Camille Ashford-Valentine walked out of her own office with her spine straight and her heels striking the marble floor like gunshots. Each step carried her further from the conference room where her daughters sat victorious, where the scholarship boy had outmaneuvered her with evidence she should have destroyed years ago, where Richard's ghost had finally won their last argument.
She made it to the executive elevator before the trembling started.
The doors slid shut. The car began its descent. And Camille Valentine, the Ice Queen, the woman who had made Fortune 500 executives weep during quarterly reviews, pressed her back against the cold metal wall and let her mask crack.
