Rejected By The Don, I Crowned Myself Chapter 03
Outside, the sky that had just cleared split open again, sending snow down in wild flurries. A draft. cut through the window, and I shivered.
I sat at my desk with nothing left in me. Around the office, I could hear them laughing. They weren’t even trying to be quiet about it.
That afternoon, I had just finished my resignation letter when Nico called me into his office. His
expression was grim. He threw a stack of transfer authorizations at my feet.
“Do you think this is a game, Evelyn?”
“The transfer order on this front account says three hundred million. It was supposed to be thirty.
You moved the decimal. The entire laundering team is scrambling to fix your mistake right now.”
I picked up the pages. My hands were shaking before I even finished reading.
“That’s impossible.”
I had triple–hecked every line. The zeros most of all. There was no way I’d gotten that wrong.
My eyes slid to Tatiana. She was standing off to the side, and the faintest smile was tugging at her mouth.
“It was you.”
That explained the sudden eagerness this morning, hovering at my desk, playing the eager student,
watching everything I did.
Getting my password would’ve been easy.
“Evelyn!” Nico’s voice cracked like a whip. Every muscle in me locked. His expression was blank,
which was worse than anger.
“So now you’re blaming other people for your own screwup?”
I took a breath. I closed my eyes. I needed my voice to be steady for what came next.
“Fine. Then let’s check the footage. I’m guessing Miss Mancini didn’t know the custom pen holder on my desk has a hidden lens in it.”
Tatiana’s face twitched. Just for a second, but I caught it. Nico pressed his lips together.
I watched him hesitate, and my stomach dropped with every second he didn’t speak.
I didn’t wait for his answer. I grabbed Tatiana by the arm and pulled her out of the office. A crowd had already gathered in the hall.
“Evelyn-” Nico called after me. I kept walking.
I pulled up the footage right there, in front of everyone.
The timestamp said 12:23 p.m. The rest of the office had cleared out for lunch. On screen, Tatiana walked straight to my computer.
The footage showed everything. Every click, every keystroke, every number she changed. Nico’s face went white.
Hushed, terrified murmurs rippled through the crowd. “It really was Tatiana. Does she have a death wish?”
“Christ, crossing the future Donna… Now it’s just a question of who the Boss picks.”
“I’m betting on Tatiana. You guys weren’t around back then. You didn’t see what those two were like together.”
My spine went rigid.
I forced myself not to flinch, forced myself not to look at Nico’s face and read his silence for what it was.
Then Tatiana, who hadn’t said a word this whole time, looked at me and smiled.
My stomach clenched.
She turned to Nico without a flicker of guilt.
“I did it. I set Evelyn up. Fire me if you want.”
She held his gaze, unwavering. “Are you going to fire me, Nico?”
I looked up at him. He had to. The footage was right there. She’d just confessed in front of everyone.
There was no possible reason to keep her. I held my breath and watched him, too afraid to blink.
After a long moment, Nico looked away from Tatiana. “We’re done here. Whatever fallout comes from this, I’ll handle it myself.”
Tatiana smiled. Slow, triumphant, aimed straight at me.
The whispers burst out around me. The ground might as well have opened up. I stood there, humiliated to the bone.
My voice came out shaking. “How is that fair?”
Nico looked at me like the answer was obvious. “She’s my woman. She made one bad call in the heat of the moment. That’s on me, not her.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “Your woman.”
“Nico, we are legally married. She is the mistress-
“Evelyn.” His voice was low and lethal. He cut me off before the word landed.
“She’s not.”
My gaze dropped to the floor. Everything in me went quiet.
I finally understood. Tatiana’s confidence had never come from herself. It came from him. And I was done fighting it.
“Fine. Then she’s not.”
He waved the crowd away. Then he stepped closer, his voice going soft, his hand settling on my
arm.
“I shouldn’t have raised my voice at you. I’m sorry.” He tilted my chin up. “One month, Evelyn. That’s all I’m asking. After that, it’s just you and me.”
I dug my nails into my palms until it hurt, then I looked up at him and smiled. “Okay. I believe you.”
“Oh, before I forget. I’ve got a few NDA and liability contracts that need your signature to clear the incident.”
I slipped my resignation letter and the annulment papers in between the waivers and handed him the whole stack.