My Intern’s Innocent Mind Voice Ruined My Career. So I Let Her Take the Fall

Today was the day of the big pitch to our biggest client. Whether we succeeded or not would decide my yearend promotion.

I had pulled allnighters for three months straight, just to give myself a bit more leverage.

In my past life, my boss’s reaction to my presentation had been incredibly bizarre, and I had immediately demanded to know why.

His excuse was that I wasn’t the one who had actually created the pitch deck. Back then, the blood rushed to my head.

Believing they were deliberately targeting me, I yanked my USB drive out and stormed out of the office.

Afterward, Becca took over with a completely nonsensical proposal, utterly ruining the partnership.

Yet, she turned around and pinned all the blame on me, forcing me to bear the brunt of the financial losses.

Reborn into this life, I stood once again in front of the projector screen in the company conference room.

Right in front of me was our CEO, Richard Davis, his face tightly knit in a deep frown.

Suddenly, without any warning, Becca’s inner voice echoed clearly inside my head. [Director Sterling looks so glamorous, getting a promotion and a raise off a pitch deck I stayed up all night to write.

Oh well. Who cares if she threatened me with my fulltime conversion? I don’t have any family connections here.

I guess I’ll just swallow my pride and bear it.] The voice appeared so abruptly. I recognized instantly that the person "speaking" was Becca. Yet, her mouth was shut tight.

She hadn’t opened her lips at all. At the same time, the expressions of the other colleagues around the room shifted slightly.

The looks they threw at me instantly filled with disdain. Obviously, they had all heard it too.

Richard cleared his throat and slammed the folder in front of him shut. "Chloe, you don’t need to go to the big pitch with the client this afternoon.

Also, your promotion proposal is suspended indefinitely." I stopped clicking the presenter remote in my hand and looked at him calmly.

Richard leaned back in his chair, his tone carrying the weight of a final judgment. "You need to have some professional ethics.

Taking credit for a proposal a young intern stayed up all night to write goes against everything this company stands for.

Becca will be taking full charge of this project from now on." Becca, standing at the far end of the conference table, shrunk her neck back right on cue, her eyes pooling with tears. "Mr.

Davis, please don't blame Chloe. I'm just an intern. I'm already so happy to be of help to the team.

As long as I can transition to a fulltime role, it doesn't matter if Chloe takes the credit." Her voice was thick with grievance and fragility.

At the exact same time, her inner thoughts rang through the room once more. [I'm so scared Chloe will be mad at me.

If it weren't to save everyone's bonuses for this month, I would never have dared to stand up. I don't want anything. I just want Mr. Davis to recognize my hard work.

Chloe comes from a rich family and doesn't care about this little commission, but this job is all I have.] Hearing this, Richard looked at Becca with an extra touch of pity in his eyes.

But when he turned to look at me, his gaze became incredibly harsh. In my past life, I had hysterically tried to prove that I had typed out every single word of this proposal.

I had even pulled up dozens of version histories from the cloud drive to vindicate myself. All I got in return was fingerpointing. Not a single person believed me.

I would never taste that suffocating feeling of being helpless and defenseless ever again. I ripped the ID badge off my neck and tossed it onto the conference table. "Mr.

Davis, you’re absolutely right. I did steal Becca’s proposal."

The conference room fell into a dead, stunned silence. Richard clearly hadn't expected me to admit to it so readily. The lecture he had prepared died in his throat.

I pulled out my USB drive and slid the beautifully bound, but completely empty, paper copy of the slide deck over to Becca. "Since Becca is so capable, she might as well take the Director position too.

For this afternoon's client pitch, let our star intern lead the presentation." I forced a smile, looking at the stunned crowd. "I quit.

Consider this my resignation, effective immediately." With that, I pushed my chair back and strode out.

Richard finally snapped out of his daze, slamming his hand hard against the table. "Chloe! What kind of attitude is this? You steal from your subordinate and then throw a tantrum?

Nobody is irreplaceable in this company!" Just as I reached the door, Becca suddenly took a step sideways to block my path, putting on an act of noble selfsacrifice. "Chloe, please don't be impulsive.

Everyone will be so sad if you leave." Her inner thoughts broadcasted right on schedule: [It’s fine. I don't mind suffering a little.

Even though I have a much better, finalized version of the deck on my laptop, the draft Chloe took is still good enough. It should help Mr. Davis secure the deal.

As long as everyone's hard work doesn't go to waste, I'm willing to let Chloe take all the credit.] Hearing that she had a "better, finalized version," Richard’s confidence surged.

He waved his hand dismissively. "Becca, don't stop her! Let her get lost! Go hand over your work!" I went back to my desk and booted up my computer.

I isolated the core audience database file—the actual brain of the entire project—encrypted it, and saved it to my private cloud.

As I was packing my things into a cardboard box, Becca wandered over. Under the guise of "handing over the work," she couldn't hide the smug triumph in her eyes.

I transferred the ownership of all seven client communication WhatsApp groups over to her. "They're all yours now. The client's chairman, Arthur Kingsley, has a very mild temper.

Just present your finalized version and wing it. Hope you get that fulltime contract soon." I left the groups, shut down the laptop, and walked out.

The moment I stepped out of the office building, I booked a flight to a neighboring resort city.

Without my core audience database, her fancy slide deck was nothing but a pretty piece of scrap paper.

At three o'clock the following afternoon, while relaxing in a hot spring pool, I turned on my backup phone. I opened my private chat with my former colleague, Lyndsey.

Dozens of voice messages and screenshots instantly flooded my screen. Lyndsey’s voice trembled with uncontrollable anxiety. "Chloe, something huge happened!

Becca completely crashed and burned at the client meeting this afternoon!" Arthur Kingsley cared about nothing but data conversion rates.

Becca had presented an empty shell of a slide deck. The moment Arthur asked her how she had calculated the regression equation for the target audience persona, she froze completely.

Arthur went ballistic. He threw the proposal right into Richard’s face, giving him a threeday ultimatum: produce the actual data, or see them in court.

Richard had screamed at Becca the entire car ride back to the office. But Becca's inner voice echoed inside the company car once again: [I know all the data I prepared was in there.

Why did Chloe maliciously wipe the core audience database before she resigned? Even if she hates me, she shouldn't play with the company's future like this. Now Mr.

Davis is going to lose the contract. I'm so stupid for not noticing sooner. I hate myself.] Richard, completely ignorant of the truth, immediately shifted all his fury back onto me.

The moment he returned to the office, he issued a strict order. The entire team's weekend was canceled.

They had to work day and night to help Becca reverseengineer three months' worth of data. This crossed a line for everyone.

By 2:00 AM on Sunday, while everyone was dying of exhaustion, Becca sat in her chair putting on a face mask.

Her inner thoughts chimed in: [It’s all my fault that everyone has to work so hard. If only I had been more guarded against Chloe.

And Lyndsey too... even though she just made several mistakes in the formulas and slowed us down, I can’t blame her.

After all, she's only trying to help me clean up the mess Chloe left behind.] To Richard, this sounded like Becca was looking out for the big picture.

But to Lyndsey, who was actually living through it, it was cruder than a slap to the face. Lyndsey was crying in her voice message: "Chloe, I didn't get any formulas wrong!

Becca did absolutely nothing but sit there and put on a face mask, and then she pinned the blame on me! Will and Jessica got so mad they shut their laptops and stormed out.

But Richard is still taking her side!"

Three days later, I received a call from HR. They demanded that I return to the office to sign my exit clearance form.

The moment I stepped into the office, I ran right into Lyndsey, whose eyes were bloodshot. The entire department looked like their souls had been sucked out.

Only Becca sat at her desk, wearing a full face of immaculate makeup, slowly sipping her Starbucks. Richard walked out of the conference room, dark circles under his eyes.

When he saw me, the muscles in his face twitched. "Chloe, had enough of your little vacation? 3:00 PM today is the final deadline Arthur Kingsley gave us.

You are going to sit down right now and lead the team to finish this data. If you do, I can pretend this resignation never happened." His tone was entirely dictatorial.

I stood my ground, refusing to budge, and handed him my physical resignation letter. "Mr. Davis, I am no longer an employee of this company.

Please sign this and issue my employment termination certificate." Richard’s face darkened further.

He slammed a heavy legal document onto the reception desk. "You still have the nerve to ask for termination! The client sent a final legal notice yesterday.

If we don’t deliver the complete data and strategy today, they will sue us for five million dollars in damages for suspected data fraud!" Becca stepped out of her office, looking incredibly apologetic, but her inner thoughts drifted into everyone's ears in perfect sync: [If Chloe hadn't maliciously cleared the database before she left, Mr.

Davis wouldn't be facing a fivemilliondollar lawsuit. I hope she takes responsibility for this.

Otherwise, the company is really going under this time.] Hearing this, the exhausted colleagues who were on the verge of collapsing all raised their heads.

Richard took a deep breath, pulling a single sheet of paper from beneath the legal notice and sliding it in front of me.

It was the Personal Indemnity and Liability Agreement he had pressured me to sign three months ago when the project launched.

He glared at me, a sinister glint flashing in his eyes. "Chloe, Becca already explained everything.

You maliciously deleted the core audience database before you left." "Your signature is on this agreement.

You are personally liable for this entire project!" "Now, I'll give you two choices.

Either you get back to work and fix the data right now, or you personally pay the five million dollars in damages."