Contract Error, They Framed Me, Boss Is Dad

Caspar grabbed my hand, a hint of pleading on his face. "We all joined this company together back then, we're friends. How can you stand to watch her get chewed out? As for the work on your desk, I'll go explain it to Director Cobb for you later. Just help Eve out first." The three of us had come into James Group together as management trainees. With my help, the two of them made a name for themselves fast. Eve became a director's assistant, and Caspar was already a department manager. Only I was still an ordinary employee. Maybe, in the eyes of Caspar and Eve, I'd fallen behind because I wasn't good enough at the job, or lacked something else. But I was the only one who knew the truth: I'd simply wanted a few more years down in the trenches. I'd never once let slip who I really was, but the company had reached out to me long ago. Back then the senior leadership had said they wanted to promote me, give me more responsibility. My father brought it up too. He felt the timing was about right, that we could go ahead and reveal my relationship to him. But at the time I'd told my father I wanted more seasoning at the ground level, that I'd step forward once I really knew how the company worked. Beyond that thinking, there was another reason. I wanted to give Caspar and Eve some time to adjust. I didn't want it to change what was between us. What I never expected was that my goodwill would make bullying me, framing me, feel like the most natural thing in the world to them. Since they were so set on it, I didn't want to go back and forth with them anymore. I said it flat out: "Sorry, I can't do this one." Hearing that, Caspar couldn't keep his composure. His face darkened as he looked at me. "Lucretia, we're all friends here. Do you really have to be this cold? After all the years I've spent with you, I never thought you were this kind of person." I lifted my head and looked at Caspar, a flicker of disappointment in my eyes. "So this is what I've been to you all along." Caspar and I had joined the company in the same batch. He'd chased after me from the moment we met, but I hadn't said yes to him at first. As time went on, once I'd slowly come to understand him, I finally accepted him. In our years together, I'd never told him who I really was. I stayed with him in that shabby rented place on the edge of the city. It was nothing like the comfort of the family estate, but I never held it against him. When Caspar talked about saving up to buy us a place of our own in the city, I handed over my paycheck without a second thought, ate at street stalls with him, chewed on the day's leftover fruit. All those years, I thought I understood him well enough. I'd been planning to bring him to my father before long, to formally introduce him to my family. I believed that even without my family's blessing, I would keep walking that road beside him. I thought I understood Caspar well enough. But now, looking at that cold, stranger's gaze of his, I finally knew I'd been wrong. Caspar looked at my face, none of the old tenderness there. "Isn't it true? Eve just asked you for a little help, and you turn her down like this. It shows exactly what kind of person you are. You've really let me down!" The commotion soon drew the attention of the coworkers around us. Heads turned our way, and the muttering started. "Lucretia's really going too far. She's just being asked for a hand, and she's putting up all this resistance?" "Right. We're all colleagues. Everyone hits a crunch sometimes. If someone came to me for help, I'd absolutely pitch in." "Eve's a director's assistant, and Caspar's a department manager. Two people like that lowering themselves to ask, and she still won't give them the courtesy. That's really something." "Exactly. No wonder Lucretia's still just a low-level nobody. She can't read a room at all." ... Listening to the snide remarks around us, Eve and Caspar couldn't help the smug look creeping onto their faces. The way they saw it, I'd cave under all the pointing and whispering soon enough and finally agree. The moment I took on the work, they could pin the whole mess on me. Caspar acted like he'd already won. Even his tone softened. "Lucretia, stop making a scene. Just say yes." "When you're done tonight, I'll go home and cook you something really nice." I used to think all of Caspar's little kindnesses came from loving me. But now, looking at that two-faced expression of his, I finally understood. It had only ever been a way to use me. I ignored the gossip around me and looked straight at Caspar and Eve. "If that's how you see it, then fine!" "But I'll say it again. I can't help." Eve froze where she stood. Caspar was caught off guard. He hadn't expected that answer, and his face changed in an instant. "Lucretia, do you really have to make me lose face like this?" I looked at Caspar, my expression calm. "Caspar, I think I've made myself perfectly clear. I can't help." Caspar was worked up now. He coughed twice. "Fine, fine, fine! Lucretia, you're really something. Since that's how you want it, don't blame me for not sparing you any face." "Lucretia, as department manager, I'm now ordering you to finish this work. Otherwise, you can go wait at HR to be fired."

The moment Caspar spat out that threat, the little crowd that had gathered to watch understood this had turned serious, and one by one they dropped their heads, not daring to look this way anymore. They were only ordinary employees. If they got on the wrong side of Caspar and Eve, even a few small, quiet obstacles thrown in their path would be more than they could handle. To them, in that moment, I was already finished. I looked at the cold, expressionless face in front of me, and something close to laughter stirred in my chest. How exactly had I been so blind, back then, to ever fall for someone like him. Caspar's threat didn't touch me in the least. With who I really was, no one in this company could force me to do a single thing I didn't want to do, not unless I allowed it. I only kept my head down. "Manager Finch, I don't report to your department. If you want me to do something, please contact my own manager first. Reaching across departments is a serious breach of company management." I picked up the file he'd tossed onto my desk and put it back into Eve's hands beside him, then pointed at the computer in front of me. "If there's nothing else, please don't interfere with my work, Manager Finch." At my tone, Caspar's face grew uglier still, and he jabbed a trembling finger at me. "Fine. Fine. Lucretia James, you just wait!" With that, Caspar turned and led Eve out. 【Lucretia, well done. That's exactly how you refuse them!】 【Don't let your guard down. They're already plotting something new.】 The voice in my ear rose again. I looked toward the break room a little way off, where Caspar and Eve stood discussing something, and let out a cold, quiet laugh. They wanted to frame me? I'd like to see just what tricks they thought they had. I paid them no more mind and got back to my own work. These few years grinding away at the bottom of the company had given me a sharper and sharper understanding of how the whole place actually ran. After work I walked out of the building and saw Caspar's car parked there from a distance. When he spotted me, he gave a cold snort, then walked Eve around and settled her into the passenger seat. Back when he first bought that car, Caspar had promised me the passenger seat was mine and no one else's. At the time I'd been genuinely moved. Honestly, that little car of his had never meant anything to me. Growing up, I'd never chased after these things much, but my father had never once let me go without. Not only could I drive any of the luxury cars at home whenever I pleased; on my coming-of-age day he'd even had a custom pink luxury car made for me, worth tens of millions. I just never drove it. After I started dating Caspar, I rode an electric scooter to work every single day. I'd thought that watching Caspar walk Eve to the passenger seat would leave me angry, would leave me burning. But in that moment I was perfectly calm, as if not a single ripple stirred in me. Once their car had disappeared down the road, I took out my phone and called my father. "Dad, I'm coming home tonight. Come pick me up." On the other end my father went still for a beat, then said, excited, "Wonderful. Where are you? I'll send someone right now." Before long, a stretch Rolls-Royce pulled up to the company entrance. William Brewer, the old butler, stepped out, and the moment he saw me he bent to open the door. "Miss!" I nodded and got into the car. "William, thank you for coming." That evening I got home. In several years, this was the first time I'd come home outside of the holidays. Mom and Dad, whom I hadn't seen in so long, had made a lavish spread just for me. Eating that lavish meal, it suddenly struck me how utterly pointless everything I'd done for Caspar these past years had been. After dinner, lying on that high-end mattress worth several hundred thousand, I kept my eyes open. I wonder what kind of surprise the two of you have in store for me tomorrow.

The next morning I rode in with my father and came to the office. The moment I stepped inside, the usual noise was gone. The whole floor sat quiet. I went to my desk and sat down. Darlene Fox, the new intern a few seats over, leaned her head toward me, handed me a cup of coffee, and said with a face full of gossip. "Did you hear? Something huge blew up at the company!" I set my bag down, took the coffee, and had a small sip. "What happened?" Darlene pointed toward the general manager's office. I looked where she was pointing and saw every department head and manager in the company crammed into General Manager Joseph Rodriguez's office. Joseph, who was always mild, looked grim right now, his palm coming down hard on the desk in front of him. I couldn't hear a word he was saying in there, but one look at his face told me exactly how furious he was. Darlene edged closer, careful about it. "I heard them saying it's a problem with the contract between us and Quill Group. Sounds like we're on the hook for tens of millions." "General Manager Rodriguez called all the department heads in first thing this morning and said this has to be investigated, no exceptions." Nothing on my face changed. From the moment that voice told me yesterday that they were still working their scheme, I'd already guessed it would end like this. It wasn't that I didn't want to head off the loss. It was that when I saw that contract yesterday, I already knew the damage was done. Even if I'd exposed them right then, it would have changed nothing. Since I couldn't change the result, all I could do was find another way to recover from it. I turned to look at Darlene. I actually liked this new intern. She was a little lively and all over the place, but she took her work seriously. "Stop chasing gossip. It's got nothing to do with us. You'd be better off figuring out how to get your position made permanent." At my words Darlene's face fell at once, her little mouth puffing out like a hamster's. "It's too hard. Those old-timers walk all over us!" "We interns finally manage to get some results, and people like Eve Fox just swoop in and take the credit." I smiled a little. It didn't surprise me. These days grinding away at the bottom rungs of the company had taught me a fair amount about how things really worked here. Just then the door to General Manager Rodriguez's office swung open. Eve Fox walked out, with Joseph and Caspar Finch and the rest trailing behind her. Eve came right up to me, her face all wounded, and pointed at me. "Mr. Rodriguez, this whole thing is Lucretia James's fault. She's the one who put that contract together." I looked at Eve and the rest of them. "I did not put that contract together!" I'd barely finished before Caspar stepped out and planted himself in front of me. "Lucretia, you really are a disappointment. All you had to do was admit it, and the company would've left you some dignity." "But since you'd rather die than own up, there's no reason for us to spare your feelings either. We saw this coming a long time ago, and we've already nailed down all the proof." Caspar pulled a file from behind his back, pointed at the figures on it, and started laying it out for Joseph behind him. "Mr. Rodriguez, this is the data we pulled off the company's backend server. Yesterday Lucretia James's account logged into the server, submitted that contract, and altered several key figures in it. This is the evidence she left behind of what she did." Joseph pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and took the evidence report Caspar handed over. He read it over carefully, then slid the data report across to me. "Lucretia James, do you have anything to say for yourself now?"