Chapter 3

The Rule Everyone Breaks

By the third day of Thea’s internship, everyone in the Sales Department knew that the new intern had somehow survived an encounter with Felix Carter.

Nobody knew exactly what had happened behind the closed conference-room doors, but the story had already been embellished several times by the time it reached her.

According to one version, Felix had been so impressed by her confidence that he had decided to personally keep an eye on her. According to another, she had somehow caught his attention. Someone else had apparently decided that the CEO simply liked pretty women and that Thea had been lucky enough to fit the description.

Thea heard the whispers without acknowledging them.

She had more important things to worry about.

Her first few days had taught her that being ignored was preferable to being noticed for the wrong reasons, so she kept her head down and concentrated on her work. She arrived early, checked every spreadsheet twice before submitting it, and kept copies of anything she sent through the company system. When she was not given a document she needed for an assignment, she found another way to obtain the information instead of complaining about it.

The changes were subtle at first.

She would arrive for a meeting and discover that the invitation had somehow never reached her. A document she had been told to review would disappear from the shared folder shortly before she needed it. On one occasion, she was given an assignment that had already been completed by another intern and was told to repeat the work anyway.

Thea noticed.

She simply refused to give anyone the satisfaction of seeing her react.

If someone wanted her to make a mistake, she would make sure they had to work much harder for it.

One afternoon, Antia stopped beside her desk while Thea was sorting through a stack of reports.

“You know people are talking about you, right?”

Thea looked up from her computer. “I assumed they were.”

Antia gave her an amused look. “You don't seem particularly bothered.”

“I am bothered. I'm just not interested in giving them anything else to talk about.”

That earned a small laugh from Antia.

“Well, whatever you're doing, keep doing it. Around here, reputation matters almost as much as performance.”

Thea nodded and returned to her work, but Antia remained beside the desk for another moment.

“There is one thing you should know, though. Carter Group has a strict policy concerning relationships between employees, especially when there is a direct reporting line involved.”

Thea stared at her.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because half the department already thinks you're getting special treatment from the CEO.”

Thea nearly laughed.

“That's ridiculous.”

“I know.”

“I have spoken to Mr. Carter twice.”

“Which is apparently enough for people to write an entire romance novel.”

Thea shook her head. “There is nothing between us.”

Antia's expression became knowingly amused.

“I didn't say there was.”

Thea sighed and closed the folder in front of her.

“I'm here because I need the internship. I'm not interested in Mr. Carter, and I certainly didn't ask him to treat me differently.”

Antia studied her for a moment before nodding.

“I believe you. Unfortunately, you can't control what everyone else believes.”

She started to walk away, then glanced back.

“Funny thing about rules. The more firmly they are written, the more people tend to break them behind closed doors.”

Thea gave her a skeptical look.

“I'm not planning to break any rules.”

Antia smiled.

“Neither did anyone else.”

She walked away before Thea could respond.

Thea shook her head and returned to her work.

Whatever everyone else wanted to imagine, she had no time for it.

She needed the internship. She needed the salary. She needed to graduate, find a stable job, and somehow keep Mia's medical treatment going without spending every month wondering where the next payment would come from.

That was all that mattered.

A few days later, Thea was reviewing regional pricing spreadsheets when she noticed something that did not look right.

She went back through the figures twice before comparing them against the original client contracts. One of the North American accounts had been assigned a discount that was almost three percent higher than the rate specified in the contract.

Three percent might not have sounded significant on paper, but the account was large enough that the difference represented a considerable amount of money.

Thea checked the previous quarter's records, compared the figures with the current pricing structure, and finally traced the error to a formula that had been carried over incorrectly during the last update.

She brought it to Antia.

“I think there may be a problem with this account.”

Antia took the spreadsheet from her and studied it.

“Where did you find this?”

“The regional pricing report. The formula in this section is pulling the previous discount rate instead of the revised one.”

Antia checked the figures herself, then looked back at Thea.

“You're right.”

Thea waited.

Antia smiled.

“Good catch.”

It was a simple sentence, but Thea felt something loosen inside her.

No gossip. No pity. No assumptions about why she had been hired.

She had found the mistake because she had done her job properly.

For the first time since arriving at Carter Group, Thea felt that perhaps she could actually prove herself here.

That evening, most of the Sales Department had already emptied out by the time Felix returned from a meeting.

He had not planned on going through the Sales floor. He was simply passing through when something familiar caught his attention.

The scent was faint, almost hidden beneath the smell of coffee and paper, but he recognized it immediately.

Lemon laundry detergent.

His steps slowed.

Through the glass walls of the open office, he saw Thea sitting alone at her desk, still working.

It was almost eight in the evening.

Felix looked at the clock, then back at her.

She had been there for hours.

His first instinct was irritation. Not at her, but at the people who had allowed an intern to remain in the office this late without checking whether she had eaten.

His second was something far less reasonable.

He walked toward her desk.

Thea did not notice him until his shadow fell across her laptop.

She looked up and immediately straightened in her chair.

“Mr. Carter.”

“You're still working.”

Thea glanced at the report on her screen before looking back at him.

“I have a report to finish.”

Felix looked at the untouched food beside her laptop.

“You haven't eaten.”

Thea followed his gaze and gave a small sigh.

“I know.”

“Then eat.”

“I will, but I want to finish this first.”

“You've been working since morning.”

“And if I leave it unfinished, I'll spend half the night worrying about it anyway.”

Felix frowned slightly.

“You are an intern, Thea. You don't need to work yourself sick to prove that you deserve the position.”

She looked at him for a moment before answering.

“I'm not trying to prove anything to you,” she said, perhaps a little too quickly. “I'm trying to make sure nobody has a reason to say I don't deserve it.”

Something about the answer caught his attention.

“Because of the gossip?”

“Because of everything.”

She finally turned away from the screen and faced him properly.

“People already think you gave me special treatment because you didn't fire me. If I start making mistakes now, they'll assume they were right. I can't afford that.”

Felix watched her quietly.

“So you're going to exhaust yourself trying to convince people who have already decided what they think?”

Thea hesitated, then gave him a tired look.

“You don't understand.”

“Then explain it.”

She leaned back in her chair.

“I need this job, Mr. Carter. I don't have the luxury of letting people dislike me and hoping it won't affect anything. I have to be good at what I do.”

For a moment, Felix said nothing.

There was something about the way she said it that felt strangely familiar.

Not the words themselves, but the refusal to soften them simply because she was speaking to someone with more authority than her.

Daniel had that same habit.

Felix had noticed it months ago during their late-night conversations. Daniel could disagree with him without becoming argumentative, and he never seemed intimidated by Felix's opinions. He simply listened, considered what had been said, and told him exactly why he thought Felix was wrong.

Thea was doing the same thing now.

The realization unsettled him more than it should have.

The corner of his mouth lifted.

“You really are stubborn.”

“Only when someone is being unreasonable.”

His smile became slightly more noticeable.

“And you consider me unreasonable?”

“At this moment?” Thea glanced at the untouched food beside her laptop. “Yes.”

Felix almost laughed.

Almost.

Instead, he shook his head.

“Finish what you're doing, then go home. The report will still exist tomorrow.”

Thea looked at him suspiciously.

“Is that an order?”

“Yes.”

“Fine.”

Felix turned to leave, then stopped.

“And take the food with you.”

Thea looked at the container.

“I can eat it here.”

“You've already proved that you're incapable of remembering to eat while working.”

“I remembered.”

“You remembered after I pointed it out.”

She opened her mouth, thought better of arguing, and picked up the food.

“Good night, Mr. Carter.”

“Good night, Thea.”

Felix walked away, but the faint smile remained on his face for several seconds after he left.

He did not like how easily she could make him forget himself.

He liked even less how familiar she sometimes felt.

When Felix reached his office, his expression had changed.

“Get me the access logs for the Sales Department for the last seven days,” he told his assistant.

The assistant looked surprised.

“Is there a problem?”

“I'm not sure yet.”

Felix entered his office and closed the door.

A few minutes later, the first set of records appeared on his screen.

He went through the meeting invitations, shared-folder activity, document permissions, and internal workflow changes involving Thea's assignments.

There were several irregularities.

Someone had removed her from two meeting invitations after they had already been sent. Another document had been moved from a shared folder and returned less than an hour later. One of her assignments had been reassigned and then given back to her after the original deadline had nearly passed.

Individually, none of the incidents meant much.

Together, they were difficult to dismiss as coincidence.

Felix leaned back in his chair and looked at the records again.

Someone was trying to make Thea fail.

The question was who.

He picked up his phone.

“Have Security audit the access records connected to Thea Roth's assignments,” he instructed. “I want to know who made every change, when it was made, and what account was used.”

There was a brief pause on the other end.

“Do you want the department head informed?”

“No.”

Felix looked toward the dark windows overlooking the city.

“Not yet.”

Across the building, Thea finished her report, packed the food Felix had insisted she take, and finally left the office.

She had no idea that someone had been quietly interfering with her work.

She only knew that she had to keep going.

She had no idea that the most powerful person in the company had already noticed the pattern.

And she certainly did not know that Felix Carter was beginning to investigate the people who wanted her gone