5. Judging

Dean's POV:

Silence falls between us again. Kiara stands up from her chair, and I nearly expect her to leave the room again. Instead, she grabs hold of our empty boxes and throws them in the trash. Perhaps with a little force behind it as I hear the loud thud, as soon as the boxes hit the bottom of the trash can.

After that, she walks back to the desk and starts working again without saying a single word. Running my hands frustrated through my hair, I pick up the card she tossed back at me from the floor and silently lay it next to her right hand on my desk.

"I don't need it," she says without even looking up at me once.

"Take it, I have a few more in my drawer. And even if it's far out of my way, I apologize for tossing it like that at you. Perhaps it wasn't the politest way," I sigh.

Surprised, she looks up at me, and for the first time, I take in her full features of her face. While beforehand at a first glance and not paying much attention to her face, I thought she is maybe average. It's now that I see her full beauty. My apology caught her off guard again, and the face is relaxed.

When she caught me staring, I did notice she wasn't caked, but being caught stopped me from taking her in properly.

Her puppy, like huge hazel coloured eyes, bild a strong contrast to her ginger hair, giving her face a natural beauty. As it looks, the only makeup she is wearing is a mascara, a pink lipgloss, and a very slight blush, underlining her natural features. Besides a few cute freckles, her skin is spotless. And true to her ginger coloured hair, the skin is very pale, like ivory.

Her high cheekbones, a petite nose, and fine jawline give her a feature, which reminds me of some of the models I've been around in the past. Only that they paid well to have a plastic surgery done. And with her, it seems to come off naturally. How couldn't I see this earlier? Ok, maybe I was too focused on being pissed off. But god, she's beautiful.

I clear migh throat once I realize how I have been staring at her, for what seems like ages. And her eyes break away from me, back to the laptop.

"Perhaps?" Leaves her lips with a huff, and it takes me a moment to remember what I had said before our staring contest.

"Yes, perhaps. It's not like you were exactly friendly before that either," I retort.

After that, we work next to each other for nearly two hours in total silence. While I am working at all my mails, from during the day and sorting out some paperwork, she keeps working on what we had talked about earlier on. She probably could have done this from her office. The only reason she probably still is in here is just in case she needs to ask me something.

Any other person I would have kicked out of my office by the latest after twenty minutes. But to be honest, I doubt she would have listened to me anyway. And as much as she has me going nuts, I can't say I mind her sitting here at my desk.

Around us, all the other office lights are being switched off one by one, but she is still fully focused on her work. It's like she is diving deep into it and a side glance now and then shows me exactly if she is happy about what she has just done or if she is frustrated.

Once I have my schedule done for today, I turn to her. "Hey, I think we are done for today. It's nearly eight o'clock, we've been here for nearly twelve hours." It's not like I work any less on other days, I'm always working. But I still feel the slight hangover from last night, and she surely has better things to do too.

"Give me five minutes, and then I will show you the different things I have worked out for this campaign. I just need to sort them into the right folders."

As she said, she doesn't need more than five minutes, and she takes me by surprise how she has differentiated it depending on which plattform we are using for the advertising. She explains that we need a different advertising on F******k than on I*******m or other social media plattforms explaining it with the age difference by the majority of the users. Also, having different layouts for the different kinds of magazines or online papers. She's worked out about nearly twenty different kinds of layouts, explaining her intentions behind each and for me to decide which I want for what. Wow, until now, we have gone with three to four layouts, and I would pick out one or two.

"You did all of this in one afternoon?" I ask her with a little astonishment in my voice.

"That's what I am here for." She simply shrugs it off as if the work she has done is nothing special. Our former creative director would have taken probably a whole week to work out what she just did in one afternoon.

"Didn't you have to do any research first to know how to place this best?"

"I try to keep up to date with the different plattforms and know what's right for them so that when I have to place a product, I know what is expected from me. Besides, we spoke about your expectations and what you want to achieve with this advertising, so it was quite easy. It would be harder to do it for a company, where I don't know what they expect from me. Like, if I worked somewhere, where we only work to do advertising for other brands. Here, I had the possibility of checking out your expectations directly and knowing it has to match to this company, too. That makes it easy, peasy."

Leaning back in my chair, I can't help but smirk about this girl in front of me. She makes it sound as if it was no big deal at all. As a young director of this company I'm always working on new and innovative branches and products, I've been mostly fighting through most of the things by myself, as the older people here don't understand what I expect. Most of the younger ones have no own ideas and simply go with whatever I suggest.

This girl in front of me, though, seems to work and think in the same way I do. She has a strong mind, and her work is outstanding. Something, I for sure didn't expect when I met her this morning. Maybe it's not just daddy getting her into the right position. There's only the issue. She won't obey, to what I demand from her. Can I work together with her?

"How old are you?" The question has been on my mind ever since this morning.

"Does it make any difference? Either you like my work or you don't. My age shouldn't be the thing that counts. Or does anyone judge you about being so young in your position?"

Well, she might have a point, but people have always accepted my natural authority. And through hard work, I've proven to be in the right position. Some people think I am only here because of my dad. Fact is, whoever has worked with me knows better. I work harder than my dad, and since I've been signed up on this company, we've grown about three times the size from what we were beforehand.

Interrupting my thoughts again, she asks. "Well, what's it going to be?"

"I'll judge you on your work, and I'd say don't be late tomorrow." I'm still going to check her file and find out her age.

"I'm never late. You better watch you don't come too late, remember you drive a Porsche and not some old tiny Fiat." If it wasn't for the smirk and the teasing voice I'd tell her to get lost.

While she leaves my office, I can't help but stare at her swaying hips and wish that pencil skirt was a little tighter on her to show off her ass, like it did when she bent over this morning. Stop! Where are my fucking thoughts taking me? One rule, don't even think of starting anything ever again with an employee. Wich doesn't mean I can't have a look though, does it?

Opening her personnel file on my computer I scroll through a few pages. What I can read about her education is impressing, just as me she has skipped two classes and she couldn't have past the tests any better. Looking at her age she is one year younger than me. That's damn young to be a creative director, most people in her age work in the background helping the creative director. The work she did this afternoon would normaly be done by a whole creative team only lead by the creative director.

She definitely has the brains to be in this position. But can she handle the pressure coming with it? Thinking back to our encounters today, I have to smirk. Perhaps she can. She's feisty, that's for sure. And well, I really shouldn't be the one judging about the age. She is right.

I know working together with her is going to put me through hell, but if her work is like this every day, I will gladly put her into place. It might take a few days, but she will realize she can't speak up to me like that.

It's gone nine once I can finally hit the gym.

************

Today, I'm back to my usual routine. No hangover means I'm up early and already preparing some of my work at home. As Kiara had sent me all of the layouts yesterday, I use my time during breakfast to choose which ones I want to use and send her a mail already so she can set it all up. This way, it will be faster than talking to her, as I am in different meetings all day long.

Arriving at the park deck, I curse underneath my breath. Is she fucking serious?