Chapter 42

Renee’s POV

I march over to my desk and begin to yank the drawers open. Papers fly up in the air around me. I know I have my original sketches somewhere.

All the designers are still in the board room comforting Mia so they aren’t here to see me go crazy, though they would all be acting the same way if someone accused them of plagiarizing work.

When my desk is thoroughly rummaged I stand back up and tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear. I put my hands on my hips and sigh.

I have designs that go back to the summer from when I first got fired but these ones are gone. I stop and try to think.

If I were as wicked as Mia where would I put the designs. I scan the room and my eyes fall on her desk. I walk over to it.

This is probably the only real wrong that I’ve done to her but she has it coming. I begin to take apart her desk. Pulling drawers open, dumping folders on the ground, emptying all the contents of her desk.

Then I hear a gasp. “What are you doing?” I look up and see Mia look horrified as a row of other designers stand behind her watching me with wide eyes.

“I know you have my original designs,” I say, though now I’m realizing they might just not be on the desk. Mia brings her hand to her chest.

“You know Renee it’s bad enough you copied my work, and maybe you didn’t mean to I don’t know, but going through someone’s personal space just isn’t right,” Mia says like she’s on a peddle stool. She’s a good actor I’ll give her that.

But I’m the one who’s been living a double life for seven years, she doesn’t know the half of what I’m capable of.

I stand before her until our noses practically touch. “I know what you’re doing and you won’t get away with it,”

“What’s going on here?” Another voice asks sharply. All heads snap in his direction. Eric stands tall and his eyes are directed right at us.

“Oh Eric, Renee destroyed my desk!” Mia cries. Eric glances over at Mia’s desk and sure enough it’s in shambles. He looks back at me with a sincere look of confusion and pity. I want to defend myself and explain I only did it because she thinks I copied her work, but I bite my tongue. If Eric hears any utterance of foul play then legal action will have to get involved. The company is too successful and well known for there to be a legal case on its hands.

Eric looks at all the nosy designers standing idle waiting to see the latest drama of the day.

“Get back to work all of you,” Eric commands. “What am I paying you all for?” Instantly the room sounds with scurrying footsteps, everyone hurrying to get back to their work or risk loosing their job.

Eric steps closer to Ami’s and me closing the space between us three.

For a minute I’m brought back to the day when Mia came into our foyer. I think that was the last time the three of us stood alone together after that my life changed completely.

If Mia accuses me of copyright infringement to Eric now and this goes to court, I’ll be ruined as a designer. Without my original sketches I have no way to prove I started the design first and the only copies I have are the fabricated ones on my laptop that have Mia’s signature.

“Why would you do that?” Eric asks. I freeze for a minute as I try to formulate an answer that doesn’t jeopardize my entire career.

“She thought I stole her favorite one,” Mia interjects. I look at her bewildered. Eric raises an eyebrow in confusion. He looks back at me.

“Is that true?” He asks. “You ransacked her desk over a pen?”

“She did, she’s crazy!” Mia shrieks and I shudder at the pitch of her voice.

“I’m asking Renee, not you Mia,” Eric says tersely and Mia closes her jaw. She looks at me with a smug look. The ball is in my court.

I could tell the truth and have this go to court, spending a fortune that I don’t have with incriminating evidence, or I could lie and have Eric think I destroyed someone’s property all over a pen. I choose the latter.

“Yes,” I say and hang my head in embarrassment, “it’s true,” what’s another lie?

Eric shakes his head like he can’t believe this is what he has to deal with in his office and I can’t quite blame him.

“Just clean it up,” he tells me exasperated. And just like that, Mia and I are part of some secret cahoots.

As Eric turns his back to walk away, Mia pivots on her feet to see me.

“Smart choice,” Mia says though I begin to wonder if it is. If Mia wanted me to go along with her lie because she didn’t want this going to court either, that means she must have something so much more worse in the making.

Nia strides over to her desk and picks up a surviving mason jar unscathed from my rampage. She stares me down as she holds it upside down and pencils, scorers, and markers clatter to the floor. “Oops,” she says with a smile. “I guess you’ll have to clean that up too,”

Mia walks away with her head high.

I drop to my knees and begin to shuffle papers together and fight back tears. How did I let myself get there again? I shake my head. I can’t keep living in fear of what Mia is going to do and I can’t keep being around Eric with his constant hot and cold demeanor. At least when we were married he was always cold and it was predictable. Now when he’s cold to me it hurts so much worse.

My phone pings. I reach in my pocket and take a look. It’s a text from Margaux.

‘Debbie’s health really is improving,’ she says with a video of Debbie running outside despite the dropping temperatures. I smile and tuck my phone back in my pocket. Even this is bittersweet.

Of course I want Debbie to heal, but the more she does the more her wolf tended shine through which only brings us closer to being found out.

I have to make a change. First I have to prove my innocence. If I leave the company and try working somewhere else then Mia will just tell that company I stole “her” design and make it impossible for me to get a job anywhere else.

I have to do this strategically. I have to be smart about this.

I straighten out Mia’s desk with no sight of my original documents which I suppose makes sense that she wouldn’t keep them at work, but she has to have them somewhere.

If she were to copy my designs she would need to refer to the Reginald multiple times to follow the intricate fabric work and double check measurements. She wouldn’t destroy them, not yet at least-not until the project is finished and the due date for projects isn’t for another month. They have to be somewhere.

Just as I push her chair in an idea hits me. One that’s even crazier than going through her personal property at work.

I need to go through her personal property at her house.

The idea almost scares me, I could go to jail for breaking an entering. But I don’t really have a choice. If I don’t prove my innocence then I’m stuck under her control. She has too much on me now with knowing that Debbie is Eric’s child and with this false accusation of plagiarism. I can’t just wait idly for things to blow over because they won’t.

Mia already made it known she has something in the making, now it’s just a matter of whether I can intercept whatever she’s plotting

I guess tonight I become a criminal.