“Can you just not meet her?” I blurted out asking before I could hold myself back. It wasn’t like I regretted my words. In fact, I was thankful for that extra burst of courage that made me say those words out loud. Life would be so much better for me and for us if he could just stop meeting her or contacting her in any way. “I can’t do that. She’s not that bad of a person when you really get to know her. She’s just…she can be mean and very calculating with her words,” Ace said with a little chuckle. “You seem to adore her…and everything that she does,” I muttered darkly. “Not at all. I give her a hard time too whenever she steps over the line. However, I figured that today would be a good practice for you. One day, you’ll be able to deal with people like her so effortlessly,” Ace said before flashing me a confident smile. I shook my head in disagreement. If this was the way that he wanted me to learn and improve myself, then I would prefer that I stayed the way that I was before.
I sighed when I realized that there was no way that no one would see us together. The security guard was basically staring into the car when Ace rolled down the window. I had no idea why he had to do that when the guard could already tell that it was Ace. I mean, he’s the CEO for crying out loud. “Good morning!” Ace greeted the guard loudly.The flustered reaction of the guard told me that it wasn’t a daily occurrence that Ace would do this. I cursed him silently in my mind as I desperately turned the other way. “G-Good morning, Sir…” the guard replied in a shaky voice. “I’m just here with my secretary because we’re supposed to always be together. It’s nothing unusual, ok?” Ace said in a teasing tone.“Y-Yes, Sir…” the guard stammered. I literally began pulling at my hair in my frustration. I wondered but then decided that I didn’t even want to know why Ace did something like what he just did. When the car moved forward again, I turned around and glared at him. “Relax…” Ace whisp
We entered the war room to find Julianna and her entire team there. From the dark circles and large bags under their eyes and the fact that everyone was still wearing the same outfit, it was clear that they really did spend the entire night in the war room. I was impressed at their dedication but more impressed at how high their team morale seemed to be despite all they had gone through. “You sound excited…” Ace commented without much emotion.Julianna turned with a smile on hers lips before she started giggling a little evilly to herself. Something good must have happened for her to have a reaction like that. She looked like she was the verge of exploding to tell us the good news. “Did something good happen?” I asked curiously. “I don’t know but I really hope so,” she replied before winking at me. “What does that mean?” I asked as my curiosity started taking over. “She probably did something and is still waiting for the numbers to roll in,” Ace replied without any excitement.I
“I think you all should go crash at home,” Ace said as he turned to address Julianna and her team. “We’ll stay here till the first report comes in,” Julianna replied while sounding quite stubborn. “Fine. Do what you want…” Ace muttered in resignation. “Thank you. Don’t worry, we’re fine…” Julianna replied with a smile. I could understand why Julianna didn’t want to go home. If I were her, I would probably do the exact same thing. After spending the entire night working with her team to fix the situation that we were in, who wouldn’t want to be in the office along with everyone else to see their effort bear fruit. I prayed that everything would be smooth sailing and that the result would turn out just as Julianna had expected. “Is there something that I can help out with?” I asked Ace hopefully. “Nope. Nothing at all. Let’s wait patiently for the report to come in. In the meantime, if you have anything to take care of, you can go ahead,” Ace replied casually. There wasn’t much o
This was probably a part of what he had been trying desperately to hide from me. Even after seeing it, I still haven’t discovered what he planned to do except to perhaps have a building constructed. I didn’t even know where the building was going to be located or what it was going to be used for. Suddenly, I felt slightly nauseous, and my temples started to throb as I struggled to deal with the void of emptiness that seemed to have taken shape inside of me. Although I had been trying desperately to deal with it silently and telling myself to be patient, I still hated the fact that Ace was keeping secrets from me. The worst part out of all of this was the piercing painful feeling that sprang up in my chest when I thought that Ace did not want to share his future with me. It felt like I was an outsider, and he was treating me like one. Not telling me anything and always keeping me in the dark. I stared down at the blueprint again as I wondered if the future that Ace envisioned for him
We did it? “Really? Did the amount of donation go up?” I asked as his words caught my attention. Ace smiled warmly down at me before he slowly nodded his head in confirmation. My eyes widened even further, and for a moment, I was at a loss for words. Thankfully, we were finally seeing some positive results and some good news. I let out a sigh of relief before I tried my best to smile up brightly at Ace. “Come along. You can listen to Julianna blab about her success,” Ace said as he grabbed my wrist.He turned around and began pulling me along with him down the hallway. I let him lead me wherever he wanted me to. I was just so relieved that Project Alpha seemed to be back on track. There wasn’t a lot of time left until the announcement of the winner of the competition and then everything that I had been waiting for and dreading would happen all at once. Ace would quit his job and he would no longer work here. I wouldn’t have the chance to work with Ace like this anymore. I stared d
I felt a little bad for her, but I had to admit that Ace’s suggestion was probably the right one. “Everything will be fine here now, thanks to you…” I whispered to her softly. “Fine. I’ll go home. Let’s go home, you guys!” Julianna mumbled before turning to yell at her team members. “I’ll see you all tomorrow…” I said before I thanked everyone who was leaving. Since the results of Julianna’s work turned out much better than we could have imagined, there honestly wasn’t much work to do for the rest of the day but to monitor the campaign. If anything, the people in the war room spent time celebrating their little victory by going out to get coffee or softly chatting to one another while doing some work. Everything was so peaceful until my phone suddenly vibrated on the table. I quickly grabbed it when I saw the notification that I had just received a new message. My heart skipped a beat when I saw that the message was from Ace. I glanced over to see him working diligently on his la
While trying to tell myself to calm down and act normal, I headed towards the exit of the archive. The same guard was there at the exit and that made me feel quite nervous. It went without saying that I had never stolen or inappropriately ‘borrowed’ a document like this before. I flashed the guard a little smile before casually walking past. After taking a few steps away. I honestly thought that I had made it; however, things didn’t quite end as smoothly as I had hoped. “Little lady, if you put that back where you got it from, I will look the other way and pretend that this never happened…” the guard muttered in a low voice. My body froze at his words when I realized that my stupid attempt to smuggle the document out had failed spectacularly. He must have been watching on the security camera and caught on to what I was up to. It was regretful but I had no other choice except to return the document from where it came from. “I’m sorry…” I mumbled a soft apology as I turned around.