Gemotions

"Well, isn’t this just *lovely*," Clara muttered, the words dripping with sarcasm. The letter, thin and flimsy, seemed to mock her. The elegant script, a reminder of a world she’d lost. It had been ten years since the art gallery scandal, since the whispers, the snide remarks that drove her to the edge.

Her phone vibrated in her hand. Her assistant. "Everything alright, Ms. Thorne?" Clara gave a dry laugh. Everything was most decidedly *not* alright. She had worked her way to the top again, brick by brick, only to receive this pathetic gesture of contrition.

She crumpled the letter, the paper crackling in her grip. After a moment, she smoothed it out carefully and placed it in the bottom drawer of her desk with the other relics of her past. She would not let it win.