The Heiress They Erased: She Watched Her Own Funeral

I Need To Work

Nora's POV

I worked through the day with my head down. I did not join the conversations that formed naturally between desks as the floor filled up. I did not linger in the break room or accept the casual invitations to join the lunch group that Doren , the woman at the desk diagonal from mine , extended every afternoon with cheerful persistence.

"Mira, we're going to the cafeteria. Come now, the jollof on Tuesdays is actually edible."

"I'm fine, thank you."

"You said that last Tuesday."

"I meant it last Tuesday too."

She would laugh and leave and I would eat alone at my desk, something small I had packed from the guesthouse , and return immediately to whatever problem was open on my screen.

At seven-thirty in the evening, when the floor had mostly emptied and the overhead lights had shifted to their dim after-hours setting, I would pack my bag and leave. Two buses home. The same seat each time, near the back, beside the window. Head angled away from the aisle.

I spoke to no one outside of work.

And the work itself , that was the one place I allowed myself to fully exist.

Because inside a system, nothing cared who you used to be. A corrupted file did not ask for your real name. A network error did not require your identity documents. The problem sat in front of you, honest and specific, and you either solved it or you didn't.

In that clean, logical world, Nora Anderson could breathe without a mask.

By the third day I had cleared four items from the backlog that had been sitting untouched for nearly two weeks. I updated each job status quietly and moved on without drawing attention to it. By the end of the first week I had resolved three more , including one that I noticed two senior developers had attempted and abandoned twice, leaving a note in the shared log that read: complex cascading error, requires escalation.

I looked at it for twenty minutes, traced the chain backward to its origin point, and fixed it in just under an hour.

I did not flag it. I did not mention it. I simply updated the status to ‘resolved’ and closed the tab.

I told myself it didn't matter whether anyone noticed.

I told myself I was here for one purpose , to survive, stay hidden, and gather the information I needed about my father's company. Romance was a distraction. Friendship was a liability. Visibility was a threat.

I believed all of that completely.

And then Monday morning arrived.

I was deep inside a particularly stubborn piece of corrupted code when I felt it , the slight shift in the atmosphere around my desk that happens when someone is standing close behind you.

I kept my eyes on the screen.

The footsteps had been quiet. Not the hurried, distracted steps of a colleague passing through. These had been deliberate. They had stopped at my desk specifically.

"Mira Josh."

The voice was low and calm and carried the particular quality of someone who did not need to raise it to be heard.

I lifted my head.

He was standing beside my desk.

Taller than I had expected from the photographs , lean, with the kind of posture that came not from effort but from a complete absence of self-consciousness. His dark hair was neatly styled but slightly unsettled at the front, as though he had been running a hand through it. He wore a fitted dark shirt, no tie, sleeves rolled to the elbow. His jaw was sharp and his eyes were sharper , focused and quietly observant, the kind of eyes that were always working even when the rest of the face was still.

Clinton Moore.

In the flesh, he looked less like the polished CEO headshot on the company website and more like someone who had built something real with his hands and intended to keep building.

Every nearby keyboard slowed.

"Your performance last week was outstanding," he said.

His tone was even. Not warm, not cold , simply direct, the way people speak when they have no interest in performing politeness they don't feel.

I kept my gaze lowered slightly.

"Thank you, sir."

He didn't move. I could feel him studying me the way I had read about in those business profiles

I had quite a lot to hide.

"How long have you worked here?" he asked.

"One week, sir."

He nodded slowly. Then he stepped marginally closer to the desk, his eyes moving briefly to my screen before returning to me.

"Which tech school did you graduate from?"

The question landed like a stone in still water.

My fingers stopped above the keyboard.

The air around me suddenly felt too warm, too close. My mind moved fast and cold beneath the surface , if I named an institution he would verify it. Verification would pull Mira Josh's records.

I stood up.

"Excuse me, sir," I said, reaching for my bag. "I need to use the restroom."

I didn't wait for his response.

I crossed the floor at a pace that I hoped looked unhurried and pushed through the restroom door, locking it behind me. I leaned over the sink and turned the cold tap on and pressed my wet hands against the back of my neck.

My reflection in the mirror above the basin looked pale and tightly wound.

"He's going to pull everything apart," I whispered to myself. "This man is going to drag you straight out of hiding."

I splashed water on my face. Once. Twice.

I straightened up. Steadied my breathing. Looked myself in the eye until the person staring back looked calm enough to be believed.

Then Doren's voice came from behind me.

"Mira."

I turned. She was leaning against the far wall with her arms folded, her curly hair pushed back from her face, watching me with the expression of someone who had been piecing something together for days.

"What is going on with you?" she asked. "You've been acting strange since your first morning."

"I'm fine."

"No." She pushed off the wall and came closer, studying my face with unashamed directness. "You're not fine. You look like someone who is running from something."

My heart tightened.

"And what is that supposed to mean?" I said, keeping my voice level.

She stared at me for a moment longer.

Then she laughed , sudden and genuine, the tension in the room dissolving around it.

"Relax, I'm not investigating you." She waved her hand. "Mr. Collins sent me. He wants us to go to Jadox Plaza across the road and pick up some finished packaging materials."

I blinked.

"The market?"

"Yes, the market. Outside. In the sun." She was already moving toward the door. "Come on."

I stood still for a moment.

Outside meant crowds. Crowds meant faces. Faces meant the possibility of a familiar face seeing me.

"Are you coming or not?" Doren called from the doorway.

I picked up my bag.

I went.

The afternoon sun outside the building was brutal and immediate. Doren groaned dramatically and shielded her eyes.

I pulled a light scarf from my bag and wrapped it loosely around my head, letting one side fall across the upper part of my face.

All thanks to the hot sun. Doren didn't even glance at it.

Jadox Plaza was directly across the road , a large modern grocery store with wide glass windows and sliding doors that parted automatically as we approached. Inside, cool air washed over us and soft background music played from somewhere above the neat, well-stocked aisles.

I kept my head slightly angled downward as we moved through the store. My eyes tracked the floor just ahead of my feet.

We were halfway down aisle seven when Doren's voice changed.

"Mira."

Something in her tone made me look up.

"Why is that woman staring at you like that?"

I choked immediately.

My mother stood near the vegetable display ten feet ahead of us.