my credit card.

I found it simply amusing. "Are you asking me to pay for the things you want to buy? Do you even hear yourself?"

Lizzie cast a disdainful glance at me. "You? Do you even have enough money to pay for all this?"

She made repeated gestures with her hand. "I'm asking for the company card. Give it to me. Quick, I'm about to pay for these bags!"

Stunned, I repeated, "The company card?"

I instinctively wanted to explain when I saw the warning look in her gaze.

"Don't forget your place. What, did you think the company's money was yours just because you've been holding onto it for a while? Have you already forgotten the lesson Julius taught you earlier?" she warned.

I pursed my lips and took out the credit card.

"You're right. Since Julius said you can spend the money however you like, I clearly have no right to interfere further."

Lizzie's behavior only grew more brazen once she'd gotten a hold of the card.

She turned into another boutique and pointed at a row of bags displayed right at the front. "I'll take all of these."

In just one afternoon, she'd already spent two million dollars.

I reminded her that it was time to get off work when the time approached 5:30 pm.

"Our department's getting together for dinner tonight. It wouldn't be right if you were the only one absent, would it?"

No sooner had she spoken than several familiar voices rang out.

"We're here, Lizzie!"

"Are you sure we're all having a seafood feast? Isn't it a little expensive?"

Everyone gathered around Lizzie to fawn over her as they deliberately gave me the cold shoulder.

But I didn't expect Miranda Gardner, someone I used to get along well with, to single me out.

"I get that you're after money, but shouldn't you have some shame at the very least? How could you become a—"

"That's enough, Miranda. Some things are better kept among ourselves." Lizzie cut her off with a smile. Then, she took one of the bags from my hand and gave it to Miranda.

"You've done so much for the company over the years. Consider this bag a reward for your contribution!" Lizzie said.

Everyone widened their eyes in shock. Miranda was so excited that she was rooted to the spot.

"Are you for real, Lizzie? You're really giving me such an expensive bag just like that?" she exclaimed.

Everyone began to turn on me once Lizzie affirmed Miranda's questions.

I didn't argue back. Instead, I quietly turned on my phone's camera as I recorded their every word and expression.

After some time, Lizzie finally gestured for them to calm down. She pointed toward the seafood buffet nearby and said, "We're eating here today. It's my treat!"

Then, she shot me a smug look and added, "You're coming with us, Dianne!"

I was about to refuse when Miranda clung to my arm in an attempt to curry favor with Lizzie. She leaned against my ear and whispered, "Lizzie is Mr. Sanford's wife. You should know better than to offend her!"

Left with no other choice, I was practically dragged to the restaurant's entrance.

Lizzie gestured at the group. "Hello, there are five of us here in total."

Then, she deliberately pointed at me. "This lady is just here to carry my bags, so she won't be eating. Can she come in with us?"