Parted After The StormChapter 2

There was a time when he would drive across the entire city just to pick me up from a grueling client dinner. Now, I was out of the way.

Back at my desk, I logged into the HR portal and pulled up the evaluation matrix.

Next to my name, Silas had entered his final score: 58 out of 100.

Out of six board members, he gave me the absolute lowest score.

I scrolled down to the next page. Next to Mina's name, his score read: 98.

I stared at that glowing 58, feeling like the air had been sucked out of my lungs. I could not breathe.

I never expected the fatal blow to come from Silas. He knew exactly what I had sacrificed over the last six years better than anyone alive. He had watched every midnight overtime shift, every sleepless night before a pitch, every flawless quarterly report.

Yet he gave me a failing grade.

"Why?" I whispered to the empty office.

The only answer was the wet slap of a tear hitting my keyboard, followed by the sudden, heavy drumming of rain against the floor-to-ceiling windows.

By the time I unlocked the door to our apartment, I was soaked to the bone.

Silas was sitting on the leather sofa, a laptop balanced on his knees. He did not even bother to look up.

"I told you to take an umbrella this morning."

No dry towel. No hot tea. Not even a shred of genuine concern.

I stood in the entryway. Cold rainwater dripped from my hair, pooling onto the hardwood floor.

"You gave me a 58 on the evaluation," I said, my voice hollow. "You gave Mina a 98. Why did you give her the highest score and fail me?"

Silas set his laptop on the glass coffee table and leaned back into the cushions.

"Because it is fair."

"Fair?"

"People in the office are starting to catch on to our relationship," he said, his tone entirely clinical. "The other board members gave you high scores to save face for me. If I also gave you a high score, the entire evaluation process would lose its integrity. Someone had to give you a reality check, and it had to be me."

I stared at him, a bitter, broken laugh escaping my lips.

"Silas, it has been six years. I have never used you to get a single advantage. I bled for every account I brought in. I applied for this promotion based entirely on my data. You know that better than anyone."

He picked up a glass of water, took a slow sip, and set it down with a sharp clink.

"You still have not learned how the corporate world works, Aria. If people think you rely on nepotism, then you rely on nepotism. Period. I gave Mina the highest score because she gave her presentation without looking at her notes. She was passionate, composed, and she earned it."

"So you are admitting it," I said, my voice rising. "You gave her a 98 not because of her actual competence, but because you liked her attitude?"

Silas stood up, towering over me with a disappointed scowl.

"Can you stop playing the victim every time you face a minor setback? You lost. Deal with it."

I tilted my head back, desperately trying to force the tears down, but my eyes burned like fire.

"If I actually lost to her purely on merit, I would shake her hand and walk away. But I lost because of you! Because my boyfriend of six years, the man who saw every ounce of my blood and sweat, decided to play God! Your 58 dragged my average from first place down to fifth!"

Silas clicked his tongue, his patience clearly evaporating.

"This right here is exactly the difference between you and her. If Mina lost today, she would smile and congratulate you. She stays positive. She does not point fingers. And look at you. You just stand there wallowing in your own misery."

A hysterical laugh tore from my throat as the tears finally spilled over.

"I have been wallowing in misery for six years, Silas! Do you know what I am actually miserable about? The fact that I never got to have a normal relationship! Six years of splitting the check, six years of rejecting your gifts, six years of refusing to get in your car just so the whole company could audit my achievements with a microscope."