Chapter 23: Aaand the French comes out...

Before he sat down, Li Naihe gestured for her to sit first and pick the side. Raven had a fleeting moment of hesitation not knowing if this was normal behaviour for the two of them, but she didn't dwell on it and choose to sit with their back towards the door. Their party most certainly should not be eager to greet the others.

She started to feel like maybe she will need a sitting chart in the future, to be able to do this job. If it wasn't for her love of science, she would've abandoned this plan long ago.

She sat down as he indicated, but then pulled the chair for President Li to sit down the next second. Something that Dominic had always done for her, so this was her base line for everything related to 'executive assisting'.

Li Naihe was getting more and more surprises by the minute. He didn't want to react in any way, but the corners of his lips slightly tilted upwards in what was supposed to look like a smile. Unfortunately for him, he hadn't really practiced that side of non-verbal communication, so he ended up smirking, which annoyed Raven to no end.

She just pulled a chair for him after he asked her to sit down first 'What was his problem?!'. She swallowed her words and pretended like nothing happened, plastering yet another empty smile on her face.

She could not wait to leave this place.

She liked Dominic to have an active role in her meetings, because it would serve his development, and seeing as she never really participated in person, she would delegate a lot of her trivial work to him. This was a different business environment however, and from the attitudes she experienced last time, together with her boss' attitude until now, she knew she was here to just be a wallflower. She was clearly not meant to contribute to the meeting.

The restaurant they were in was beautifully decorated and gave the feeling of a garden in a large indoor space. There was even a cherry blossom tree behind the bar that made the ambiance relaxed and somehow changed the mood to a constant feeling of fresh spring and beautiful flowers. Raven was enjoying this quite a lot, it was peaceful. Although the place was quite noisy from the conversations and cutlery sounds, she still found it relaxing. She would probably come back here if she had the chance, and maybe sit at the bar, to enjoy the cherry blossoms. This type of décor wasn't rare for her, but the cherry blossom was not the most popular choice in most venues in her real life, so this was a welcomed surprise.

On the wall behind the bar, amongst the myriad of drinks ready to be turned into cocktails, there was a large clock indicating it was now 1PM. The other party had not arrived.

Seeing what time it was, Raven just automatically got up and started walking out. She took a few good steps towards the exit when she finally clocked on to what she had done.

"Merde!" she exclaimed out loud and suddenly stopped, realising quickly that French was not meant to be her native tongue. French was not common at all really in this setting. If she wanted to make a good excuse, she couldn't backtrack now. It would be weird, so Raven tried to compose herself and walked out. When she would come back, she'd just make up some sorry excuse about urgently needing the bathroom. It would be far less inconspicuous than her coming back to the table.

['Merde' in French means 'damn it' or 'shit']

She made her way to the ladies' room but suddenly felt a bit disappointed by President Li. 'Was he really allowing these people to disrespect him'. She checked her phone in case there were any missed calls from the party meeting them. Accidents could happen to anyone so if they had a good excuse and rescheduled, they could be forgiven. There were no missed calls, texts, or emails, so clearly these people were just plain rude.

Deciding she had spent enough time in the corridor to justify a bathroom break, she started walking slowly back into the restaurant. Just as she was about to step through the door, two men cut in front of her talking loudly.

She was about to react but thought better of it. 'Being a wall flower is really hard.' She thought, as she swallowed her annoyance for the millionth time today. She wasn't bothered that they didn't allow her to go in first because she was a woman, that was not her thing. She was bothered that those two men nearly pushed her aside without any consideration. Irrespective of her being a man or a woman, it was the polite thing to do, and they were just plain rude.

"Just move on Raven, this is none of your business, you're just observing" she mumbled under her breath and tried to sidestep the two men to get back to her table.

They were now blocking the entire entrance and throwing leering glances at the receptionist. That was it. Raven could not take this anymore and she snapped.

"Excuse you, you're in my way!" she snapped at the two men in her usual cold and domineering voice. The two instantly turned around hearing her, and immediately felt threatened.

She was clearly shorter than them, and certainly weaker physically, but the power and command for respect coming out of this woman truly intimidated them.

Seeing as they were dumbfounded and made no indication of moving to make room for her Raven snapped again "Gentlemen, mind your manners or that term will no longer apply to you. Do you need help telling your left from right? You don't need to, any direction would do as long as you get out of my way."

They were just staring at her dumbfounded again, still not moving.

"Pour l'amour de Dieu" she exclaimed, and sidestepped them again, going around the welcoming desk and finally making her way into the restaurant. "Ce n'est pas possible! Totalement stupide!"

[translation: For the love of God! … this is not possible…totally stupid!]

Her perfectly angry French attracted a lot of attention and Raven was now cursing herself for not managing to be the pretty wall flower she was meant to be. The true Liehen, would never have reacted like that. She calmed down the next second and started feeling grateful this world had not thrown her out. Clearly this change in behaviour was within the acceptable limits of this space.

What Raven didn't notice as she was searching for their table, was that Li Naihe was watching this entire show in the mirror on the opposite wall of the entrance fully entranced by her performance. This was the funniest and most beautiful thing he had witnessed, probably in his entire life. A very annoyed French woman insulting two men twice her size and terrifying the wits out of them. 'Hilarious! Pure bliss' he thought as he was watching her making her way to their table. She was not stomping nor throwing a tantrum. Her straight back and confident walk only showed an attitude that commanded respect and admiration.

He was in total awe of this woman.