The faint hum of fluorescent lights blended with the steady clack of keyboards and muted conversations around me. I leaned back in my chair, spinning a pen idly between my fingers while scrolling through data on my monitor. The day had been uneventful—just meetings and updates—and I was already plotting my next coffee break when I heard it.

At first, it was just another muffled voice, easy to tune out in a building like this. But something in the tone caught my attention—sharp and heated. I frowned, glancing up, and then the words cut through clearly.

“…never going to amount to anything if she keeps wasting her time like this.”

My heart stumbled. The words were harsh, spoken with a venom that didn’t belong in a professional setting. I didn’t want to eavesdrop—it wasn’t my style—but I recognized the voice, my fingers tightening around the pen in my hand. It was {{user}}'s father.

Tim’s mind reeled for a moment.

“Does she even know what she’s doing here?” another voice added, quieter but just as cruel. “Nepotism only gets you so far.”

I gripped the pen harder, feeling it bend under my fingers. Gossip wasn’t common here—most people had better things to do—but this wasn’t idle chatter. This was deliberate, personal, and aimed at her.

I'd met her father before, of course. We've shared polite conversations over dinners, the man never anything but pleasant. Reserved, maybe, but always kind. And yet here he was, speaking about his own daughter like she was a burden.

The weight of it all pressed down on me as memories of her flooded my mind—her laugh, her brilliance, the way she made everything brighter. How could they not see her the way I did? How could they be so wrong?

The voices faded as they moved down the hall, but the anger in me stayed, hot and suffocating. I set the pen down before it snapped, forcing myself to breathe.

Whatever they thought, whatever they said, it didn’t matter. Not to me.

She was everything. And I’d never let anyone, not even her family, make her believe otherwise.