I spent exactly ninety days letting Chloe Sterling treat me like something she had scraped off the bottom of her designer shoes.
Ninety days of fetching scalding oat milk lattes that were never the right temperature. Ninety days of carrying massive, eighty-pound garment bags through the sweltering Los Angeles heat while she complained about the humidity ruining her blowout. Ninety days of keeping my mouth completely shut while she screamed, demeaned, and belittled every single person on her payroll.
I was twenty-two, fresh out of business school, and operating under the alias Mia Harper. My actual name was Mia Vance. My father, Arthur Vance, was the founder and Chairman of Vance Retail, the largest cosmetics distribution empire in the United States. We owned over four thousand high-end retail locations globally. If a beauty brand wanted to survive, they needed shelf space in our stores.
Chloe Sterling desperately needed that shelf space.
Her company, Aura Cosmetics, had exploded onto the market three years ago, driven entirely by her massive social media following and her supermodel status. From the outside, Aura was a juggernaut of pink packaging, glittering launch parties, and endless influencer praise.
But my father didn’t become a billionaire by trusting Instagram aesthetics. Before he signed the massive, life-or-death exclusive distribution deal Chloe had been begging for, he wanted eyes on the inside. He wanted to know the company culture, the operational stability, and the truth behind the glamour.
“You want to take over my company one day, Mia?” my father had asked me across his mahogany desk in New York three months ago. “Go prove you understand the dirt under the fingernails of this industry. Get a job at Aura. Start at the very bottom. Keep your head down, observe, and tell me if she’s worth my money. If you blow your cover, you’re fired.”
So, I traded my designer wardrobe for thrift-store sweaters, rented a tiny studio apartment in the Valley, and became Mia Harper, the most junior, disposable assistant in the Aura Beauty headquarters.
It was absolute hell.
The headquarters, a massive warehouse conversion in Culver City, was designed to look like a sterile, neon-pink heaven. But the reality was a toxic nightmare ruled by Chloe and her inner circle—a pack of sycophants who reinforced her every cruel whim. Zara, her vicious PR Manager, and Leo, her personal stylist, shadowed her everywhere, forming a constant, impenetrable wall of mockery around anyone beneath them.
The morning of the incident began like any other Tuesday, only the tension in the building was thick enough to choke on. The press conference for the Vance Retail signing was scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. The entire ground floor of the headquarters was being transformed into a glittering stage for the media.
I was running on three hours of sleep, carrying a towering stack of finalized press packets, when Zara intercepted me in the main hallway.
“You’re walking too loud, Harper,” Zara snapped, not looking up from her iPad. She was wearing a sleek black dress that probably cost three times my fake monthly rent. “Chloe’s blood sugar is low, and she’s doing her final fitting in dressing room A. Do not breathe in her direction when you bring these in. Just drop them and vanish.”
“Understood,” I muttered, adjusting my grip on the heavy boxes.
I navigated the maze of corridors until I reached the VIP dressing room. I tapped my foot against the base of the door, waiting for clearance.
“Get in here!” Leo’s voice barked from inside.
I pushed the door open with my shoulder. The dressing room was massive, lined with blinding vanity mirrors and overflowing racks of haute couture. The air smelled suffocatingly of expensive hairspray and lilies.
Chloe was standing in the center of the room on a small pedestal. She was wearing a breathtaking white silk suit, custom-tailored for tomorrow’s press conference. She looked flawless, angular, and absolutely enraged.
“It’s bunching at the shoulders!” Chloe screamed, glaring at her reflection. She twisted violently, almost knocking Leo over as he scrambled to pin the fabric. “I look like a linebacker! I am meeting the executives of Vance Retail tomorrow! I am signing a nine-figure contract, and you have me looking like a cheap real estate agent!”
“Chloe, babe, it’s just a loose stitch, I can fix it,” Leo pleaded, his hands trembling.
Zara leaned against the marble counter, sipping sparkling water, completely unfazed. “The suit is fine, Chlo. You’re just stressed about the numbers. Relax. Once Vance signs, the debt is gone.”
I froze, the boxes heavy in my arms. The debt. That was the first time anyone had explicitly mentioned financial trouble out loud. In my ninety days here, I had noticed delayed shipments and angry vendors, but the official financials submitted to my father’s lawyers had shown record profits.
Chloe’s head snapped toward me. Her eyes narrowed, latching onto a target she could destroy to alleviate her stress.
“What are you looking at, you little rat?” she hissed, stepping down from the pedestal.
“I brought the press packets for tomorrow, Ms. Sterling,” I said softly, keeping my eyes downcast. I walked over to the corner and gently placed the boxes on a side table.
“Did I say you could put them there?” Chloe demanded, marching toward me. The heels of her shoes clicked aggressively against the tile.
I stood up straight, trying to maintain the submissive posture of Mia Harper. “I apologize. Where would you like them?”
Chloe didn’t answer. She walked right up into my personal space. She was taller than me, radiating an intimidating heat. She looked down at my scuffed sneakers, my cheap jeans, and the gray sweater I was drowning in. Disgust warped her beautiful features.
“You reek of cheap coffee and desperation,” she sneered. “You’ve been here for three months, and you haven’t learned a single thing about aesthetics. You’re an eyesore. Why do I even let you walk the halls of my building?”
“She’s cheap labor, Chlo,” Zara chimed in from the counter, a cruel smile on her lips. “Her probation contract is up on Friday anyway. We were just using her to carry the heavy things until the Vance deal closes.”
Chloe’s eyes lit up with malicious inspiration. “Is that right? Give me her file, Leo.”