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The sterile quiet of the ladies' restroom offered Eleanor little comfort. She stood staring at her reflection in the mirror, her face pale, her eyes wide and wounded. The image that stared back was a stranger – a woman betrayed, her heart aching with a pain that felt both sharp and profound. Marcus’s distrust had cut deeper than she could have imagined. After everything they had shared, for him to so readily believe those fabricated emails… it felt like the ultimate betrayal.
Outside the restroom, Eleanor's world began to collapse in slow motion. There were whispers near the water cooler. HR called requesting a “brief check-in.” Colleagues exchanged glances when she passed, eyes a little too wide, smiles a little too forced. She felt the shift in the air—the undercurrent of suspicion, the tight-lipped tension. The fallout had begun.
She splashed cold water on her face, trying to regain some semblance of composure. Her hands trembled as she reached for her phone. There was only one person she could turn to, one person who would believe her without question.
Lea answered on the second ring, her usual cheerful tone tinged with concern. “El? What’s wrong? You sound… off.”
Eleanor’s carefully constructed dam of composure finally broke. The sobs came first, ragged and uncontrollable, before she could finally choke out the story of the email, of Marcus’s cold accusation, of the devastating look in his eyes.
Lea listened in silence, her initial concern quickly morphing into a furious indignation. “Fake emails? Accusing you of betraying the company? Eleanor, that has Sienna’s claw marks all over it!”
Eleanor closed her eyes, her voice barely audible. “I thought I could handle this. The secrets. The tension. But the look in his eyes… He didn’t even question it, Lea. Not for a second. Like he’d been waiting to believe the worst in me.”
“And that’s on him, not you,” Lea snapped. “Marcus is being a jackass, and if he’s letting his ego cloud his judgment, then he doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. But I do. And I know you. I know you’d never do this.”
“But maybe I was foolish,” Eleanor whispered. “To think anything real could come out of… whatever this is between us. I thought we were building something. I thought… I don’t know. Maybe I was falling for him.” Her voice cracked.
The confession felt like a betrayal of her own rules, her own walls. How had she let it get this far?
“Eleanor,” Lea said, voice softening, “you’re not a fool. You’re human. You had one night with him five years ago and built an entire life on your own. That doesn’t make you weak. It makes you strong. And maybe this hurts so much because it matters. Because he matters.”
Eleanor sank onto the bench, curling her arms around herself. “He doesn’t love me, Lea. He doesn’t even trust me. It must’ve all just been lust for him.”
“Then he’s a bigger fool than I thought,” Lea said, deadly calm. “Because if he can’t see how extraordinary you are, if he can’t tell the difference between a manipulative heiress and a woman who’s sacrificed everything for the truth, then he doesn’t deserve you.”
“But Leo…” Eleanor whispered, her voice breaking again. “At least I’ve kept him safe. He’ll never know this pain.”
Lea’s heart broke for her friend, but she also felt a surge of fire. “You’ve done everything right, El. And now we’re going to fix this. I’m going to find out where those emails came from. I know people who can trace digital fingerprints. If Sienna planted this, we’ll expose her.”
Meanwhile, in his office, Marcus stared at the printouts on his desk, the corners now creased and curled from his restless fingers. He had read the emails over and over again, trying to feel certain. But instead of conviction, all he felt was unease. Eleanor’s face haunted him—her voice when she said, “Maybe you never really knew me.”
The pain in her eyes had cut him deeper than he wanted to admit. And the deeper he tried to believe her guilt, the more something gnawed at his gut.
Sienna, on the other hand, basked in temporary triumph. She poured herself a glass of wine, imagining Eleanor packing up her things, humiliated, broken. But her satisfaction was brittle, too sharp around the edges. Because even now, part of her knew—Marcus hadn’t looked at her the way he’d looked at Eleanor on the dance floor. Not even close.
Eleanor nodded slowly, wiping her face. A fragile sense of strength flickered to life within her. It wasn’t over.
Because Lea was right.
Sienna had made a grave mistake.
And this wasn’t the end of Eleanor’s story.
It was just the beginning of her fight back.
