Betrayed by the CEO's Secret Lover

The blue glow of my monitor cast harsh shadows across my face as I squinted at the code that had consumed my evening. My eyes burned, and the office around me had long since emptied, leaving only the soft whirring of servers and the occasional squeak of the cleaning staff's cart wheels against the polished floor.

Eleven forty-five PM. Another late night at Sterling Dynamics.

I rolled my shoulders back, feeling the familiar ache that came from hunching over a keyboard for fourteen hours straight. The proposal for the Morrison account needed to be perfect—Alexander had made that abundantly clear this morning when he'd dropped the files on my desk without so much as a "please" or "thank you."

"Just get it done, Emma," he'd said, already walking away. "By tomorrow."

Ten years. Ten years I'd been hearing variations of that phrase, always with the unspoken promise that this time—this project—would be the one to finally earn me a permanent position. I'd started believing it less and less with each passing year.

A notification popped up on my screen, temporarily diverting my attention from the proposal. It was the weekly company newsletter, and there, nestled between announcements about the office holiday party and updates to the parking policy, was a familiar headline: "Promotions and Transitions."

My stomach knotted as I clicked on it, knowing what I'd find but unable to stop myself.

"Congratulations to Tyler Chen, promoted from Junior Developer (8 months) to Senior Developer..."

"Melissa Patel advances from Marketing Assistant (1 year) to Marketing Manager..."

"Ryan Cooper moves up from Analyst (2 years) to Project Lead..."

And at the very bottom, a name that hadn't moved in a decade: "Emma Walsh – Intern, Year 10."

I swallowed the bitter taste in my mouth. Tyler could barely debug his own code. Melissa had missed three major deadlines last quarter. And Ryan... Ryan had been hired based on Alexander's golf club connection.

Meanwhile, I'd personally saved the Westlake account last month by pulling four all-nighters to fix the security breach that nobody else could solve. I'd written the code that became our flagship product. I'd trained half the development team. And still: "Intern."

No benefits. No health insurance. No job security. Just Alexander's empty promises and my increasingly pathetic hope.

The chime of a new email broke my spiral of self-pity. Another company-wide message, this one from HR.

"Sterling Dynamics Welcomes Back Victoria Chen as Senior Executive"

I stared at the name, my fingers freezing over the keyboard. Victoria Chen. Alexander's ex-girlfriend from business school. The woman whose photograph still sat in the bottom drawer of his desk—I'd seen it once when retrieving files he'd asked for.

The email continued with flowery language about Victoria's "impressive accomplishments" and "strategic vision," but provided suspiciously few concrete details about her actual experience. What it did mention, in bold text, was that she would be "overseeing key departments including Technology Development."

My department.

I exhaled slowly, remembering the stories. Victoria was legendary around the