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hadn’t even reached her. She felt like she was in another room or standing
outside the glass of her office and it was noise-canceling glass and whatever
Beth said never reached her.
“Your designs,” Beth whispered. “I sold them. To another company. I
only did it because I thought I had time to undo it. I needed money for
Amelia. Shannon found this incredible private school, but it’s expensive
and none of us have that kind of money. It would be a great opportunity for
Amelia. I want her to succeed and be happy more than anything. Public
schools just have too many kids and not enough teachers. Even if people
care, there just isn’t enough of that care to go around.”
The sky was crushing her. Or maybe that was the office ceiling. Arabella
flicked her eyes up anxiously, actually afraid the tiles would be pressing
down on top of her head, but nope, it was still up there where it always was.
She was suffocating. The air in the office was in short supply. She
realized she was holding her breath. The oxygen in the place was just fine.
The crushing sensation she felt wasn’t the ceiling or the sky. The building
wasn’t falling down around her. It was dread. Terrible, aching dread that
curled up inside of her like a feral animal digging its claws into her belly.
“How did you get them?”
“That meeting. Where you had to leave early. You left the folder in the
middle of the table with the designs in it. I had all your notes and research
from the shared marketing folder.”
“But everyone signs an NDA when they start here.”
She realized how dumb that was. It was like saying that no one was ever
allowed to cheat on a test because there were consequences for doing so.
People still took that chance and rolled the dice. If they didn’t get caught,
their deception would pay off. If they did, maybe they hoped they’d still get
out of it. But what about Beth? Wouldn’t she have known that she’d get
caught? It would have been so obvious if another company came out with
all of their designs.
