Riding Wind Thousand Miles Seeking Stars, Vanishing Traceless

I drank myself into a perforated ulcer to land a fifty-million-dollar deal for my executive boyfriend, and I checked myself into the hospital alone so he wouldn't worry.

But before I could even be discharged, someone made up a sex rumor about me, and I was facing termination.

I swallowed the hurt and asked him to clear my name.

On the other end of the video call, he didn't even turn his camera on.

"There's no smoke without fire. You're not trying to use this as an excuse to make our relationship public again, are you?"

"Figure out how to put your clothes back on first, then we'll talk."

The call was still open when his message popped up in the company group chat, tagging everyone.

Congratulations to Bridget on landing a multimillion-dollar deal and her promotion to Sales Manager. I hope everyone learns from her example!

And doesn't behave like certain people, who only ever take crooked shortcuts.

While my coworkers openly trashed me in the group chat, calling me a stripper, Bridget posted a photo of herself and Percy Whitney at a bar on her social media.

No caption, but it was enough to convince everyone the two of them were about to become official.

I believed it too. My eight-year secret relationship was over.

I pushed down the bitterness and, following my coworkers' lead, liked Bridget's post.

Percy suddenly switched his camera on, brows furrowed.

"Muriel, stop it!"

I'd done nothing but tap a like, and he acted like the sky was falling.

Was he afraid I'd expose our secret relationship, or afraid I'd make trouble for Bridget? I didn't know.

And I no longer wanted to know.

Yet he offered me an explanation anyway.

"I didn't answer your calls last night because I didn't want you overthinking things."

"The girl wanted to go out to a bar after landing the big deal, to see something new."

"I wasn't comfortable letting her go alone, so I went with her."

The girl he was talking about was exactly three days younger than me.

While he was worrying about her, I was drinking myself into the ER to land a fifty-million-dollar deal for him.

After they pulled me through, I was afraid he'd worry, and I spent a long time coming up with a reason to set his mind at ease.

I opened my call log. Thirty missed calls, every one of them mocking how naive I'd been.

I was silent for a long time before I told him:

"That deal was mine."

Percy scoffed.

"Muriel, just because you've landed a few big deals doesn't mean every big deal belongs to you."

"Bridget's name is on the contract. Trying to grab what isn't yours won't get you anywhere."

He held up the contract for me to see.

At the sales representative's signature line, it really did say Bridget Vance.

Before I could say a word, Percy ended the call.

I immediately called Mr. Lambert and asked why the signature on the contract had become Bridget's.

He was taken aback.

"I didn't want to disturb you in the hospital, so I had the contract sent to your company. Your name was on it as the recipient."

Just then, Mr. Lambert received the copy signed and stamped by Zenith Group.

When he saw the name wasn't mine after all, his tone went cold.

"Muriel, if you hadn't said anything, I probably never would have noticed these small details."

Mr. Lambert sent me a photo of the delivery receipt.

At the signature line was Bridget's handwriting.

Mr. Lambert started a group chat with the three of us to help clear things up for me.

But Percy didn't believe me.

Instead, he told Mr. Lambert:

She's just a sales rep. It doesn't matter who signs, as long as it carries Zenith Group's official stamp.

From now on, all business will be handled by Manager Vance directly with you.

The next second, he added Bridget to the group and made a grand introduction.

Mr. Lambert, Manager Vance is highly capable, not like Muriel Simmons, who gets everything done by cutting corners.

Mr. Lambert couldn't read his hints, and could only call me again.

"Muriel, did you cross your boss somehow?"

After a lot of hesitation, I told him about the sex rumor being spread about me.

Mr. Lambert was instantly furious.

"Then his next move is definitely to fire you! If Zenith Group treats you like this, there's no point signing this contract at all!"

I didn't quite believe Percy would be cold enough to go that far.

"Mr. Lambert, my boss shouldn't do that to me."

The moment the call ended, an email popped up on my phone.

It was the termination notice Percy had already approved.

The reason for termination: low competence since joining, and poor moral conduct.

I sat there stunned for a long time, my heart like a plum steeped in ice water.

Ignoring the doctor's objections, I insisted on discharging myself and went to the office.

The moment I walked in, every gaze on me was full of scorn and mockery.

"Well, if it isn't our stripper queen!"

"How does she still have the nerve to show her face here!"

"Do you guys smell that? I feel dirty!"

I ignored them and headed straight for Percy's office.

But out of nowhere, a male coworker I'd once rejected without mercy jumped out, tipped up my chin, and drawled:

"Muriel Simmons, I hear you'll do anything to land a deal. How about I hand you a few clients, and you give me a rock-bottom price?"

The crowd burst out laughing.

"Rock-bottom price, please! If they're handing clients over to her for free, it'll obviously be free too!"

The laughter drew Percy out.

He stepped out of his office to see exactly this: Everard Chavez pressed up against me.

He flew into a rage on the spot.

"Everyone, overtime tonight!"

"Muriel Simmons, get in here!"

The moment the door shut, Percy raised his hand and slapped me across the face.

"Muriel Simmons, are you really that desperate? As long as it's a man, you don't care who it is?"

My cheek burned, and the taste of blood spread through my mouth.

I refused to let it go and threw the question back at him.

"Why fire me? I'm the one who landed the big account. Someone's jealous of me, so they started that rumor, and that's why Everard put his hands on me"

He cut me off, cold.

"Bridget wouldn't lie to me. She landed big accounts too. Why doesn't anyone smear her? Why doesn't Everard harass her?"

Bridget wouldn't lie to him. And I would?

Ever since Percy was found by his birth parents, our relationship had been kept in the dark.

Because as the true heir, he had a fiance on paper. Bridget Vance.

For that, I'd thought about giving this up.

But Percy wouldn't have it. He said it was me or no one.

To be worthy of him, I threw myself into every project I could in college, and in the end I got into his family's company on my own merit.

Then he decided a bachelor's degree wasn't respectable enough, and had HR pull the offer.

I worked my way through a master's at a top-ranked school and got hired again.

Then, in the name of toughening me up, he blocked me at every performance review.

To prove myself, I clawed my way through the sales assistant role and landed one big account after another.

Then he said he needed those accounts to beat out the false heir.

So I handed him every account I closed, to give him something solid to stand on.

While my coworkers laughed that I'd been here three years without a single client worth mentioning, he made me a promise.

"Muriel, the next big one is yours to keep. When that happens, I'll go public about us, and I'll get you promoted."

But when I landed the fifty-million account, and Percy finally had his footing at Zenith Group, the first thing he did was promote Bridget.

And appear in her social feed.

Everyone was certain Bridget would be the future Mrs. Whitney.

Who would smear her?

Who would dare touch her?

I stared down at the termination notice in my hand, my eyes stinging, raw.

Those few reasons for dismissal, bolded and blacked in, were everything Percy thought of me.

The tears came anyway, in a rush I couldn't stop.

Before, the sight of me crying used to send him into a panic. Now it only made him more impatient.

"Muriel, can't you be reasonable for once?"

"When the time is right, I'll take you to meet my parents, and then I'll marry you!"

He'd said that line more times than I could count.

Before, I'd taken this dead-end love as proof that I wasn't good enough.

Now I knew going public had nothing to do with being good enough.

"If you want to marry Bridget, you can break up with me out in the open. There's no need to team up with her and use something this disgusting to force me out."

Percy rubbed the space between his brows, his face worn from a night without sleep.

"You behaved badly. Don't drag Bridget into it!"

"And don't use a breakup to pressure me into marrying you. It's really pointless!"

"Mr. Lambert is old enough to be your father. With the reputation you have now, how am I supposed to take you home to my parents?"

With that, he threw a photo in my face.

In it, Mr. Lambert's hand was at my waist.

It was from last night, when my stomach perforated and I threw up blood. Mr. Lambert saw me about to fall and steadied me on instinct.

"Muriel, you're too hungry for quick wins. I never said I wouldn't marry you, but you can't just..."

He didn't finish.

But the disappointment in his eyes said all of it.

Anyone in the world could doubt me over that photo. Percy couldn't.

If I hadn't clawed one big account after another to give him a foothold in the Whitney family, he'd have been nothing but the sidelined true heir in that game of real and fake sons.

I couldn't tell which hurt more, my face or my chest.

"You don't believe I landed Mr. Lambert's account?"

"You don't believe there was nothing between me and the client either?"

Percy pulled out more photos of me drinking with clients.

"How am I supposed to believe you?"

"Clients I couldn't close, and somehow you can?"

"You're going to tell me there wasn't some dirty deal behind it?"

So it turned out he'd never seen any of what I gave.

He'd taken it all with a clear conscience, and then turned around and doubted the kind of person I was.

My phone buzzed. Mr. Lambert had messaged again.

Muriel, I know everything now. The contract with Zenith is void, effective immediately.

If you're interested in coming to my company, this order's whole supply chain is yours to run. And if you'd rather not, once you've lined up your next place, I'll sign directly with you.

Mr. Lambert's loyalty and trust warmed something in me.

Even a client I'd worked with for the first time could believe in me like this, while the man I'd loved for eight years wouldn't.

But Percy had gotten one thing right. What isn't mine, I shouldn't cling to.

And what is mine, I have to fight for.

To Percy's face, I ran the numbers.

Of the ten deals I'd handed him to get himself established, five were the big ones.

By company policy, my commission came to three hundred eighty-eight thousand.

The one Bridget stole didn't count, since Luke Lambert hadn't signed yet.

Add the severance for firing me without cause, and it came to exactly four hundred fifty thousand.

"Percy, I'll leave Zenith, but every cent you owe me, I want it, down to the penny!"

Eight years together, and it was the first time I'd spoken to him that hard.

Percy stared at the tally, uneasy for reasons he couldn't name, and his tone softened a great deal.

"Muriel, it's not that I don't believe you. It's that enough voices can melt metal!"

"Firing you was a decision by everyone at the top. Your share, I'll pay out of my own pocket. If you love me, don't put me in a hard spot, all right?"

"Fine."

Seeing that I wasn't going to make a scene, he pulled out his phone and transferred the money right away.

I turned and walked without a word.

Watching me go, he felt an irritation he couldn't explain.

Instinct took over, and he grabbed my arm.

"Muriel, if your new company runs a background check, I'll cover the real reason you left. And if you really can't find work, I'll support you."

"No need."

I pulled my hand free, ignored the darkness in his face, and went back to my desk to pack up.

The coworkers who had to stay late because of me grew bolder with their jeers.

"Well, look who got canned!"

"Where's the next stop on the money train, huh?"

"Straight back to working the street? Or hanging it all up and marrying that gullible boyfriend of yours?"

Percy passed right by me and did nothing to stop the insults.

But his clenched fists told me he was furious enough to burst.

He'd insisted on making a fool of himself. Serves him right to choke on it.

I tugged the corner of my mouth into something like a smile, picked up my box, and left Zenith.

The moment I stepped into the elevator, Bridget brushed past me.

Before I could even turn, she suddenly screamed.

"Ah! Muriel, why did you push me?"

Then a wave of scalding heat hit my back, liquid sliding down my spine.

I turned to see Bridget crumpled on the floor, her face streaked with tears.

The boiling water in her hand had soaked me head to foot.

Her sobbing drew the coworkers at once.

Percy was the first to storm over, face black, and cut me down coldly.

"Muriel Simmons! Are you done causing scenes?"

Bridget struggled to get up and failed.

She could only cling to Percy's hand and choke out,

"Muriel, if you're jealous of me, you don't have to do this."

I forced back the pain and called her out.

"I didn't push you. You threw boiling water on me!"

But not one of them believed me.

The coworkers looked at me with contempt.

"You're obviously jealous, Manager Vance getting promoted and about to become Mrs. Whitney!"

"Right, Manager Vance thinks you're too filthy to even look at. Why would she throw water on you?"

"If you ask me, you staged the whole thing yourself!"

Instinctively I looked at Percy.

"I didn't. It really was her..."

He shoved me hard to the floor.

"Bridget is the kindest person there is. How could she bully you?"

Pain stabbed through my tailbone, and with the burning across my back, one small movement made the tears spill on their own.

I shouldn't have hoped he would believe me.

If he had, the rumor never would have hurt me.

And I never would have ended up like this.

Percy looked at the tears welling in my eyes, disgust plain in his voice.

"Muriel Simmons, is this how you cry in your clients' beds too?"

With that, he scooped Bridget up in his arms and carried her off to the infirmary.

Leaving me behind, with the coworkers pointing and whispering.

I don't know how I made it out of the building.

The second I reached the parking garage, Everard blocked my path and put his hands on me.

"Muriel Simmons, just spend three nights with me, no charge, and I'll explain the truth to Percy for you."

Turned out he'd seen the whole thing, Bridget framing me from start to finish.

"Did you record it?"

Everard shook his head.

I looked at him like he was an idiot.

"Then what makes you think Percy would believe you over Bridget?"

"He might not believe anyone else, but he'll believe me for sure. Just as long as you..."

Everard's revolting stare crawled over me, and it turned my stomach.

"Get lost!"

Seeing me stay this defiant even when the pain had me breaking out in a cold sweat, he simply dragged me into his car.

I struggled with everything I had, and it was all for nothing.

I could only warn him.

"I'm Percy's girlfriend. Let go of me!"

Everard laughed until his eyes watered, like he'd just heard the joke of his life.

Then, mocking me, he pulled out my phone and told me to contact Percy.

"Muriel, if you're really Mr. Whitney's girlfriend, I'll drop to my knees and knock my head on the ground three times to beg your pardon!"

The phone rang once. Percy hung up.

I called again. He hung up again.

In the end, he blocked me.

Everard sneered and wouldn't stop.

"No wonder Ms. Vance has it out for you. Turns out you're trying to steal her man!"

"Someone as cheap as you doesn't even deserve a second glance from Mr. Whitney!"

But when he called Percy, the line picked up at once.

Everard started tattling.

"Mr. Whitney, Muriel says she's your girlfriend, and she won't accept me no matter what I do..."

Percy warned him through gritted teeth.

"Are all the other women in the world dead? You have to keep chasing her? Stay away from her!"

The call ended, and Everard bent down to kiss me.

"Next time, tell a lie that actually holds up. So Mr. Whitney doesn't want you, no big deal. Everard here will treat you right!"

My scream of despair finally drew the security guard on patrol in the garage.

And he called the police for me.

Everard was hauled away.

I went back to the hospital alone.

When the doctor saw me come back in this state after barely two hours gone, he couldn't help scolding me.

"I've never met anyone as much trouble as you! Who on earth has such a hold on you that you keep throwing your own life away?"

I tugged the corner of my mouth into a faint smile and said softly,

"It won't happen again."

He kept scolding, but he still dressed the burns on my back with care and set up the exams.

When the X-ray came back showing the fractured tailbone, the doctor told me sternly,

"A fracture there can't be casted. Rest is all you can do. Until the burns heal, you can only sleep on your stomach."

I nodded and headed for the ward. My phone rang, sharp and urgent.

I answered, and Percy came at me shouting.

"Muriel! You're the one who can't keep your own behavior in line, so how dare you call the police and get Everard arrested?"

"Did you already know he was Bridget's distant cousin? Is that why you've been going after him this whole time?"

I froze.

No wonder Everard had toyed with me right in front of Percy and Percy had only dared to slap me.

He'd extended his love for her to her whole family.

"Do you even know what he did to me?"

"Everard told me everything. You caused this on purpose! I've already smoothed it over, so no more scenes!"

"Get to the hospital now and apologize to Bridget and her cousin!"

His idea of smoothing it over was for me to carry the disgrace, swallow every wrong, and go apologize to the man who'd assaulted me.

How absurd.

I hung up and blocked him.

The walk back to the ward wasn't long.

But every step drove the fracture into me like a spike.

I suddenly thought of the mermaid couple's photo Percy had taken me to shoot after his family found him.

He'd said that if he were the prince, he would never mistake the wrong woman for his love.

And he would never let her suffer pain and humiliation for his sake, only to dissolve into sea foam in the end.

Back then, he really had loved me.

So I'd believed that even if our stations didn't match, the two of us would still get a perfect ending.

But reality slapped me hard across the face.

I opened my inbox and replied to the recruiters' emails one by one.

I never expected them to block me outright.

One recruiter even heaped abuse on me.

Muriel, you'd better find some gutter and hide in it for the rest of your life, running that filthy little business of yours!

I understood in an instant. The rumor had already spread through the whole industry.

Only Mr. Lambert and the big client I'd landed earlier believed me.

They messaged me one after another to comfort me.

Muriel, I know you're not that kind of person!

Mr. Lambert even came to the hospital in person and handed me what he'd dug up.

"It was your Mr. Whitney who put out the word. He told the L.A. companies not to hire you."

So Percy had made that termination notice and its stated reasons public.

Only then did I notice he'd texted me.

Muriel, you think blocking me means you don't have to come to the hospital and apologize to Bridget and her cousin?

I'd been busy answering emails and hadn't seen it.

So he sent another, his final ultimatum.

Muriel, if you're not here to apologize within half an hour, I'll just have to find a way to earn Bridget and her cousin's forgiveness for you!

But five minutes later, Everard used his main account to release my termination notice and the rumor photos.

Percy didn't stop him.

He couldn't wait to grind me into the mud, just to make the woman he cared for happy.

And he texted me.

Bridget twisted her ankle because you shoved her, and you won't admit it or answer my messages. So don't blame me for breaking up with you!

He'd done every last thing, then dumped all the blame on me.

I smiled and typed one word.

Fine.

The moment I sent it, Mr. Lambert held out an olive branch.

"Muriel, would you be interested in coming to my New York branch as Sales Director?"

New York, more than a thousand miles from L.A.

I said yes to his offer almost without hesitation.

"Muriel, take your time and get well before you come to New York to start!"

Three days later, I was discharged and packed my things.

Everything in my rented place that had anything to do with Percy, I boxed up and shipped to Zenith Group.

By the time I left for New York, Percy discovered that Mr. Lambert still hadn't signed the contract.

And Bridget, so hungry for quick wins, had already had the company make molds worth ten million dollars.

The materials had been ordered from the supplier too.

All they were waiting for was Mr. Lambert's first payment.

When finance told Percy the deposit still hadn't come in, that was when he realized Mr. Lambert had never signed the contract.

He rushed to reach out to him.

"Mr. Lambert, the molds are done and the materials are mostly ready. When do you think you could arrange the first payment?"

Mr. Lambert, riding along with me to New York, said with a smile,

"Mr. Whitney, I never signed a contract with your company. What payment would I possibly be making?"