Dani felt like there was a loud roaring sound in her ears, while everything seemed to be happening in slow motion.
For a long, long moment she sat there, right next to the display showing what they’d said was her amazing presentation, completely stunned.
Her mouth hung open, her eyes widened in sheer disbelief, as shock coursed through her body on a surge wave of adrenaline, until her brain finally caught up with the events that unfolded before her, and the shock was replaced with the kind of fatal anger that wiped out every other emotion.
In her peripheral vision, her subconscious catalogued the uncomfortable shuffling of several other board members as they looked from her, to an oblivious Lorenzo, to Justin.
Even Luca’s handsome face was a rictus of surprise, then annoyance, proving he’d been left out of this equation, too.
If looks could kill… now there was another metaphor that was going to be used today.
Dani turned her furious gaze on Lorenzo, and even he had the awareness to look taken aback by the lethal venom that must be pouring off of her.
“Is this your idea of a joke?” she asked in a voice that dripped ice as she slowly rose to her feet. And she was damn proud of how composed and calm she sounded, when underneath that veneer of surface calm she was a seething mass of boiling anger.
“I’ve worked all hours to bring you the best marketing plan ever, and you give my promotion to someone who’s worked here half the years I have and has a fraction of my experience?”
“Now, now dear,” Lorenzo said in that obsequious tone that proved he was just humoring her. “What’s the point in promoting you into a man’s job, when you’ll just end up leaving to pop out babies as soon as Concetta secures you a husband? I know my sister’s been working on finding you the perfect suitor,and we all know that will happen soon; you’re not getting any younger, after all.”
“Papa…” Luca’s shocked voice issued a warning to his father, but Dani didn’t hear anything that was said over the eruption of shocked, murmured whispers that buzzed around the room.
She clenched her jaw as a red haze swam before her eyes. She fisted her hands and held them rigidly at her sides because the urge to lash out, physically, and transfer some of the hurt and betrayal currently overwhelming her was a very real threat.
The straw that broke the camels’ back. Now there was a very pertinent idiom, because that was her.
No more.
No more would she slog her guts out just to have the rug pulled out from under her feet just when she thought she’d reached her goal.
Things crystallized for her then. She’d never be anything, in her uncle’s or her mother’s eyes, except a little woman who would one day marry and have babies, which was exactly what her place should be.
No matter how hard she worked, or how hard she tried, he was too blinkered to see her value, and her conniving mother simply encouraged him.
Well, so be it. If he thought he could manage without her so easily, then he could start right now.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. That was something her uncle would do well to mind.
“I quit,” she said through gritted teeth, and suddenly the room was quiet enough to hear a pin drop.
“Now don’t be so ridiculous and melodramatic, Daniella,” her uncle reprimanded. “Concetta hasn’t found the right man for you just yet, so there’s plenty of time for you to help out.”
He just didn’t get it.
Lorenzo shook his head and looked at her as if she were a difficult child who needed to be cajoled. “I still need you to assist Justin in getting your marketing plan up and running.”
She stared at him through eyes narrowed to slits. “Well, I’m sure since you think Justin is more competent and deserving of a directorship than I am, he’ll be perfectly capable of handling it himself.” Dani sneered, derision dripping from her voice like poison.
He wouldn’t, but she’d be damned if she spent one more fraction of a second on anyone who didn’t appreciate her worth. And if her uncle came to regret it, then perhaps he’d learn a valuable lesson. One far too long in coming. And as for her mother…
Picking up her purse, she turned on her heel. She didn’t bother stopping at her office. There was nothing she needed to take with her.
Instead, she walked right on out of the building for what she swore to herself would be the last time.
It was time to find something else to do with her life.
There was nothing left for her here anymore.
Not in this company; not in this city.
