Chapter 8 - The Rejection and Collapse
“For old times' sake?” Anna repeated softly.
She stood up from her desk and walked slowly around the dark wood, stopping three feet away from him.
“Do you know what I remember about the old times, Mark?” she asked, her eyes holding his with relentless clarity. “I remember standing under an awning outside La Fontaine on a forty-degree night.”
Mark flinched as if she had struck him across the face.
“I remember watching you open my birthday gift—the umbrella I spent three weeks researching and paid extra to customize—over Chloe Stratton’s head,” Anna continued, her voice even, steady, and razor-sharp. “I remember telling you my phone was dead and I had no money. And I remember you looking at me and saying, ‘Go home, Anna.’”
Mark closed his eyes, a shiver running through his body. “Anna... I was stupid. I was blind. I made a terrible mistake—”
“No,” Anna interrupted firmly. “You didn't make a mistake. You made a choice. You looked at my sacrifices, my hard work, and my loyalty, and you decided I was worthless because I didn't have a corporate title.”
She stepped closer, looking down at his damp, wrinkled suit.
“You asked me that night what career I had,” Anna said smoothly. “You asked me what I had ever accomplished. Well, Mark... this is my career. I built this company. I lead these people. I decide who enters this building, and who gets trusted with our capital.”
She picked up his resume from the table, walked over to the paper shredder near the door, and slid the pages directly into the slot.
The machine hummed to life, swallowing Mark’s career history in three seconds flat, reducing it to tiny white strips.
“You are unhireable, Mark,” Anna said, turning back to face him. “Not because you failed in Portland. But because you are a man without honor, without loyalty, and without character. And a man who leaves his partner in the rain will eventually betray anyone who gives him a roof.”
Mark stood frozen in the center of the room, his mouth open, completely destroyed.
Anna looked at the board members. “We’re finished here. Please bring in the next candidate.”
Two tall security guards in black suits stepped through the conference room doors, standing on either side of Mark.
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“This way, sir,” one of the guards said sternly, gripping Mark’s elbow.
Mark looked back at Anna one last time as he was led toward the door. She had already turned her back to him, picking up her coffee mug, looking out over the panoramic view of the bay where the morning sun was finally breaking through the clouds.
