He Deleted My Name From Every Design. I Deleted Him From My Life. Chapter 03
I ordered another cup of coffee from the café downstairs.
When the barista handed it to me, she looked at me for a long moment.
“Are you okay? You might want to clean your shirt first.”
I looked down.
The coffee stain stretched from my collarbone all the way to my waist.
My white shirt was completely soaked through, almost transparent.
Even a stranger behind the counter could tell I was the one who had been covered in coffee.
Adrian couldn’t.
Or maybe he could.
Maybe he just didn’t care.
When I brought the coffee back to Sophie’s desk, Adrian was talking to her.
“You must have been shaken up today.”
“Take the afternoon off and get some rest.”
“Thank you, Mr. Whitmore.”
He didn’t even look at me.
“Claire, finish Sophie’s design drafts from today.”
I lowered my eyes.
“Okay.”
When I returned to my desk, there was a wet wipe and a sticky note waiting for me.
“Clean yourself up.”
I looked at the handwriting.
It wasn’t Adrian’s.
It was from the coworker sitting beside me.
I held the wet wipe tightly and cleaned the coffee stains from my clothes.
Then I opened my computer.
Sophie’s design file was already open on my screen.
Annotations covered every corner of the file.
I worked until 9 p.m.
After I finished the final line, I created a new document.
I typed one sentence as the title:
Resignation Letter.
The next morning, Sophie returned.
She stood beside my desk with a smile.
“Claire, about the competition proposal…”
“I’d like to handle the final revisions myself. I want to bring some of my own ideas into the design.”
“You don’t mind, right?”
“No.”
On the third morning, the conference room was filled with people.
“The structural details in these drawings are completely incorrect…”
“The files have already been sent to the client. We’ll have to redo everything…”
“Who was responsible for this?”
Sophie stood outside Adrian’s office.
“Claire, were these the drawings you completed yesterday?”
I walked over and took a look.
The structural details had been changed.
“They weren’t modified by me.”
“Sophie said she handed them over to you for review.”
“She wanted to handle the revisions herself. When she asked me to check them afterward, I only adjusted the annotations. I never touched the structural data.”
Sophie burst into tears.
Her voice trembled.
“Claire…”
“I know you’re upset because I took your place in the competition.”
“But you can’t put the client’s project at risk because of that.”
“No matter how angry you are with me, you can’t make this architecture firm lose money…”
“Mr. Whitmore has put so much into this firm. No one understands that better than you…”
Adrian walked out of his office.
“Did you review the drawings?”
“Yes.”
“But I didn’t change the structural data. I only adjusted the annotations.”
“She said you changed them.”
I looked at him.
“Just because she said I did it, does that automatically make it true?”
“Adrian, I’ve worked at this architecture firm for seven years.”
“Have I ever made a mistake like this before?”
The hallway went silent.
Adrian looked at me.
There was no warmth in his eyes.
“Claire, you’re suspended.”
He paused.
“Starting today, all design credits for the projects you contributed to at this firm will be revoked.”
“Your contributions to this firm will no longer be acknowledged.”
“Because you’re not qualified to handle this responsibility.”
Not qualified.
After seven years of work,
that was all I was left with.
All those nights I stayed up drawing.
All those designs that made clients stand up and applaud.
All those moments when he looked through my proposals during reviews and quietly said,
“This works.”
None of it mattered anymore.
“And you should be grateful the competition entry wasn’t your design.”
“This firm would never send someone who can’t keep their emotions under control to represent us.”
I looked at him.
My lips moved.
But not a single word came out.
“She actually thought she was important enough to mess with the drawings…”
“She really thought being close to the Principal Architect meant she could do whatever she wanted?”
“And one more thing…”
He added,
“Claire and I have nothing beyond a professional relationship.”
He turned around and took Sophie’s wrist.
“Let’s go.”
“Don’t let this affect your mindset. You need to be fully prepared for next week’s competition presentation.”
I watched them walk away.
Their figures disappeared into the distance.
So far away—
it felt like we had never been close at all.
