If I Get Divorced

Vesper's POV

The man's voice on the other end went quiet for two seconds. The soft rustle of turning pages drifted through the receiver.

"Bad signal on your end, or are you crying?"

I pressed the phone tighter against my ear. My left hand still rested on the edge of the desk, the burn chafing where my cuff dragged across it.

"Professor Alden, I'm not crying."

A brief silence from the other side.

"Vesper, every time you say that, things are never good."

I stared at the all-staff email on my screen, its red subject line still glowing like a brand stamped into my forehead.

"The company has filed a serious misconduct claim against me. Thirty million. My resignation access is locked, my project permissions suspended, my personal files sealed."

Only after saying it did I notice how dry my throat had gone.

"They wiped my backups, too."

Professor Alden didn't respond immediately. The transatlantic line carried nothing but a faint electrical hiss — brief, fragmented pulses. Half a minute passed before he spoke.

"Rhys Hawthorne's doing?"

I glanced toward the CEO's office. The glass door stood half-open, Rhys's silhouette moving inside. Blythe was at his side, a small box in her hands.

"He signed the decision."

Saying it aloud hurt more than the burn on the back of my hand.

The professor swore in Italian. I had rarely heard him lose composure. During those years in Milan, he had always buttoned his shirts to the very top collar, and even his critiques carried the measured restraint of old-world aristocracy.

"Listen to me, Vesper. Don't touch anything personal on company devices. Don't sign anything. Don't agree to whatever internal mediation they offer."

I murmured in acknowledgment.

"I'll contact a lawyer in London — someone who specializes in cross-border commercial compliance and matrimonial property. He'll reach out to you tomorrow. Save everything: emails, chat logs, access records, medical records."

"Professor, I don't have access to the company's surveillance system."

"Then preserve what you can."

He paused.

"And Blythe."

My grip on the phone tightened slightly, my fingertips pressing against the heated edge of the case.

"She admitted it."

"She resents you. She resents me as well." His voice dropped. "Years ago, her father arranged for her to come to my studio. I turned her down. This isn't the first time she's let personal grievances bleed into someone else's future."

I looked up. Blythe was walking out of the CEO's office, now holding one of Rhys's neckties. She wound it around her fingers as she moved — unhurried, deliberate — taking a route that passed directly by my workstation.

"She knows about my graduate placement."

"Then she'll move against it."

The professor offered no empty comfort.

"Your visa, your recommendation letters, your scholarship slot, your campus housing — whatever she can reach, she'll touch."

My throat felt like it had been scraped raw.

"I thought that if I got divorced and left this place, I could start over."

"Starting over still takes a fight."

The tap of a fountain pen against a hard surface came through the line.

"Vesper, you are not someone who survives on anyone's charity. You are one of the sharpest designers I have ever worked with. Don't let them take you down from the inside."

I said nothing. A system notification blinked onto my screen.

Your personal folder has been sealed by the administrator. To request access, please submit a departmental manager approval.

Departmental manager.

Milo.

I stared at the line and felt a sudden, hollow urge to laugh. They weren't going to leave me so much as a blank sheet of paper.

"Professor, I'll hold out until the lawyer arrives."

"Not hold out."

Professor Alden corrected me.

"Gather evidence. Take care of yourself. Don't let them provoke you or use the child to push you into making a mistake."

At the word child, my hand moved to my abdomen.

A faint flutter. As though something inside had reached up and touched me.

"I understand."

"Vesper."

He said my name once more.

"You cannot go on believing that Rhys will come to your side at the last moment."

I looked toward the glass door. Rhys was bent slightly forward, fastening the buttons on Blythe's coat — patient, practiced, as though he had never known the woman who used to stay up through the night behind him, sorting through acquisition documents.

"I stopped believing that."

After I hung up, I screenshotted the call log and forwarded it to my personal email. The company network would be monitored, so I switched to my own mobile data and slowed every step deliberately.

My left hand had begun to itch. Small blisters had formed along the burn, the skin flushing red at the edges, stinging sharply each time it grazed the wrist rest.

I went to the medical office and asked for burn ointment. The on-duty nurse glanced at my badge, her eyes lingering on my name for a full two seconds.

"We're out of stock."

She slid the drawer shut. Through the gap in the cabinet door behind her, the white corner of an ointment box was clearly visible.

I didn't argue. I raised my phone and took a photo of the cabinet and the duty badge on her chest.

The nurse's expression shifted.

"What are you photographing?"

"Documenting the medical room's current inventory."

I put the phone away.

"If legal ever asks why I didn't treat the burn in time, I'll need something to show them."

Her lips moved. Then she picked up a tube of ointment and dropped it onto the counter.

"Take it."

It landed hard and rolled to my hand. I picked it up and put it in my bag.

When I returned to the office floor, my chair had been pushed to the far end of the aisle. The cup from my desk was gone, the mouse cable unplugged, and a sticky note had been placed on my partition.

Reserved seating for the thirty-million-dollar lady.

The sound of keyboards around me continued without interruption. No one looked up.

I peeled the note off, slipped it into a document folder, dragged my chair back to its place, and reconnected the mouse cable. I didn't look for the cup.

There was no point making a scene over something like this. Make a scene, and they would say I was unstable. Stay quiet, and they would think I was afraid. What I needed was for them to keep going — enough incidents, each one a nail driven into the chain of evidence.

At three in the afternoon, HR sent an internal process reminder.

The compensation agreement will be arranged for signing within this week. Please remain reachable.

At the same moment, Milo dropped a stack of printed documents onto my desk.

"Since your project access is suspended, you can handle basic archiving."

The pages spread across the surface. On top was an expense report from several years back, its corners gray with dust.

"Finish the data entry before end of day."

I looked up at him.

"My system permissions have been revoked."

Milo spread his hands.

"That's your problem."

Lisa laughed from nearby. The mark on her cheek had been covered with powder, but the redness still showed through near her cheekbone.

"Can't even do archiving? Some CEO's wife."

I straightened the pages one by one. My phone lay face-down on the desk, its voice recorder already running.

"Manager Milo, please confirm once more: I am being assigned system data entry work while my access permissions are suspended, and failure to complete it by deadline will be recorded as a performance violation."

His expression stalled.

"Don't play games with me."

"I'm only confirming the instruction."

The ambient noise of the office floor dropped slightly. Milo stared at my phone and reached for it.

I pressed my hand over it.

"Seizing personal property goes on the record too."

He pulled his hand back, muttered something under his breath, and walked away.