THE BILLIONAIRE’S PLACEHOLDER

Chapter 5: Know Your Place

Rose’s POV

I walked into Washington Global on tuesday morning, ready to do my job.

I passed the lobby and went to the private elevator. I pulled out my access card and tapped it against the scanner.

The light blinked red and beeped.

I wiped the card on my skirt and tapped it again. Still red again.

A security guard walked over to me. It was not David. I had never seen this one before.

“Your access card is not working, Miss Rose,” the guard said. He looked down at his shoes.

He reached into his pocket. He brought out a new white card attached to a plastic string and held it out to me.

“This is a standard building card,” the guard said. “It no longer opens the executive floor. You would have to use the regular elevators from now on.”

I looked at the piece of plastic. Someone changed my security access overnight.

I did not ask any questions or say anything. I accepted the new card. I put my old card in my pocket and walked over to the regular elevators.

The elevator doors opened on the planning department floor. I walked down the hallway to my old office.

I stopped walking before I reached the door.

The nameplate on the wall was gone. A blank white space was left behind.

I stepped inside the room. Someone else was in there. Thomas was standing by my desk. He was putting my files into a box.

Thomas froze when he saw me.

“I am sorry, Miss Rose,” Thomas said. “Mrs Washington called me this morning. She asked me to move your things.”

I looked around the room. The family photo beside my computer was gone. My coffee mug was inside a cardboard box. My pens had been put into a plastic bag on the floor, as if they were trash.

The room already looked like it belonged to someone else.

I just nodded, and stayed quiet.

“Thank you, Thomas,” I said. “I will take it from here.”

Thomas walked out of the room.

I found a small empty box near the door. I picked up my bag of pens and grabbed my coffee mug. I packed them all into the box and carried the box out of the room myself.

These losses did not even happen all at once. They came one after another, as if someone wanted me to feel every single one.

At ten in the morning, a man from the tech department walked up to my desk.

“I need to collect your company phone,” the man said. He stared at his clipboard.

I unlocked the phone. I deleted my messages. Then I handed the phone to him.

At eleven, my assistant, Clara, walked by my desk, carrying two cups of coffee. She saw me. For a second, it looked like she wanted to stop. Then she lowered her eyes and kept walking toward the executive elevator. She was reassigned to Vivian.

At noon, I received a paper memo. My parking space was given away to a new manager.

I turned to my computer to send an email. I typed my password. The screen showed an error. It said my email account did not exist.

I needed to check a phone number. I walked over to the organizational chart outside the human resources office. I looked at the list of names.

I read the chart again, hoping I had missed something. My eyes moved from the top to the bottom, but my name was nowhere. Years of work had disappeared overnight, as if I had never been there in the first place.

Nobody said anything to me, or even explained what was happening. Every time I walked past, they all suddenly found something else to look at.

I would have preferred if they had just said something. It felt like I had already left the company, even though I was still standing there.

Later in the afternoon, I walked to the finance floor. Jake and Vivian were standing near the conference room. A project manager named Greg was talking to them.

I stayed back near the printing machine.

“The supply chain for the steel delivery is delayed,” Greg said. “The vendor wants to increase the price. What should we do, Mrs Washington?”

Vivian stayed quiet.

“Give me five minutes,” Vivian said. “I need to check a document in my office.”

She walked away. She went into her office and closed the door. Jake and Greg waited in the hallway.

Five minutes later, Vivian walked back out and looked at Greg.

“Tell them we will cancel the contract and go with Apex Industries instead,” Vivian said. “Apex has a warehouse twenty miles away. They owe us a favor. They will match the original price.”

Greg quickly wrote the instructions down. “That is a great idea. Thank you, Mrs Washington.”

Jake looked impressed but did not say anything.

I stopped walking. I recognized that exact answer immediately. Those were the backup plans I wrote down three days ago.

Vivian was not learning. She was getting the answers from somewhere.

Something felt odd about the way she spoke. I knew I had heard those exact words before. The answer felt too familiar, but I could not remember where.

I turned around and walked back toward the lobby.

I stopped when I reached the company history wall.

The framed display in the center of the wall had been changed.

The old picture used to show Jake and me. The new picture showed Jake standing alone. Next to it was a picture of Vivian.

Jake. Vivian. Washington Global.

I was gone.

There was no picture of me. There was no mention of my name. It was as if I never helped build the company.

I stood there quietly. I stared at the blank space between their photos. I folded a piece of paper in my hand over and over.

Footsteps sounded behind me.

Jake walked down the hallway. He saw me staring at the wall.

He slowed down and stopped near me.

“Rose,” Jake said.

I turned to look at him.

For a second, he looked uncomfortable. His eyes moved to the blank space, then back to me. He opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something.

Then he closed his mouth.

“We have investors coming in this afternoon,” Jake said.

He walked past me without another word.

I stood there for a moment before turning away. I went back to my old office to collect the last of my things. I opened my briefcase to put everything together, but something felt wrong. I checked the first folder, then the second. I searched the side pocket too.

Nothing.

My heart started beating faster. I emptied the whole briefcase onto the desk. Papers scattered everywhere, but the notebook was nowhere to be found.

I stood there, staring at the mess. Then I remembered yesterday , I had left my briefcase in the planning office. Vivian had been there.

My fingers tightened around the handle of my briefcase.

Vivian.