For three years, they called me ordinary.
Replaceable.
Invisible.
They had already decided my worth long before they ever asked who I was.
What they didn’t know was that I had buried a part of myself after losing my parents.
And the secret I had protected for so long was finally about to walk into the light.
The meeting began at exactly nine o’clock on a rainy Tuesday morning.
I was carrying a tray of coffee into the executive boardroom on the thirty-fourth floor of Hale International.
As usual, nobody looked at me.
I was the assistant.
The woman who arranged files.
Ordered lunches.
Printed documents.
Poured coffee.
The woman whose name most executives still didn’t remember.
To them, I was simply:
“The assistant.”
My name is Elena Fischer.
I was twenty-nine years old.
And I had spent the last three years making myself smaller.
It was easier that way.
Easier to be invisible.
Easier to survive.
The boardroom was full.
Lawyers.
Investors.
Senior executives.
At the head of the table sat Adrian Hale, billionaire CEO and founder of the company.
Forty-two years old.
Brilliant.
Demanding.
Impossible to impress.
He had built an empire from nothing and expected perfection from everyone around him.
That morning, he looked irritated.
Very irritated.