Ian glanced up and nodded. “I’m aware.”
“Would you like me to come with you, sir?”
“Never mind, Leslie, that will not be needed,” he said, waving a dismissive hand towards the woman, who left briskly. He cocked a brow at me. “You are still here.”
He stood up from his seat and walked towards his coat stand to pick up a wine suit jacket, which he donned on smoothly. I watched him while fuming with anger, my fingers piercing into the palm of my hand.
“Why don’t you escort me to this lunch meeting since you’ve refused to leave my office?” He turned to me, buttoning up his suit. “Drop that proposal on my desk and come with me.”
It was after he said this that the turn of the situation registered itself in my brain. “What!”
“Let’s go,” he snapped, heading out of the office.
I couldn’t even tell what made me move, the command in his tone or the fact that he was my boss. I dropped the proposal on his desk as he asked and smoothened my hand across my suit pants as I followed him out of his office. This was turning out to be a very annoying day.
“I can feel you glaring holes staring at me, Ashley,” Ian Maxwell said halfway into our drive, his eyes on his tablet. No wonder he couldn’t drive himself anywhere, he’d definitely get into an accident with his eyes always on that device. “State your business.”
“Why do I have to follow you to this lunch meeting?” I asked, even though it was far too late. I blamed myself for going out of function when he had ushered me out of his office.
“Because someone has to take notes. You weren’t expecting me to do that, were you?” he replied in a straight tone, still not glancing at me.
“But that’s not my job to do; you have assistants for that,” I ranted, almost yelling.
He scoffed. “Not like you’ve been doing your job so well.”
“Well, that’s what I don’t understand. Why would you reject that proposal in the first place when you were going to accept it at the end? Why would you put me through such endless torture?” I blurted it all out, unable to keep it in. That wasn’t me, I couldn’t pretend for too long.
“Because I can,” he said in a flat tone, his eyes still glued to that stupid thing in his hand.
“Stupid jerk!” I muttered to myself, looking away, but to my surprise, he heard me.
“I heard that.” His green eyes were blazing fire as he turned around to face me.
The close proximity of him was driving me crazy, but him adding this sultry insult made it more difficult to hold my anger.
I faked an innocent look, blinking rapidly. “What? I didn’t say anything…”
Luckily for me, the car came to a halt, and I quickly hopped out of the car with a mental note to keep my mouth in check around Ian. And somehow, I managed to keep to that promise all through the lunch meeting. I did my best to take down notes for the infuriating man even though it was not my job, but I could already tell that this was another way of frustrating the hell out of me. I just hope that one day I don’t throw all my cautions in the air and shove his job back into his face.
Chapter 6
Ashley
The weekends were turning out to be my favorite time and I was looking forward to this Saturday. I’ve never really considered weekends to be that special, but ever since I started to work at IM Corps, I’ve gotten to realize just how beautiful the whole idea of having weekends was. Whoever invented weekends deserves a medal. After a stressful week of working on the ideas that were rejected one after another only to find out the first idea was perfectly fine, it was nice to have a day where I wasn’t cooped up in an office with two assistants who would rather be anywhere but there.
I had a lunch date with Justin and Jenny today, which added to my excitement. Justin had left the apartment earlier to pick up Jenny to the restaurant and I am to meet them there. I really appreciate how Justin makes time to help me with my problems even though he has a ton of work as one of the core engineers. Heis always striving to perfect his designs. So when I heard about Jenny, I was so happy for Justin. His face lit up whenever he talked about Jenny.
It feels nice being able to rant to Justin and tell him all the things his perfect role model has been doing to me. I mean, it was time he realized that Ian Maxwell was a devil in human’s clothing.
One last glance at my appearance and I confirmed that I was set. I brushed my hair out with my fingers and tucked a few behind my ear as I walked out of the apartment. I checked the text message from Justin confirmed where we were supposed to meet again, and after double checking the address, I called a cab and headed for the restaurant, Maschil.
I met Justin right outside the restaurant. He rolled his eyes playfully, smacked me on the arm, and said, “What took you so long?”
I smiled as I placed my hand on my arm, pretending like his smacking had hurt a lot, and said “I was hoping to give you lovebirds a head start. Is that so bad?” I looked around to find Jenny. “Where is she?”
“Hello.”
I turned around and smiled to find a pretty, petite lady beside me. She had curly dark hair that was placed neatly on her head in a ponytail and light brown eyes that looked perfect on her slim face.