When Derek, the R&D Director, publicly ranted again about me trying to hook up with him and trick him into being a step-dad to my kid, I didn’t vehemently deny it and defend my innocence like I used to.
Instead, I calmly returned to my desk and quietly rejected the procurement request he had just submitted.
“The petty cash is gone; the process can’t be approved.”
As expected, he stormed over, fuming.
“This month’s petty cash just came in ten minutes ago! How could it be gone? Where’s the money?!”
I ignored him, turning to take an admin assistant’s purchase order and process its payment right in front of him. Only his request was rejected, again and again.
He was furious, immediately marching off to find Mr. Stone, the CEO, to complain.
“Just because I don’t want to be her kid’s dad, she’s trying to sabotage me like this?”
“Our R&D project is worth hundreds of millions in market share! If we delay any longer, the whole thing will completely go south!”
“If every woman in this company acts like her, how are we supposed to get any work done? I’m putting it out there right now: either she goes, or I go!”
In the stalemate, I calmly pulled out the resignation letter I’d prepared long ago.
Derek instantly flashed a smug, triumphant grin.
But when I then handed Mr. Stone a stack of R&D project quotations, his face fell.
1
Perhaps he felt my earlier indifference had challenged the R&D Director’s authority.
Derek snatched the file from my hand and tossed it into the air.
The office fell silent instantly.
Eyes accompanied by whispers rapidly converged on me.
“Did your husband take your brain with him when he divorced you? How dare you reject my procurement request?”
“I’d like to know, how is the petty cash, which just came in, already gone? I bet someone’s using company funds to buy baby formula!”
Derek leaned casually against my desk, looking like a thug, his index finger tapping loudly on my desktop. He made sure everyone could hear the words “using company funds to buy baby formula.”
I remained unperturbed, bending down to pick up the loose page he had stomped on. I said calmly,
“The R&D department’s petty cash is indeed gone.”
“I can’t process it on my end. If you’re in a hurry, you can go to Mr. Stone for special approval.”
Derek froze, choked by my words. He glared at the curious colleagues around us, his voice laced with menace.
“Ava Stone, right? I’m giving you one last chance! Think carefully before you speak!”
I slowly stood up, a faint smile on my lips.
“Mr. Stone, my name is Ava Stone.”
“And no matter how many chances you give me, the answer will be the same. No money, no approval.”
He hadn’t expected me to talk back directly.
His face instantly changed. He pointed at my nose and started yelling.
“You’re just procurement staff, what gives you the right to act so superior?!”
“Our department gets a hundred thousand every month for petty cash! It only hit the account ten minutes ago!”
“You say it’s gone, and it’s gone? If you can do the job, do it. If not, then get the hell out!”
His voice grew louder and louder. The surrounding colleagues didn’t dare to breathe.
I remained silent throughout, turning to take an admin assistant’s purchase order.
I submitted the payment process right in front of him.
Less than three minutes later, I received the payment confirmation from finance.
This move completely infuriated Derek.
“Ava Stone, what the hell is wrong with you? You said there was no petty cash! How come the admin’s order gets approved but mine doesn’t?!”
“I work day and night for this company’s products! Who the hell do you think you are, throwing your weight around with a speck of authority and tripping me up?”
“You’d better give me a reasonable explanation, or don’t blame me for getting nasty.”
Seeing Derek grow more agitated, his little lackeys immediately jumped in to smooth things over.
“Calm down, Derek. They say ‘baby brain’ really makes some women lose their marbles. Don’t let a woman like her get to you; it’s bad luck.”
A few colleagues who usually interacted with me also chimed in.
“Some people have unhappy lives, divorced with kids, and think the whole world owes them something!”
“Does she think she’s an eighteen-year-old girl looking for a sugar daddy?”
“Exactly! If she failed to hook up with him and is now using her position for personal revenge, she shouldn’t drag us down with her! If the project is delayed, we won’t even be able to pay rent…”
I quietly sorted the pages I had picked up earlier, tapping away on my calculator.
Only after entering the last number did I look up at Derek.
My tone remained calm.
“Derek, the admin department’s purchasing prices are all below market average, and they used their department’s petty cash balance from last month. According to protocol, it can be directly approved.”
“However, the orders submitted by the R&D department aren’t just eighty percent overpriced; your petty cash was already overdrawn last month.”
“So, not only this month but this entire quarter, your department’s purchasing requests will be rejected.”
I held up his signed purchase order, my voice neither humble nor arrogant.
The colleagues who had been watching the drama instantly busied themselves.
The only sound in the entire office was the rapid clicking of keyboards.
No one would have thought that I, a divorced mom with no connections or seniority, would dare to stand up to an arrogant R&D Director who looked down on everyone.
After all, everyone knew that the R&D department always lorded over all other departments in the company.
Derek, as the R&D Director, was Mr. Stone’s favorite, looking down on everyone except the CEO himself.
He naturally hadn’t expected to be put in such an awkward position by a new mom he couldn’t even remember the name of.
Seeing that I no longer paid him any attention, he shot me a vicious glare and stomped away in a huff.
2
The executive office door slammed shut with a bang that echoed through the building.
Downstairs, colleagues exchanged worried glances.
A few colleagues who Derek had previously given a hard time, and who I sometimes talked to, sent me messages on SnapChat, advising me to let it go, saying jobs were hard to find now, and since I had a child, I should apologize to Derek.
Why should I apologize?
Yes, I was on maternity leave and divorced, and it was only two months ago that I transferred to the procurement department after my leave ended.
But ever since I took over R&D project procurement, I realized it was a complete mess.
When I first started, they took advantage of my inexperience, even including toilet paper for the department’s restrooms in their purchase orders. I got yelled at a lot for it.
Later, they would cite the urgency of R&D projects and ask me to front the money for purchases.
At first, they were polite, playing on my emotions.
“Ava, this project is really urgent, we just need this one thing. Could you help us out and pay for it? We’ll reimburse you from the R&D petty cash next month after I sign off.”
My heart softened, and I believed them. After all, why would a dignified R&D Director make things difficult for a divorced mom raising a child?
But when I took the reimbursement receipts to him for a signature, he refused to acknowledge the money I’d paid out of pocket.
After several attempts, I finally saw his true colors.
Later, when people from his department asked me to front funds, I flat-out refused.
Then he started threatening me subtly with performance reviews.
“Ava, raising a kid on your own must be tough financially, right? Work hard, and I’ll put in a good word for you with Mr. Stone for a promotion and raise.”
“But if the project is delayed, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Pay out of pocket when needed, and you won’t lose a penny once the project funds are in.”
He said it nicely, but he still hasn’t reimbursed me for even a mere three hundred bucks worth of consumables.
Just yesterday, I went to him again for reimbursement. He not only cursed at me in front of the entire office but also turned around and accused me of trying to seduce him.
“You were the one who eagerly volunteered to pay for me, right?”
“I felt your intentions weren’t pure back then, but for the project, I just put up with it.”
“But you? Always looking for shortcuts, if you put the same effort you put into pestering me for three or five hundred bucks into your work, maybe you wouldn’t have gotten divorced right after having a baby?”
I trembled with rage.
I couldn’t believe a supposedly dignified R&D Director could be so utterly shameless.
As of today, I’ve paid over ten thousand dollars for the R&D department, even some paid for with my credit card. And my salary was cut in half because he reassigned me after my maternity leave.
I’m at that age with elderly parents and young children to support. My child’s baby formula was almost empty, my mortgage was three months overdue, and if I didn’t get that money, my whole family would starve.
The more I thought about it, the angrier I got.
Overnight, I reviewed all historical purchasing contracts and organized a list of procurement items handled by Derek for R&D projects.
It was shocking. The contracts and invoices clearly showed exorbitant overpricing everywhere.
Even many materials were replaced with cheaper substitutes.
I then compared the delivery details against the purchase records. It turned out the R&D project was far more corrupt than I had imagined.
Derek thought I was just an ignorant mom, unable to do anything to him. He even spread rumors in the company that I was deliberately pestering him with such tricks because I failed to hook up with him.
So, when he came in this morning, he felt no guilt about owing me money. Instead, he was even more arrogant.
At this moment, his thunderous roars and whining complaints to Mr. Stone echoed from the executive office upstairs.
Everyone whispered, as if waiting for a big show.
And I was waiting too.
Waiting for Derek to blow things up.
Waiting for him to play with fire and dig his own grave.
3
The fawning phone calls from upstairs came one after another.
Everyone knew what was happening.
Derek would win this undisputed conflict effortlessly.
The office atmosphere subtly shifted.
Colleagues who used to eat with me in the cafeteria now declined my invitations, citing overtime, only for me to see them later, animatedly chatting with the new R&D intern in the cafeteria.
Every meal, I’d quietly stand at the very end of the line. Just as it was almost my turn, R&D engineers would cut in front of me.
“So jealous of some people who get to eat on time. Unlike us, born workhorses, we have to rush even for a meal.”
“Oh well, she has to feed her baby, if she doesn’t eat on time, she won’t have milk!”
After that, a few of them looked at my chest and let out undisguised, lewd laughs.
I clenched my lips, remaining silent.
By the time I finally reached the front, there was nothing left but some watery scraps.
As soon as I sat down, Maria, the cleaning lady, shooed me away.
She looked down at me, her oily rag wiping relentlessly near my plate.
A cold snort from her nostrils slammed directly into my ears.
And this was just the prelude from Derek and his crew.
When I returned to my desk,
my workspace was piled high with various procurement request forms, both urgent and non-urgent.
Kyle, the intern, also approached with a thick stack of files, looking arrogant.
“Ava, Derek said all products purchased in the last three years need a supplier qualification report organized by the end of today. He needs it for a meeting tomorrow.”
Colleagues around me whispered and chuckled at my expense.
Day after day, the vulgar insults didn’t stop because of my silence; instead, they escalated. In just a week, I went from being a divorced mom to being called a “slut” and “easy” — someone so desperate she’d throw herself at anyone.
They started openly scrutinizing and commenting on me.
“How can she eat so much? Does she think she’s a milk-producing sow?”
“Oh, you don’t get it. How else would she use pumping as an excuse to slack off? She closes the door and disappears for half the day; who knows what she’s doing in there?”
“Look at those saggy, empty breasts. No wonder her husband left her; who wouldn’t be disgusted by that?”
Not only that.
My desk started accumulating disgusting fruit peels and trash.
Even walking down a wide aisle, someone would “accidentally” bump into me.
Meetings about my work modules became more frequent, and the absurd demands from various departments grew increasingly outlandish.
My direct line would ring with all sorts of calls, asking ‘300 a night, wanna hook up?’
Derek thought this would force me to leave, but I continued to play dumb.
The more he tried to make things difficult for me, the more flawlessly I performed my work.
And the calmer I remained, the angrier he became.
Finally, after another week passed without receiving my resignation letter, he couldn’t take it anymore.
Mr. Stone, who had been on a business trip, had barely returned when Derek, laptop in hand, immediately dove into his office.
The storm was finally coming.
4
Sure enough, half an hour later, Derek emerged from Mr. Stone’s office like a triumphant rooster.
He then announced an urgent company-wide meeting, requiring full attendance.
I happened to be at the front desk picking up a supplier invoice delivery and missed the message.
When I rushed in, everyone’s eyes turned to me.
Before Mr. Stone could speak, Derek launched into a tirade.
“Mr. Stone, look! She usually neglects the R&D department’s work, but now she’s even late for your meeting, dragging her feet for half an hour!”
“The company’s preferential policies for female employees, she’s just exploiting them to slack off!”
Mr. Stone toyed with his bead bracelet, his brows furrowed.
“Ava Stone, is it?”
His slightly angered voice was very low. I didn’t answer.
“Why does buying anything for the R&D department become so complicated as soon as it goes through you?”
“Our ongoing projects are stalled because we can’t get the materials! Our engineers are about to quit because they’re not getting their project bonuses!”
“The market is only so big; every day you delay gives our competitors another advantage!”
He slammed his bracelet onto the table, beads scattering and clattering onto the floor.
The sound was deafening.
“The company pays everyone for eight hours a day. I haven’t shortchanged anyone a single penny in all these years, have I?”
“Are we just going to let the market share our frontline employees fought so hard to win be handed over to others because of some internal ‘procedures’ or ‘budgets’?”
“Are you all elementary school kids fresh out of school? Do I have to emphasize something this basic?”
He didn’t mention me by name once, but every word was aimed at me.
Across the room, Derek knelt reverently, picking up the beads, a look of vengeful triumph in his eyes as he glanced my way.
Suddenly, I found it utterly meaningless.
A company where everyone’s decisions were driven by their own pockets had truly rotted to this extent.
The “frontline engineers” he claimed were working themselves to death for project bonuses had long since hollowed out the company like parasites.
And I, who upheld my principles, was being cursed out.
Fine.
I sighed softly, answering calmly.
“Understood, Mr. Stone. I know what to do.”
My apparent obedience greatly pleased him. He softened his tone.
“It’s good for young people to be driven, but you should learn from Derek in the future and pay more attention to tact in your dealings.”
I nodded numbly, turning to leave.
This long-planned drama was finally about to conclude with my silent endurance.
But then, Derek called out to me.
“Wait! Based on the negative impact you’ve caused us, I demand you apologize to our team publicly!”
“Apologize?”
For a moment, I thought I’d misheard him.
But then I saw Mr. Stone nod in silent agreement.
The office instantly erupted in chatter. Scornful and mocking voices almost drowned me out.
The people who bullied me, isolated me, insulted me, and spread malicious rumors about me now wanted *me* to apologize to *them*.
I clenched my hands tightly, forcing myself to calm down.
Seeing that I remained unmoving, Derek feigned extreme distress.
“Mr. Stone, just because I don’t want to be her kid’s dad, she’s trying to sabotage me like this? Is it too much to ask her for an apology?”
“I’m only being lenient because I feel sorry for her. An apology would be enough, but look at her attitude.”
“I’m putting it out there right now: she *must* apologize, or either she goes, or I go!”
In the stalemate, I calmly pulled out the resignation letter I’d prepared long ago.
↓ ↓ Download the Novel Master app, Search 【 285323 】reads the whole book. ↓ ↓
NovelShort
