I pointed straight at Winona, and her eyes darted before tears spilled down her cheeks in perfect, pitiful streams.

"Supervisor Maxwell, just because Mr. Delgado showed me some appreciation, you had to set up this vicious trap? No wonder you gave me an impossible deadline to print all those documents. You couldn't deliver the software Mr. Delgado needed, and you were afraid the bid would fall through tomorrow, so you wanted me to take the fall! You'd really go this far just to keep your claws in Mr. Delgado?"

The others piled on immediately.

"I heard Mr. Delgado's been fed up with the tech department for a whole year over that bottleneck they can't crack. This woman's slick, dragging Winona down to cover her own failures!"

"So it didn't even matter if the printouts were gibberish. She just needed to dump an impossible task on Winona so she'd have someone to blame!"

"Absolutely vile. No wonder she tried to sleep her way to the top. She knew all along she was incompetent!"

Philip's gaze cut like a blade. He shoved me hard, and I fell into the pile of scattered documents on the floor.

"You really went out of your way to set Winona up, didn't you? I was wondering why you volunteered to handle the technical side and then went radio silent for so long. Turns out you were too busy scheming against her! Apologize to Winona right now, or don't bother showing your face in this company again!"

What he'd conveniently forgotten was that back when the company was just starting out and couldn't afford to hire enough staff, I used to come in on my own time to fill every role imaginable, including printing hundreds of documents in an hour. That had always been the baseline he expected of me.

But when it was Winona, suddenly the same task became deliberate harassment.

A bitter smile twisted my lips. I got to my feet, brushed the scraps of paper off my clothes, unclipped my badge, and dropped it on the floor. Then I gathered my things.

"Save your threats. I quit."

I printed one more document, signed it, and held it out to him.

"Sign this. I'll send you a mailing address."

The moment Philip saw the words Divorce Agreement at the top, he froze. Almost instinctively, his hand shot out and grabbed my arm as I turned to leave.

Everyone else assumed I'd handed him a resignation letter. A few of them actually clapped.

Only Winona noticed him holding onto me. Her expression darkened in an instant, and she rushed over to pry his arm away.

"Mr. Delgado, are you trying to drag Supervisor Maxwell back to apologize to me? If she wants to resign as her way of making amends, I suppose I could accept that..."

That snapped Philip out of it. Image-conscious as always, he latched onto her words with a quick nod.

"Exactly. How could I let a viper like her just walk away?"

He yanked me back and pinned me against the wall, his hands pressing down on my shoulders.

"All I need is to win that bid tomorrow, and I'll be the man who made history in this industry! How dare you try to walk out on me now?"

The ferocity in his eyes, the desperate refusal to let go. I couldn't tell whether he wanted to keep me for the bid or for whatever remained of a love that the years had ground down to nothing.

But I'd long since lost any interest in deciphering his motives. I stared back at him, hollow and spent.

"If you think I'm incompetent, and you resent me for getting in the way of your love life, why stop me from leaving?"

Philip's face went rigid. He glanced over his shoulder at Winona and overcorrected immediately.

"This is about your dereliction of duty and your bullying of a colleague. Don't drag me into it!"

Then he leaned close to my ear, his voice a low, venomous hiss.

"Is this because I've been too busy with work these past few months and things cooled off in the bedroom? You're going to blow up our entire lives over a bouquet of flowers?"

I shook my head, speechless, and shoved him away hard. The cardboard box in my arms tipped, and its contents scattered across the floor.

Winona snatched up the most conspicuous item, a photo album. She flipped it open, and a cold smirk spread across her face.

"No wonder Supervisor Maxwell was in such a rush to leave Delgado Corp. She realized Mr. Delgado was a lost cause, so she moved on to her next target!"

The others glanced at the open pages and joined in with jeering laughter.

"She didn't even get flowers from him today, so she figured that ship had sailed and started lining up the next one. Shameless! Looks like she's been hopping on trains left and right to throw herself at some new man. Absolutely disgusting!"

But as Philip looked at what was inside, the color drained from his face.

There were no photographs in the album. Only train tickets. Dozens of them.

Back in college, during the National Computing Competition, he'd been part of his school's logistics team. He saw me at the venue and fell for me on the spot, confessing his feelings with reckless abandon.

But by then, I was already the most celebrated prodigy on campus. My software engineering skills were in a league of their own. Compared to him—a serial schmoozer who couldn't pass a single exam—we were worlds apart.

I turned him down gently. So after the competition, he started showing up. Again and again, riding trains for hours, standing the whole way because he couldn't afford a seat, just to see me and plead his case.

On our wedding day, he'd bound every last ticket into an album and presented it to me, tears streaming down his face as he pulled me into his arms.

"It took me ten thousand miles to win you over. How could I ever not cherish you?"

Now that album was nothing but the cruelest joke.

When I said nothing, the coworkers took my silence as confirmation of the affair. Phones shot up instantly, cameras shoved in my face as someone started a livestream.

"Never seen a homewrecker this shameless! One man doesn't work out, so she moves right on to the next. Ladies, steer clear of this one!"

Within seconds, my swollen, battered face was plastered across the internet under a headline that read: "Nothing scarier than an aging side chick who still tries."

The comments section exploded. People were all too happy to pile on.

"At her age and still trying to be someone's mistress? Guess the money between a man's legs is just that good?"

"No real skills, so she makes up for it in the bedroom!"

A few voices pushed back.

"She looks familiar. Hasn't she won a bunch of tech awards? She'd be making good money on her own. Why would she need to be anyone's side piece?"

Fury surged through me. I grabbed Philip by the collar and yanked him close.

"You know damn well whether I'm a homewrecker. Tell them. Tell them the truth."

A flicker of guilt finally crossed Philip's face. He opened his mouth to speak—

My phone chimed.

Winona spotted it before I could. Her eyes lit up like she'd struck gold. She snatched the phone from me and held it up for everyone to see, triumphant as a cat with a mouse.

It was a message from Craig, sent just moments ago:

"I'll come pick you up at your place tomorrow morning. I'll bring breakfast."

He'd added me from a secondary account. Nobody recognized the name. Imaginations ran wild in the worst possible direction.

"Of course! The most dedicated homewrecker in the game. Already has the next rendezvous lined up. No wonder she was so eager to quit!"

Even the few commenters who'd defended me turned hostile.

"So she really is a shameless gold-digger throwing herself at men. Disgusting!"

I opened my mouth to explain, but Philip's eyes had already gone bloodshot. His palm cracked across my face and sent me sprawling to the floor.

"Cora Maxwell. I was actually about to speak up for you just now. And this whole time, you really are that cheap." His voice shook with rage. "No wonder you were so set on leaving. You couldn't wait to crawl into some other man's bed. This company doesn't need a slut like you!"

The others closed in, their faces twisted with self-righteous fury.

"You live like trash and bully your coworkers, and now the whole internet despises you. You're a stain on this company! You're not walking out of here today until you get on your knees and apologize. Otherwise, you don't leave."

Before I could react, someone kicked the back of my knee. My legs buckled and I crashed to the floor, knees slamming against the tile.

A hand fisted in my hair and slammed my forehead into the ground. Pain split through my skull. Blood ran down my face.

Winona crouched in front of me, pinching my chin between her fingers. She leaned in close, her lips brushing my ear.

"A worn-out thing like you thinks she can steal my man? Someone needs to teach you your place."

When Philip finally saw the blood streaming down my face, something in him snapped back to reason. He grabbed me by the arm, hauled me up, and threw me into the elevator. His voice was a low, venomous hiss.

"Go home. Wait for me. And if you ever bring up divorce again, you'll find out what I do to you when I get back."

But just before the elevator doors slid shut, Winona's voice drifted in from outside—syrupy, pouting, playful.

"Mr. Delgado, you promised you'd spend tonight with me. Don't you dare go back on your word!"