2: 2

In my last life, the moment Alice Barber handed me that proposal, the blood shot up to my head and I lost it right there.

"What the hell is this garbage you've turned in? Even the most basic font and formatting is wrong."

"I hammered on the requirements for two whole months. Did you not read a single word of it?"

"Alice, this is a workplace, not a playhouse. If you can't do the job, get out now."

In the three years since the company was founded, it was the first time I'd blown up like that.

But Alice didn't look the least bit sorry. She just sneered at me.

"I was right about you all along. You're a manager in name only."

"How else could you fail to recognize a proposal that's actually worth something?"

I froze, and she went on, practically showing off.

"I'll be honest with you. The second I finished this proposal, I sent it straight to a public AI chatbot to check it, and it said the thing was worth millions and second to none."

The veins in my forehead were throbbing by the time she finished.

I couldn't hold back the cold question:

"Are you telling me you uploaded our confidential project to a public AI on the open internet?"

"Alice, did a donkey kick you in the head?"

"I'm not going to waste any more breath on you. If this bid fails, every last bit of the loss is on you. You'd better sort yourself out."

I said it fully intending to take the legal route and sue her outright.

But my boyfriend of five years planted himself in front of her and shielded her completely.

"Tsk. Amelia James, what kind of attitude is that?"

"Alice has pulled all-nighters a week straight. Even if there's no credit in it, she's put in the effort. How can you shoot her down in front of everyone?"

"Besides, this AI chatbot is the hottest thing out there right now. You think what it says can be wrong? If you ask me, you're just too full of yourself."

The barrage of scolding left me completely stunned.

Zachery might have been a slacker most of the time, but on anything that mattered for a project, he was never any less careful than I was.

Choking back my anger, I threw that disaster of a proposal in both their faces.

"Open your damn eyes and look for yourself. The formatting is all wrong, even the bid amount is wrong. You think we can turn this in?"

"I don't care what the two of you think, but everyone in this company poured their heart into this, and it shouldn't go to waste like this."

"So all I can do is try to rewrite the proposal from scratch. I'll take part of the loss the delay causes. The rest is all on her."

Then I gave Alice a cold, sweeping look.

Her eyes reddened instantly, and she huddled into Zachery's arms without a care, shaking her head, crying under her breath.

"It's my fault. I shouldn't have tried to lighten the load for the company."

"I'll apologize right now. Is that enough?"

And she moved to drop to her knees and grovel out an apology.

Zachery's whole expression changed. He pulled her in against him, frantic.

"Alice, what are you doing?"

"You did nothing wrong. She's the one who's too blind to know something good when she sees it."

Then Zachery turned and rounded on me.

"I think you just can't stand that Alice and I get along, so you're abusing your authority to hold her down."

"A shrew like you doesn't deserve to be in this company."

Somewhere in the middle of that fight, my asthma flared and I suffocated to death.

Watching it happen, Zachery only held Alice and comforted her:

"You can only blame her rotten luck. It's got nothing to do with you."

Remembering that pain from my last life, I clenched my teeth with hatred.

"I don't have time right now. Find someone else."

At those words, Zachery's face turned on the spot.

"Amelia James, you are honestly impossible."

"Alice comes to you nicely for advice, and this is the attitude you give her? What's one look going to cost you? Are your eyes made of gold?"

"I'm warning you, my patience has a limit. If you keep deliberately going after Alice, we're done, and you get out of this company."

In the past, I might have backed down first, on my own.

But after living through that horror once, all I felt was how disgusting the two of them were.

"Fine. Let's break up. I find you filthy anyway."

3: 3

For half a minute the huge office was so quiet the air itself seemed to stop.

Zachery stared, eyes wide with disbelief.

"What did you just say?"

"I said we're breaking up. You disgust me."

I met his eyes without a trace of feeling.

But Zachery suddenly raised his voice, grinding out the words through his teeth.

"You're sure you really want to break up with me?"

I blinked, not following.

"What else? Keep you around to turn my stomach every day?"

Zachery went silent. He stared at me cold-faced for a long moment, then let out a contemptuous little laugh.

"Playing hard to get again?"

"Amelia James, how many times have you pulled this? Is it fun?"

"Getting to use the proposal Alice wrote for you is more luck than you deserve in eight lifetimes, and you're still up here putting on airs. Who do you think you are?"

Faced with his sneering, I just rolled my eyes, calm as anything.

"Uh-huh."

Getting no reaction, Zachery hopped on the spot, furious. "You—"

And right then Alice sidled up again, shameless as ever.

"Amelia, I don't know why you're so hostile toward me, but I just want to say one thing. Zachery and I have always been aboveboard."

"And this proposal, I wrote it carefully for the company. We bid in under ten hours, and now you won't even look at it before shooting me down. Isn't that a little too selfish?"

"You've got money and skills now, so you don't care about this, but the rest of the staff aren't like you. They're all waiting on that bonus!"

I had to admit, Alice knew how to stir up trouble, just like last life.

The moment shared money was on the table, the people who'd been watching on the sidelines were going to pile in too.

Sure enough, the words were barely out before everyone outside the glass-walled office turned icy looks my way.

A few hotheads charged straight in, furious.

"Amelia, you're not trying to dodge paying the bonus and making a scene on purpose, are you? Otherwise I can't figure out why you'd drag us down for no reason."

"Exactly. Amelia James, how can you be so vicious? You're not the only one who worked on this bid. It's almost over the line, and you've ruined it. You're too selfish."

One of them, mid-sentence, suddenly shoved me.

Someone else grabbed a cup of water off the desk and threw it over me.

In a heartbeat the place was chaos.

Someone slammed a foot into my stomach.

The pain made me suck in a sharp breath.

The cursing in my ears got louder.

"You're strict with us all the time, picking bones out of eggs, fine, but now you're nitpicking too? If that's not deliberately making trouble, what is it?"

Under cover of the chaos, I hit the emergency alarm.

The shrieking sound froze everyone where they stood.

I pushed myself up then, snapped my head up, my eyes frightening in their coldness.

"What are you all raving about? Her proposal is fine, just use it. Why does it have to be me who reviews it?"

"I'm warning you. Anyone who dares make trouble again bears the consequences."

The whole crowd was stunned by the look on me, and for a moment you could have heard a pin drop.

Someone came around late to the realization that this whole farce really didn't add up.

"What she said actually makes sense."

"Alice, don't bother with someone that ungrateful. We trust your proposal will do."

"Right. When the time comes we'll go bid ourselves without her, and we won't split the bonus with her either after we win."

The corners of Alice's mouth twitched into an awkward smile.

Given that, she thought better of saying anything more.

But watching me walk away, plain disgust flickered in her eyes.

Right up until the end of the day, Alice still wasn't ready to give up. She brought Zachery along to talk me around.

"Amelia, you've worked at this company all these years. You poured a lot into this bid project too. I just want you to take part."

"Why don't you look at the proposal after all? I don't even mind if you put your own name on it."

Zachery looked all wounded on her behalf. "Alice, you're just too kind."

I couldn't be bothered to watch the two of them act. I shot back coldly, "Not interested."

That set Zachery off cursing at me, and I walked out without looking back.

4: 4

That night, Zachery didn't come home.

Instead, one after another, photos of him kept popping up on Alice's feed.

The two of them out at a movie, then living it up at a bar.

I didn't scream or make a scene the way I used to. I just blocked every one of his contacts.

Once that was done, I scrolled to the very bottom of my contact list and dialed the number there.

"Is it still possible to enter the bid? I'd like to join under my own name."

There was a clear pause on the other end, then a firm yes.

"Sure. You're certain you've thought this through?"

"Ever since your mother got sick a year ago and you stepped back, I figured you'd handed everything over to your boyfriend for good."

"Honestly, out of your whole company, the only proposals I trust are the ones you write yourself. I'm looking forward to what you bring tomorrow."

The call ended. I glanced at the time. Ten at night.

The bid was at ten the next morning.

There was time.

And so I sat down, and I stayed there for eight straight hours.

The moment the new proposal was finally finished, my whole body ached.

But inside I was burning to go.

First thing the next morning, I went straight to the bid venue.

The second Alice's crowd saw me, the snide remarks started.

"Well, if it isn't Manager James. Weren't you too good for our proposal? What are you doing crawling back to piggyback off us? Some nerve."

"Let's get one thing straight. If we win this bid, there's not a cent in it for you. You were selfish enough not to care how we felt, so why should we care about you, right?"

Alice listened to them fawn over her, grinning ear to ear.

Then she smoothed her expression and stepped closer.

"Amelia, honestly, we're not heartless people."

"If you're willing to bow ninety degrees and apologize to us, we could think about splitting you a few hundred in bonus. Generous, isn't it?"

I laughed, rolled my eyes right at them, and turned to go find my seat.

Then a hand shot out and grabbed my wrist.

I turned to find Zachery glaring at me.

"Alice is handing you a way out, and you're still putting on this act?"

"Amelia James, quit spitting on a favor. Making a spectacle of yourself out in public like this."

He yanked me so hard I stumbled, and the small of my back slammed into the corner of the table.

The pain shot through me. I sucked in a sharp breath and went white.

Something like regret flickered in Zachery's eyes, and he reached out on instinct to steady me.

I slapped his hand away.

"Don't put your filthy hands on me."

"And another thing. If it weren't for me, you wouldn't even be fit to stand in this room. What gives you the right to lecture me about anything?"

Zachery choked on that, and was just about to explode.

Then, out of nowhere, Alice burst into tears.

"Amelia, please, don't fight."

"I'm sorry, it was my fault, I shouldn't have stolen your thunder."

"Amelia, you can hit me, you can yell at me, I'll even just hand the proposal over to you."

She looked so pitiful about it, as if I were some workplace bully.

The way everyone in the room looked at me changed on the spot.

Someone yanked me hard from behind, I don't know who.

I stumbled and hit the floor.

Then people started hurling the decorations meant for the event at me.

"You make me sick, acting like a drama queen all day."

"People like you are the worst, always stirring things up, never letting anyone have peace."

The whole room dissolved into chaos.

Security got there in time and shouted for it to stop.

"What do you think you're doing? Do you have any idea how expensive these decorations are?"

Alice's little hangers-on couldn't have cared less.

"Please. Who do you think you're talking to? We're about to win this bid. A little money like that, we'll pay you back when the time comes."

Only after repeated warnings from the staff did they settle down and submit their proposal.

As Alice left on Zachery's arm, she couldn't resist one more dig at me.

"Amelia, don't blame us for not giving you a chance. Winning this project comes with a five hundred thousand dollar bonus."

"Since you look down on us so much, well, there won't be any of it for you."

With that, they swaggered off, the whole group of them.

As if winning the bid was already in the bag.

Ten minutes later, the staff read out the result.

"The winner of this bid is the Y Group."

Everyone looked lost.

"Who's the Y Group?"

Alice shot to her feet. "We won. I named my proposal after the first letter of my name, Alice."

"The Y Group is us."

They shrieked with excitement and threw their arms around each other.

The executive came forward with the wreath. Alice, thrilled, stepped up and started to bow.

But the man walked right past her and set the wreath on my head instead.

"Congratulations. I have high hopes for you on this project."