“Don’t worry, I won’t ask you to marry me right away,” Ace said before he laughed softly. “That’s not…” I began denying but then realized that it was useless. “Isn’t that what you’re worried about?” Ace asked before he grinned knowingly at me. Just like he had told me countless times before, he really could read me like an open book. “Sort of…” I admitted softly. “I remember you mentioned that to me before. Don’t worry, I won’t propose to you right away because I’ll probably just get rejected,” Ace said before he laughed again. “I see…” I mumbled. “When the merger become public, at least, we don’t have to keep our relationship a secret anymore,” Ace said and the way that he smiled after saying that warmed my heart. “That would be good…” I agreed with a genuine smile. “You don’t sound so happy,” Ace pointed out. “No, I’m very happy. It’s just…a little hard for me to believe. Sort of like, it’s too good to be true?” I said as I cocked my head slightly to the side. “So, when d
I blinked rapidly to snap out of my ominous thoughts to find Ace staring intensely at my face as he rested his chin on the back of his hand. Automatically, I offered him a smile to hide the fact that I was in fact quite stressed out at that moment despite how well everything seemed to be progressing. His hazel eyes seemed to appraise my face and I could tell that he could read me and what I was thinking. “Yes…?” I replied while trying to keep my tone light. “Should we go to the office today or should we just call in sick?” Ace asked before he laughed a little. I was very tempted to go with his more than subtle hint that we should just call in sick and take the day off together; however, I couldn’t quite bring myself to hog Ace all to myself when I knew that everyone at the company must be waiting for him to make an appearance like some superhero. Unwarranted rumors could go spreading around the company as well if the CEO did not turn up to work after publicly announcing his retirem
I guess, after all is said and done, I really do have some commitment issues…“If you want, I can spend more time with you here or if you want me to sleep over more often, we can discuss that…” I replied while carefully trying to discreetly evade the topic. “If you move in here, we can spend more time together and we can sleep together every night,” Ace pointed out. Spending time together and living together felt like two entirely different things to me. If I moved in with him, I’ll be with him all the time and I won’t have much private space or time. Sometimes being around Ace made me self-conscious and I couldn’t quite relax properly. I wasn’t sure how I could explain something like that to him, though. “Do we have to discuss this now? I’m sure you’re so busy with everything else…” I said as I attempted once again to evade the topic. “This is as good a time as any other. I honestly don’t see why we have to put this off. I can hire people to help you with the move if you think yo
“I’m very sorry about this. If you’re ok with letting me slowly adjust then I guess eventually it would be possible for me,” I suggested with a small hopeful smile.“I get it, you don’t have to worry about it too much. Just take it at your own pace,” Ace readily agreed without pushing me any further.To my surprise, Ace was less adamant about his demand than I thought that he would be. By that time, a part of me had gotten used to being pushed to my limits by Ace on both my professional and personal fronts that it came as a slight surprise that he was letting me take things at my own pace when it came to this. Needless to say, my pace was always slower and a few steps behind his.“Thank you, Ace. I’ll try to stay over more often,” I promised.“What about tonight?” he asked invitingly.“Sure…I can start with that…” I found myself agreeing without thinking much about it.“Good. When you move in with me, you can stop renting your apartment too. It’ll help you save up on rent,” Ace pointe
I turned around to see Ace looking like he had a part of his life sucked out of him by the time that he arrived at his office. Of course, something like that was bound to happen and I had thought that he would be used to it by now. I guessed that much attention might have been too much even for someone like Ace.“I think you did great,” I said as I quickly took his suit out of his hands for him.“Thanks…” he thanked me, and I wasn’t sure if he was thanking me for my words of encouragement or the fact that I had helped him with his suit.Not that it mattered at that point.“I guess that was too much even for you? You’re lucky because you have some free time before your first meeting of the day, so you can relax for a bit…” I said before smiling a little his way.“Do I?” he muttered although it sounded like he couldn’t care less.Ace lowered himself down onto the sofa before leaning his head back. I watched as he closed his eyes and let out a long unsuppressed sigh. Just when I opened m
“I wasn’t planning to…” I murmured.“Regardless of what you say, you’ll have to pick another project. What about this one?” Ace suggested as he took out a small pile of paper and placed it on the table in front of me.I flipped through a couple of pages and found that it seemed to be another advertisement for a clothing company. There wasn’t anything outstandingly interesting about the project. At least that was what I thought until my eyes landed on a particular name.“Oh…” I muttered.“Work with Richard instead. He’s nice and strict so I’m sure that there are many things that you can learn from him. You didn’t really get a chance to work closely with him on Project Alpha, so this is a good opportunity,” Ace said quite seriously.I felt like the words ‘nice’ and ‘strict’ shouldn’t really go together. Ace was surely half right when he said that Richard was ‘strict’. Richard was probably one of the strictest person that I knew in my life but I wasn’t sure if he was also ‘nice’. “You’
I knew that he was trying his best to cheer me up. Jeremy, just like the rest of us, was assigned to a new project as well. “You’re alone on your new project, right? As in, no one else from the CEO’s office is going to be there with you,” I asked. “Guess it’s my time to shine all alone now. It will be quite lonely, though…” he replied. “I bet you’ll end up missing having me with you, right?” I said teasingly before I laughed. “Probably…” he replied before looking away. “Oh, I have to go. I’ll catch up with you later, ok?” I quickly said when I realized that I had a meeting with my new team starting soon. “Good luck on your new project, Karina,” Jeremy said before he lifted his hand and waved at me. “Thank you! You too!” I called back and returned his wave. …**A few days later**It was almost midnight and I felt bone tired from the many long days of working. The days just seemed to drag by ever since the new project started. To be fair, there wasn’t anything particularly wrong
“We’re so lucky to get not just one but two elites joining our team!”“This project is going to be a huge success. Thank you for agreeing to help us out with this one,”“I’m really looking forward to learning from you two. Thank you for joining us,”While Richard stood with a face void of any emotion next to me, we were welcomed by everyone in our new team. I had never had such words of welcome or compliment showered on me like this at the start of a project before. Being called an ‘elite’ made me feel slightly uncomfortable because I wasn’t certain if I was suitable for such a title. While I felt glad yet a little unsettled, Richard seemed used to this kind of reception that we were getting.“Thank you. I look forward to working with everyone,” I said before showing what I hoped was a very friendly smile.While being branded as one of the ‘elites’ in the company because I had a track record of being part of Project Alpha and an active member of the CEO’s office brought many complimen