The Ex Who Became His Obsession Novel Ch 60

The Ex Who Became His Obsession Novel Ch 60

Lauren: [Alyssia! William’s interview is out-have you seen it yet?]

On WorkChat, Lauren was spamming her nonstop.

Lauren: [Alyssia…]

Alyssia tore herself away from her mountain of drafts for a moment. [Haven’t seen it yet, Lauren. What’s up?j

Lauren: [Seriously, what’s going on? Shouldn’t you be looking out for yourself? What are you doing in the Finance Department, running an entire army or something?]

Alyssia closed the document with a sigh. [Just proofreading…]

After transferring to the Finance Department, Alyssia found herself trapped in a bizarre cycle of endless busy work.

Her new editor-in-chief, Anne Davis, assigned her to proofreading. If it had only been for her own team, that would have been fine-but of course, things weren’t that simple.

Alyssia couldn’t figure out why-why did all the department’s proofreading end up on her desk?

Brianna, under the guise of “training her,” handed it over.

“You used to work in entertainment, after all. Finance is a whole different ballgame.

“If you want to get up to speed, reading more is the fastest shortcut. Start with a month of proofreading, and I’ll decide your final position based on how quickly you pick things up,” Brianna explained.

Because of that speech, everyone in the department eagerly jumped at the chance to “help” her-by offloading all their work onto her, of course.

Whenever Alyssia protested, telling Anne she couldn’t possibly finish all the work, Anne would respond in a voice Alyssia couldn’t tell was gentle or just exhausted. “If you can’t finish, just work overtime. In our field, who actually gets to leave on time?”

If Alyssia tried to argue, Anne would grow impatient. “Honestly, do you even know finance? Have you ever worked in this industry? Besides proofreading, what else can you do here? If you mess something up in the Finance Department, can you take responsibility for it?”

That’s when the other colleagues would chime in with their “helpful” advice.

“Yeah, Alyssia, finance isn’t like entertainment. In entertainment, the worst you deal with are celebrity feuds-even if they’re A-listers, it’s just petty drama, nothing serious. But here? Everyone’s a heavy-hitter. One wrong move and they’ll skin you alive.”

“Didn’t you already get on Leonard’s bad side? We all heard about that 25 million dollar incident… Could you handle another one like that?”

“Don’t try to bite off more than you can chew. Take it slow. Finance is deep waters. Without three to five years, would you even dare to put pen to paper?”

“You’re way luckier than we were. When we started, none of us had the good fortune to learn slowly through proofreading. We had to learn the hard way. always on edge. You’ve got it easy compared to us.”

Alyssia couldn’t help but wonder, ‘If this is such a ‘blessing,’ would any of them actually want it?’

Proofreading isn’t just skimming through drafts. At the Finance Department, if the error rate in the second deduct 7 dollars for every typo, 14 dollars for every awkward sentence, and 28 dollars for any issues with

nd of proofreading exceeds 0.1%, they

ages.

The reporters-whether out of habit or on purpose-treat the first round of proofreading as if it might as well not exist, so by the time the drafts land on Alyssia’s desk, they’re riddled with mistakes.

If Alyssia so much as zones out or gets careless for a moment, her whole month’s salary might not even cover the deductions.

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Chapter 60

She might even end up owing them money.

So… William’s interview draft? Alyssia was way too swamped to even think about it.

Lauren messaged her just as Alyssia was feeling completely overwhelmed.

She set aside her work for a moment, clicked on the link Lauren had sent, and opened the latest issue of the e-magazine.

After a quick skim, she replied to Lauren: [Yeah, I took a look-nothing seems off to me.]

Lauren was practically breathing fire. [The byline! The damn byline! Look at the byline! Jesus Christ… how can you be so chill about this?)

Alyssia remained silent.

Even her famously tolerant expression darkened when she saw the byline.

‘What does this mean?’ she thought.

The list of credited authors was long.

Diana was listed first, then Chris Lane-the editor from Team Two who always butted heads with Lauren-then Lauren herself.

And Alyssia? Dead last.

Lauren ranted: [William’s piece is pure gold-everyone’s fighting for the credit. Fine, Diana’s the supervisor and she came up with the topic, so she deserves recognition. But what the hell did Chris do? Did he fuck Diana to get his name on it?]

Alyssia had been dead serious, but Lauren’s final crude remark nearly made her burst out laughing.

Lauren was fuming. [The lead reporter is always listed first! But they shoved you all the way to the end… Are they taking advantage of you just because you’re not in the department anymore?]

Lauren commanded: [Alyssia, you have to raise hell about this! Right now go talk to Charlie!]

Alyssia remained unbothered. [If they want it so badly, let them ‘have’ it.]

She just wanted to see if they could actually handle it…

Lauren threw up her hands in exasperation.

Lauren replied: [Alyssia! Are you-are you free right now? Come over here, let’s find a place and really hash this out!]

She declared: [If you won’t fight for yourself, I will! I’m going straight to Charlie!]

Alyssia: [Wait, wait-something urgent just came up in the department. I might have to step out for a bit…]

Lauren was speechless.

Alyssia looked up.

Someone in the department called out, “Alyssia, we just ordered some drinks. Could you go pick it up for us?”

Alyssia flashed a knowing smile-a smile that said she saw right through their game.

“Don’t they deliver?” she asked.

“Ugh, we’ve just been so busy today, and someone accidentally ordered it for pickup. It’s just downstairs, it won’t take you long,” her colleague said, putting on an apologetic face. “We’re all rushing to meet a deadline, so… could you help us out?”

2/4

Chapter 60

‘Right. Everyone’s s busy-guess I’m the only one here with time to slack off, Alyssia thought wryly.

But Alyssia really wanted to stretch her legs.

She’d been hunched over proofreading for so long, it was making her head spin.

Alyssia went downstairs to the drink shop not far from the office and messaged the department chat.

[I’m here, but the shop says we didn’t order.]

One of her colleagues replied: [Let me check… Oh no! Sorry, sorry… I-I picked the wrong shop-it’s in another block… Ugh, this is all my fault!)

[Then go get it yourself.]

Anne interjected: [Alyssia, why don’t you go? Everyone’s swamped today, and you’ll be drinking coffee too.)

Alyssia shot back: [Just because I drink coffee, I have to drop my work? I’m buried in proofreading the entire department’s drafts! If you want me to run. errands, then take your drafts back and proofread them yourselves. Otherwise, whoever messed up the order should go get it.]

The department chat went dead silent.

Alyssia was just about to head upstairs when Brianna spoke up.

Brianna said: [It’ll take about forty minutes to get coffee from the other block. Alyssia, if you go pick it up, we’ll deduct one proofreading assignment from your load.]

[Which one?]

After all, each assignment was different-some took more time than others.

Anne chimed in: [Aren’t you being a bit too nitpicky?]

[Let’s get this straight now, or you’ll just start squabbling about it later.] Alyssia shot back.

The whole department chat went dead silent.

[Have you decided yet? I’m waiting for the elevator.] Alyssia pressed.

Anne finally relented: [Just pick one yourself.]

Without missing a beat, Alyssia chose the longest piece.

‘What’s the point of being polite? They certainly haven’t shown me any courtesy,’ Alyssia thought.

So she hailed a cab to pick up the coffee.

When she got out, she made sure to get a receipt from the driver-she needed it for reimbursement. If they refused, she’d photocopy that receipt a hundred times and plaster them all over the Vanguard Media building.

When Alyssia arrived at the coffee shop and stared at the literal mountain of coffee, she massaged her temples in exasperation.

The Finance Department at Vanguard Media was massive, boasting nearly sixty people.

She called another cab, popped open the trunk, and started loading the coffee in, bag by bag.

Honestly, I feel like a coffee middleman, Alyssia thought wryly.

“So this is the noble pursuit you insisted on, even after running away from home and turning everyone against you?” Suddenly, a man’s sardonic voice cut through the air behind her.