160 Her Sudden Arrival

I stared at Ace’s calendar for a brief moment before inputting a new meeting for us to discuss our latest storyboard with him. Jeremy watched me intently and I had to stop what I was doing to flash him a reassuring smile. I might have been out of it lately, but I can surely get us a meeting time with Ace.

“Here. I’ve scheduled it already. The meeting should appear in your calendar as well,” I announced before smiling a little at Jeremy.

“Thank you, miss secretary,” Jeremy thanked me teasingly.

...

Ace schedule was packed for the next few days so the meeting that I had scheduled with him to review the latest storyboard got pushed back to next Monday. Regardless, I decided to send him an email so that he could have a look at it beforehand. Since there wasn’t much that I could do while waiting for Ace’s comments, it was the perfect opportunity for me to catch up on my secretarial work at Ace’s office.

“It’s good to see you back here, honestly,” Ace told me with a smile.

“It’s good to be back. Umm, by the way, I sent you the most updated version of the storyboard that I’ve been working on with Jeremy for your review. I also set up a meeting for the three of us to go through it,” I said with a proud smile.

“Great. I’ll take a look at it, but we should discuss it in detail during the meeting. Is the version you sent me the final version?” Ace asked.

“Well, yes. It’s the final version from us but the real final version will come after we get your comments or approval,” I replied while daring to feel hopeful.

.....

I knew that Ace was a tough critic on all our works so it wouldn’t be that easy for our work to pass and get his approval without edits here and there. However, I dare to hope that the edits would be minor and fixable in a short period of time. Otherwise, we risk running into delays or cutting into the time allotted for the other teams to complete their work.

“Goodluck,” Ace said before grinning at me.

Right, we’ll probably need some luck for our work to go through. Ace turned and left the office to go to his next meeting. I watched him leave as I thought that he had been more discipline in joining his meetings as slotted into his schedule. Although, I could no longer accompany him everywhere, he seemed to be behaving quite well.

At least, I no longer got calls from the managers asking me where Ace was because he was either late or simply failed to show up to his meetings. Ace was working harder and more diligently than before. His nap room must be feeling lonely now that it wasn’t regularly in use anymore, but I thought that that was for the best. I stared back down at the pile of documents in front of me before I rushed to sort them out. For us to reach the bright future that was waiting for us, I had to work hard and do my part too.

...

The next day, while I was sitting in Ace’s office sorting out even more documents that had arrived from the central secretarial department, the door to his office slammed opened. It was loud and I was shocked. My first thought was that someone must have ticked Ace off for him to make such a grand entrance like that. Then, I suddenly remembered that Ace was in his personal office so the person who just slammed the door opened on their way in, couldn’t have been Ace.

“Is Ace here? He is, isn’t he?” a beautiful woman with long blonde hair asked me in a very loud voice.

historical

I immediately stood up from my seat in shock. Who is she and how did she get here so suddenly like this? Was Ace expecting her?

Something about the angered expression on her face and her aggressive tone of voice told me that she was trouble. A nagging feeling at the back of my mind hinted to me that I have seen this woman before, but I couldn’t figure out who she was or where I had seen her.

“Mr. Hills is...” I began replying before she cut me off.

“I know that he’s here. Tell him that I’m here to see him. Seriously, how mannerless can you be? Can’t you see that I’m pregnant? How long are you going to make me stand and wait like this?” she snapped at me.

She’s pregnant?

My eyes lowered from her irritated face to her midsection. She was definitely pregnant and judging from the large size of her belly, she must be quite far along in her pregnancy journey already.

“I will let Mr. Hills know right away,” I said politely.

Even if I wanted to tell Ace that she was here to see him, she never bothered to introduce herself and so I wasn’t quite sure how to tell Ace that she was here. Do I say something like ‘Hi, there’s a heavily pregnant woman here to see you’?

Is that how it’s supposed to work.

The door of Ace’s personal office opening made me stop in my tracks. The man that the pregnant lady had been so desperate to see stood there right in front of us with a stern look on his face. He must have heard her voice and came out of his office to see what was going on. His sudden appearance did save me the trouble of breaking the news of her sudden arrival to him.

“Ace!” the woman yelled his name loud and clear.

“Come inside. Stop yelling,” Ace told her quite coldly.

The woman shot me a menacing glare as she strode past me and into Ace’s personal office. I watched in shock and confusion as Ace followed her inside without as much as casting me a glance and then the door to his office slammed shut in my face.

What is going on? What on earth just happened?

–To be continued...