Chapter 3

Bronwyn's POV

Packing didn’t take long.

Five years in that apartment, and my things didn’t even fill one suitcase.

Maybe staying in Vale City for Gideon had been a mistake from the very start.

I lay awake that whole night.

The incision throbbed. Waves of dizziness from the blood loss kept rolling over me. I followed my discharge instructions to the letter, swallowing the iron pills and painkillers one at a time.

In the morning, I dragged my still-bleeding body to the office and handed in my resignation.

Northgate Brand Consulting was a subsidiary of the Pryce Group. Five years ago, Gideon had sent me the job posting.

My manager, Denise, read my letter and frowned.

“Why now? Is this Mr. Pryce’s call?”

“We’re only a few days into the month, so there’s not much on this paycheck. You still want it split down the middle like usual?”

I froze.

Split down the middle?

Denise looked even more confused than I was. “Oh, come on, Bronwyn. Everyone in management knows about you and Mr. Pryce. He signed off on your hire himself.”

“Isn’t that the arrangement you two worked out? Every month, half your salary goes into the deferred account he set up. Your ‘relationship fund.’”

“Honestly? I kind of admire you. Even now, you won’t touch a dime of his money.”

I stood there, cold all over.

For five years, I’d been taking home half the pay for my own job.

No wonder my numbers got better every year while my paycheck stayed pathetic. No wonder my year-end bonus was thin as paper.

I’d always assumed starting salaries in this industry were just low. That I wasn’t working hard enough yet.

The Mr. Pryce who showed up in the top-floor boardroom once a quarter—the one I’d never once gotten to meet—had been him all along.

That explained why, every time he came by, Denise always happened to send me out to see a client.

To save money, I’d spent every weekend for five years working a second job at the bakery on the corner, and I took freelance writing gigs after work. Most nights I got home after midnight and fell straight into bed.

All those late nights, watching me run myself into the ground—did he think it was funny?

I went down to payroll and pulled the records. There it was: a deferred account, opened in my name, controlled by him and him alone.

Balance: $360,000.

Three hundred and sixty thousand dollars.

Three times the $120,000 I'd needed for the surgery.

There was nothing funny about it.

To scrape together that deposit, I’d called every college friend I had, one after another. I’d sat across from a loan officer explaining over and over that yes, I could pay it back. I’d put up my grandfather’s old house in Mossbury as collateral.

I’d taken every cold look, answered every humiliating question, bowed my head until it touched the dirt.

And that afternoon, while I stood at the billing counter calling his number again and again—

he’d been sitting on $360,000 of my own money.

If he had just given me back a fraction of what belonged to me, the surgery would have happened on time.

My baby might still be alive.

I gripped the cold payroll counter and doubled over, and for a long time, I couldn’t straighten up.

I never got the chance to go find Gideon. He found me first—back upstairs in Denise’s office, where I’d gone to finish the paperwork.

“I hear you’re quitting? Bronwyn, are you done yet?”

“Every time you come after me for this money, you just prove what I already knew. You’re a gold digger.”

Romilly trailed in behind him, the Birkin hooked over her arm right where everyone could see it, looking thrilled.

“Bronwyn, I know you’ve always had your eye on Gid’s money, but you can’t come make a scene at his company.”

“If everybody pulled what you’re pulling—threatening to quit to shake him down—how is Gid supposed to run a business?”

Apparently, money didn’t just let you treat other people like dirt. It came with skin too thick for shame to get through.

I was so angry I laughed. Before I could say a word, Gideon cut me off.

“Romilly’s right. People like you are exactly what’s wrong with the workplace these days.”

“For old times’ sake, I’ll let it slide this once. I’m not accepting your resignation. Go back to your desk.”

“Next time, you’re fired.”

“And forget about this month’s paycheck. Consider it a penalty for disrupting the office.”

I’d worked at this company for five years.

Only today did I learn that a paycheck could be taken away just like that.