Devil in a Suit

Brittany looked at me with wide eyes as she sat down at her desk.

“What happened? I could hear you yelling at her from down the hallway. You can’t yell at the interns,” she said.

I didn’t care about protecting the interns. They were adults. They knew what they were doing when it came to evil acts. If Sara wanted to play unfair, then I was tossing out the rulebook too.

“She found out about me and Madison,” I told Brittany as I stood in front of her desk. I was too pissed off to even sit down.

“Oh, no,” Brittany said, realizing where this was going.

“So, she blackmailed Madison and told her to quit, or she would show everyone the picture that she took of us. She manipulated her, Brittany. I refuse to have an intern that blackmails and manipulates others. Maybe I shouldn’t have dated Madison while she was my intern, but she never did anyone any harm. I never took away any opportunities from Sara, but she did that to Madison,” I replied.

Brittany frowned as she nodded. “That’s unacceptable. If the tables were turned, Madison would never do something like that to Sara,” she said.

I was glad that Brittany had a good read of Madison’s personality.

“Sara has to be punished for her actions. She can’t just get away with something like this because she’ll just do it again to another person. Trust me, I know people like her,” I muttered the last part as I shook my head. I was tired of seeing people like her succeed because they used the failures of other people to their advantage.

Brittany nodded as she turned to face her computer. “I’ll write that report up for you and send it to her internship advisor. I’ll just say that Sara threatened her over a personal matter. Your relationship is your business only. That’s how it should’ve remained, but Sara certainly has no respect for other people’s business,” she sighed as she started typing.

“Thank you,” I told her sincerely. She was really helping me out because she could write a clearer take on the situation. If I wrote the report, the language would be quite colorful and far from professional. I was too close to the situation, but Brittany wanted to help Madison out too. We both missed having her as an intern here.

Brittany smiled gently at me. “Have you spoken to Madison at all?”

I shook my head as I lowered my eyes. “Sara must’ve scared her good,” I said. “She was afraid for me too if the board and the press found out.”

“That’s so terrible,” Brittany said. “She didn’t deserve this.”

“Jealousy drives people to do terrible things,” I replied. It was a strong, overwhelming emotion. I remembered feeling it when Brandon spoke to Madison about a job offer. However, I was never Sara’s. I never would be.

“I had a feeling that Sara was interested in you. She certainly didn’t hide it that much,” Brittany replied as she glanced over at me.

“And I didn’t hide that I wasn’t interested in her,” I pointed out. I never led Sara on or gave her any indication that I was interested in her. She felt so entitled to everything, including my attention. She really thought that she could find a way to claim it. Instead, it backfired on her, and she was about to be without an internship if I had any say in it.

“It’s a shame. She’s a smart girl,” Brittany said as she shook her head.

It was a shame. If Sara focused more on building herself up instead of tearing other people down, she could’ve gone far in this internship. There was nothing that she could’ve done to win my affection, but if she had her head on straight, she wouldn’t have been worried about that in the first place.

Madison didn’t have any intentions to be with me starting out. That was easy to tell from our arguments. She wanted to prove herself as an intern, which made me like and respect her as a person. Then, the walls started to fall away, and we realized just how right we were for each other. Now, I had to remind her of that.

I was glad that we were taking care of things on Sara’s side of this whole situation, but Madison still quit the internship. She gave up her chance of graduating this semester, and I could only imagine how torn up she was about that. I refused to stand by and let her miss this opportunity when she had worked so hard for it. I was going to fix her problem too.

“I need to ask you for another favor.”

Chapter 25

Madison

I didn’t like being in the library alone. It was so much better with friends to procrastinate and joke with as piles of work lay around unfinished and cups of coffee were steadily drained. I hadn’t even broken the news to Hannah and Nick yet that I dropped my internship and couldn’t graduate this semester. I knew that they would try to talk me out of it, but I couldn’t. I already made the decision.