____

Serene

°°°°°°°°°

"Serene, Mr. Shawn is on his way! Come on!" My co—worker, Natasha Maurice, cried as she poked her head into my office via the tiny opening of the door.

She seemed tense. At first, I had thought she had been dramatic when she had cried out that much. But, paying attention to her words, an invisible alarm hollered in my ears.

Mr. Shawn was on his way? Damn, no!

I widened my eyes, and gasped. "Gosh, what?! Why the heck would he come all of a sudden?"

"Will you sit there asking me questions, or get your ass here?!" She lowered her eyebrows at me, the fretting tone in her voice aggravating.

"Okay!"

Like a maniac, I slammed my pen against the glass table in front of me, hopped from my seat. Grabbing my suit jacket which I had placed on my table, I slipped it on in a rush, flipped my long, brown hair past my shoulder. In a short while, I glanced at the rectangular shaped mirror which was placed on the wall beside me, and cleared my throat as if I was about to give a speech at an event.

"Are you nuts? You're trying to look good for the CEO or what?" Natasha scolded.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at her prattle, just clipped my staff ID to the pocket on my shirt, then made my way out of the office with her.

Only taking a step into the corridor and shutting the door behind me, the tension hovering around me kind of increased. Natasha and I weren't the only ones who were trying to get to the last floor as soon as possible. The whole workers on this floor were also trying to do that.

I blinked like a confused pig, trying to calculate and decipher what was going on around here. First, I might not successfully reach the last floor before the CEO arrived, owing to the fact that the elevator wouldn't be able to contain the great crowd who were rushing to the last floor. Second, if I kept standing here, I wouldn't make it in time!

"Snap out of it, cow!" Natasha gripped my wrist, began pulling me towards the elevator.

As we ran over there, my ankles hurt. If I had known that I would take a short race today, I wouldn't have worn these scarpin shoes to the office. Also, why would the CEO be coming over without leaving a notice, prior to now? Well, he was the CEO. He could do what he wanted.

Mr. Raymond Shawn, the CEO of Twinkle Stars, was that one person who never took shit. He was bratty, a man who never broke his own rules, extremely classy, cold, and worst of all, he was the one person who could determine my future. Speaking of my future, it wasn't like I was being caged by him or something. As we all knew, the CEO was the person in charge around here. If he fired me, my life would be a mess, knowing that working here was my only source of living.

"Come in here!" The elevator door was about to close, but Natasha managed to pull us in. When we stepped in, we sighed in relief. She glared at me. "Can't believe you're not a smart—ass after all. How can you be so sluggish in such a terrifying situation?"

"Yeah right." I flapped my hand at her, being apathetic to help words. "Keep your comments to yourself."

"Of course. I will." She hissed.

After the journey that felt like forever, we reached the last floor. In a jiffy, we all rushed out of the elevator, ran with so much intensity, and lined up in a straight line. We all put our heads down, waiting for the so—called, mighty Mr. CEO to arrive.

I took a deep breath. Encountering Mr. Shawn had always been an earthquake for me, in the nine months I had been working here.

The moment the glass door beside me opened up, the whole place went silent. It was silent enough to the point that the footsteps of Mr. Shawn were the only things that could be heard. As he stepped in further, my heart slipped to my stomach.

He stood a few steps away from me, standing like a mango tree. He cleared his throat. "Who is Ryan's Secretary?" And inquired.

My heart jumped to my throat. Wait, as far as I knew, I was Ryan's Secretary. Gosh, what now? Was he going to fire me or something? I had always known that working for that ass would implicate me someday!

"I'm Ryan's Secretary." I gulped. I had tried as much as possible to not stutter.

He walked to me. Standing in front of me, I had no choice but to look up at his 6"4 height.

"You?" He wiggled a brow at me, his hands behind him.

"Yes, me," I responded, being as dauntless as possible.

Staring at him directly was something no woman in this company wanted to do. The grey color in his eyes could make someone's heart burst out in admiration of how good he looked. Talk about the straight nose, full eyebrows, small lips and the good height he possessed?

For some very irritating and unfathomable reason, he smirked. "Hm… nice. Meet me in my office tomorrow. Seven o'clock in the evening."

"O—Okay." I couldn't help but stutter. "You need something?"

He stepped even closer, his tall height overshadowing my 5"9 height. Unexpectedly, he winked. How unprofessional of the CEO of such a great company.

He leaned close to me ear, then whispered, "I have something for you."

His hot breath tickled the helix of my ear, a shiver jolting down my spine. If I didn't have a boyfriend, I would have surely been drooling for him already. The heat emanating from our closeness was definitely making my senses go blank. It was as if my thoughts were making the "bleh…" sound. This flirtatiousness was too much for a saint like me.

I nodded swiftly.

He pulled away. Like the boss he was, with a snap of his fingers, ten to fifteen men hurried over to him. And soon, they all left this proximity. I exhaled hard. Dealing with men was a hard thing for me.

I stood in my tracks for a while, then headed back to my office.

***

Seeing it was seven already, I felt a bit glad. Finally, it was time to leave the office. Heaving, I grabbed a couple of files from my table, tugged them to my chest, heading to my boss' office.

I knocked on his door, waited patiently for a response. Since I got no quick response, I knocked for a second time. This time around, he asked me to come in. And, the moment I stepped in, I shut the door behind me.

I gulped. Here I was. About to have an encounter with that one person I never liked to see, Ryan Arthur. Yes, encountering him was another "earthquake" for me.

Ryan was that person who made my life miserable. Working for him was worse than running in a fire. He was that one person who called his secretary by her name, and never cared to pay any respect to me. What a shame, right? But, did he care? Absolutely not.

He had his eyes glued to his laptop as if I wasn't here. I cleared my throat in order to get his attention, but all he did was to glimpse at me. How rude. Of course, I was used to it.

"I'll be on my way home." I walked close to his table, ensuring I wasn't being clumsy. He didn't like that at all.

"Yeah, whatever." He took some files from his table, glimpsed at me for a second time. "Have I ever cared about that? Why tell me?"

"Um, cause, I won't want you to search for me while I'm not even here." I kept the files on the table, arranged them properly so he wouldn't have any reason to complain about them. "Here are the files you requested. Will you need anything else?"

He leaned into his seat as he skimmed through the paper in his hand. "Donno yet. You can wait a little longer, huh? Pretty sure that shouldn't be a problem."

I sighed. "Alright, fine then. Um, also, I wanted to ask why you didn't come out of the office to welcome Mr. Shawn. He can fire you for that, you know? You know he always has a problem with you."

"Is that supposed to be your problem?" He looked at me, fury hovering in his eyes.

I bit my lower lip. "Oh, sorry. Was only trying to, you know, ensure everything goes well."

"This isn't the first time I'll ask you to stop talking about that dick." He stood up, glaring, his hands behind him. For some unknown reason, he started sauntering towards me.

I gulped. "I—I'm sorry, sir."

He stepped close, and closer, and closer. "I hate him," he avowed.

"But, he's the boss around here." The shaky tone of my voice was proof that fear was swimming through me.

He glared even harder. And, when I noticed he didn't resist stepping close, I also began to step backwards. What could I do? I wouldn't let him bump into me, would I?

"But, I'm the boss around here." There was a bit of irk in his tone.

As if the wall had wanted him to stay close to me, I hit my back against the shitty thing, looking up at his tall height. Fright ran through me. Until now, I hadn't known I was this scared of the man who I had been working with since months ago.

"I—I'm sorry," I stammered, swallowing a lump in my throat.

He stared at me, kind of pinned me to the wall. I stared as well, wondering why there was this crazy silence between us. What the heck was this? A romance novel or movie?

Not at all I had expected this, but I noticed the corner of his lips curling into a simper. "Hey." There was a little raspiness and flirtatiousness in his voice. Okay, this wasn't the first time he'd sound this way. "I haven't noticed that you look pretty. It's nice to have you close, you know?"

I gulped. "Mr. Arthur, did you like, drink something tonight?"

He scoffed. "A big deal to tell my secretary that she's pretty?"

"Hm—hm." I shook my head gently. "But, um, we're workers. We shouldn't break the rules. As Mr. Shawn has stated, no closeness between the workers."

"Mind if we—"

The sound of the door cut him off, and even made us flinch. He shut his eyes, exhaled hard, wore the stern look, then moved his gaze to whoever had come in.

Embarrassed, I slowly turned to the person who had come in, only for me to see this annoying freak who tagged herself as "His Girlfriend". I almost rolled my eyes, hating the fact that I had to see her. But well, I had to pay some respect to the visitors.

She moved her eyes to me, moved them to Ryan, then moved them back to me. Her nostrils flared, and there was no doubt that she was furious.

"What're you both doing? Smooching each other in the office?" She squeezed her face. Yeah, her head was obviously racing in wrath. But, I cared less.

Wait? Had she just said we were smooching each other? Gross. Smooching with my boss? How ridiculous.

——