Getting Over You

Chapter 3: The Falling Dominos

For five long years, Liam Vance lived under the comfortable, dangerous delusion that he was the absolute prodigy running the multi billion dollar Vance Group.

He had spent his entire adult life being fed a steady diet of strategic praise from his father, sycophantic nods from corrupt board members, and glowing profiles in national financial magazines that labeled him the "Next Titan of Wall Street." He truly believed that the success of the company was a direct result of his genetic inheritance and innate business acumen.

To him, Chloe Albright was just a highly efficient background fixture a glorified, replaceable assistant whose entire existence was limited to typing his daily emails, organizing his first class flights, and ensuring his dark espresso was always exactly 140 degrees.

By eleven o'clock on his very first morning without her, that carefully constructed illusion was not just shattered; it was violently pulverized."What do you mean the Singapore logistics files are completely inaccessible?!" Liam roared, his voice booming through the glass walls of his private office as he slammed his fist onto the polished mahogany desk. The sheer force of the blow caused his crystal pen holder to rattle violently, spilling fountain pens across the clean surface.

His temporary assistant, a seasoned executive secretary transferred from the legal department named Marcus, did not flinch. He adjusted his silver glasses with a rigid, detached professionalism. "They are not missing, Mr. Vance. They are encrypted. Miss Albright managed the global logistics mainframes personally. She established a proprietary rolling encryption protocol to safeguard our quarterly shipping data from corporate espionage. Without her verified digital footprint or a master override key, the system has automatically locked the entire Q3 manifest.

Then bypass the system! Call the IT director and tell him to hack into the server!" Liam snapped, his silk tie completely loosened, his pristine white hair a messy, chaotic ruin. He paced aggressively behind his desk like a caged animal."The IT department has been attempting a manual bypass for three consecutive hours, sir," Marcus explained calmly, his tone carrying a faint trace of hidden judgment. "Miss Albright built the firewall herself. It is a biological signature lock. It requires either her physical fingerprint or a master alpha numeric key that she kept in her private, biometric desk safe. A safe that, ironically, also requires her fingerprint to open."Liam’s jaw clenched so tightly the muscles in his cheek strove violently against his skin. A heavy, suffocating wave of heat rushed up his neck.“Chloe, check the Singapore files,” he remembered saying just last week, his voice lazy and dismissive as he swiped through his phone, barely looking at her. “The investors are asking questions.

Just fix the numbers and don't bother me with the details.”Chloe had merely nodded, her emerald eyes calm and unreadable as she quietly stood in front of his desk. “I’ve already automated the security protocols, Liam. If I’m ever not here, the servers will lock to protect your data.”He had laughed at her then, telling her she was being overly dramatic.

He had assumed she was just trying to make her job sound more important than it actually was. He never, not even for a single second, envisioned a reality where she would actually walk out the door and leave him stranded in his own incompetence."Sir," Marcus interrupted his spiraling thoughts, dropping a massive stack of leather bound folders onto the edge of the desk. "The European investment syndicate has been holding on Line 2 for exactly fifty minutes.

They are furious. They want to know why the compliance and tax audit reports for our foreign subsidiaries were not filed by 9:00 AM. Miss Albright typically submits them at 7:30 AM before you even arrive at the building."Liam snatched the phone, his chest heaving. "This is Liam Vance," he barked into the receiver, trying to inject a tone of authority he did not feel."Liam," a cold, aristocratic voice echoed back, dripping with German precision. It was Herr Reinhardt, their single largest European backer.

Your compliance reports are late. This is a direct, material violation of our investment contract. Where is Chloe? She always handles our portfolio with clinical perfection. I do not appreciate dealing with administrative delays.

Chloe is... away on an unannounced personal leave," Liam lied, the words tasting like sour ash in his mouth. He cleared his throat, leaning heavily against his desk. "I am handling the European portfolio personally today, Herr Reinhardt. You will have the completed tax audits on your desk by the end of the day.

Unacceptable," Reinhardt replied flatly, his tone turning freezing. "Chloe understands the intricate maritime tax loop holes of our German subsidiaries. You do not. Every time you have attempted to lead a briefing without her, you have demonstrated a profound lack of operational knowledge.

If those reports are not on my desk in ninety minutes, we are pulling our two hundred million dollar funding from the North Sea drilling project.

The line went dead with a sharp, definitive click.Liam stared at the receiver, a cold, prickling sweat breaking out across his forehead. His mind went completely blank. He didn't know anything about German maritime tax loops. For five years, Chloe had presented him with simplified, pre approved executive briefs. She would highlight the exact line where he needed to sign his name, allowing him to look brilliant while sipping his morning espresso.

He was the golden face of the empire, but she was the absolute brain.Before he could even slam the phone down, the heavy oak doors of his office swung open with a violent bang. His father, Arthur Vance, marched into the room, his face bright red with a terrifying fury. He threw a printed copy of the morning financial tabloid directly at Liam's chest."What is the meaning of this absolute embarrassment, Liam?!" Arthur demanded, his voice shaking with pure rage.Liam looked down as the paper fluttered onto his lap.

There was a paparazzi photograph of Chloe boarding the 4:00 AM express train, looking elegant, completely detached, and breathtakingly beautiful in the morning mist. The headline read: “Vance Group Mastermind Resigns Overnight: Is the Billionaire Heir’s Empire Crumbling From Within?”

It’s a temporary issue, Father," Liam stammered, his confidence evaporating as he stood up. "Chloe is just throwing a petty emotional temper tantrum because I asked her to be the Maid of Honor in my wedding to Samantha. She’s being a typical emotional woman. She’ll be back at her desk by tomorrow morning once she cools down.

She had better be!" Arthur growled, stepping into Liam's personal space, his eyes narrowing with a dangerous, lethal resentment. "Do you have any idea how volatile the market is right now? The Street knows she was the actual glue holding your entire operations department together. Our shares just dropped by 2.4% within thirty minutes of the opening bell! Wall Street doesn't invest in your family name, Liam; they invest in stability. Fix this immediately. Call her.

Apologize. Offer her a fifty percent raise. Give her whatever title she wants, but get that girl back at her desk before the board calls for an emergency meeting to strip you of your title."Arthur stormed out of the suite, slamming the massive door so hard that the glass partitions rattled violently.Left alone in the deafening, suffocating silence of his massive office, Liam slowly sank back into his leather chair. His hand automatically reached for his phone to call Chloe, to command her to unlock the servers, to draft the German tax reports, to pacify his father just like she had a thousand times before.Then, his bloodshot eyes fell on the trash can outside his door, where the snapped, useless pieces of her corporate SIM card lay rotting.

A heavy, terrifying realization began to settle deep into his chest: she wasn't coming back. The first domino had fallen, and Liam Vance was completely powerless to stop the rest of his world from collapsing.