Chapter 3

I reorganized the documents and reprinted them.

As I was leaving the printer room, a colleague behind me started complaining loudly:

"I waited an hour in line, and now the printer's out of paper!"

"One print job takes an hour? What a waste of everyone's time!"

"Acting like company paper is free!"

"Never seen anyone so shameless!"

I held the stack of papers and replied coldly, "Director Vanessa requested these prints. If you have a problem, take it up with her."

The colleague scoffed. "Director Vanessa? A director wouldn't print this kind of stuff!"

She shoved a piece of paper at me. The title read:

[How to Seduce a Man: A Detailed Guide]

I frowned and examined it closely.

The content was full of cheap, sleazy tricks.

"Someone as capable as Director Vanessa would never have you print something like this!"

"Making things up without even trying to be convincing. Does she still think she's a director?"

"She's just Vanessa's little lapdog now!"

I clenched my fists, instantly realizing I'd been set up.

Vanessa had hidden this garbage among the thousand pages of documents. How thoughtful of her.

The commotion drew Derek and Vanessa over.

"What's all this noise about?"

The gossipy colleague immediately tattled to Derek.

Derek exploded. "Serena, the company doesn't pay you to play dirty games!"

"Exactly, Serena. I thought you had real talent like me!"

I calmly held up the paper so everyone could see it clearly.

"This looks like a screenshot from some online post. But whoever took it wasn't very smart—they forgot to crop out their profile picture."

Everyone leaned in for a closer look.

"That profile pic... isn't that Director Vanessa...?"

Vanessa's face went pale.

[Damn it! How could I forget to crop out my picture!]

She stammered out an excuse. "I accidentally sent that to Serena along with the other files... But Serena, as an assistant, you should've double-checked everything!"

"What if you'd printed confidential materials for a client meeting this carelessly? You'd be damaging the company's reputation!"

The whispers continued:

"Didn't she say she never stooped to these tactics?"

"Did she sleep her way to the top?"

Vanessa's face flushed red. Derek grabbed her hand to comfort her.

"Vanessa's abilities speak for themselves. I personally promoted her!"

"Everyone has a private life. Let's keep work and personal matters separate. Is gossiping about colleagues really appropriate?"

The crowd finally dispersed.

Derek glanced at me. "The Morrison deal has a networking event in a few days. Go with Vanessa and make sure we close it."

Vanessa immediately objected. "No!"

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