Chapter 7

Chapter 7.

Few weeks ago…

"Good luck," Paisley whispered to Marie as she walked out of the office, following Ammon behind.

His strides were long and fast and Marie could not help but admire the view of his broad back, trying to imagine how he would look without the suit on. She mentally slapped herself, reminding herself that he was now her best friend's boyfriend.

Ammon suddenly paused in his steps and turned to find Marie a good distance from him, even while she was half running. He raised his brow to keep his amusement at bay. Marie quickly met up with him, still keeping a decent distance from him. She wondered if he could hear her heart hammering inside her ribcage.

"I just forgot something," Ammon said, not taking his eyes off her slender figure. "I need you to go to the finance department and call in any staff. I will see you both at the conference hall in five minutes,"

Marie hurriedly scurried off to the finance department. She already had in mind who she was going to call.

"Psssst!" she called to Tristan who was flirting with one of his female colleagues.

Marie rolled her eyes when he did not turn towards her, she went into the office, pulling him away from the woman who did not look happy to see her.

"Oh…hey…wow… Marie!" Tristan was startled and surprised by the sudden intrusion. "What's the matter? Is it that thing we already discussed? I told you…"

"Shhhh!" Marie frowned and slapped a hand over his running mouth. "Haven't you heard the word discretion? Like, keeping things discreet?" She eyed him dangerously as she continued to drag him out of the office, while sending a quick tight smile to his head of department.

Once out in the corridor, Tristan pulled himself away from her firm grip. "Fine! What is it?" he tried to whisper, but failed woefully at it because his voice was too deep and not made for whispering.

"The CEO wants to see us in the conference room in the next five minutes…"

Tristan's eyes became wide like saucers as he hurriedly tucked in his shirt and adjusted his tie.

"Let's get going… Let's get going…" he hurriedly said while while Marie stared at the blonde man with amusement written all over her face.

As they walked smartly towards the elevator, Marie struck a conversation she so badly wanted to have with him.

"Yeah," she finally breathed out, wringing her hands together. "What about the loan?" she asked.

Tristan eyed her curiously as as he adjusted the glasses he had on. "Marie, that is really a lot of money…"

"But you said I'm eligible for that sum of money!" She quickly cut him off.

Tristan looked at her again, seeing how desperate she looked, he had no choice but to give in.

"Fine," he finally sighed out. "I would give you the forms to sign soon before day is over."

Marie looked at him gratefully but she didn't say a word as they had arrived their destination.

*

All eyes were on them as they hurried into the conference room. They were already two minutes late and the meeting had already started.

"Sit!" they heard a cold voice command them and Marie shivered at the intensity of his voice.

She looked over to Ammon and realized there were only two seats left, but Tristan had already taken the seat farther away from Ammon and the coldness that seemed to come from him.

She had no choice as she drew up the last seat beside him. Her eyes lit up when she saw Alyssa opposite her, but the latter wasn't paying any attention to her, rather, she was listening to the ongoing presentation.

"... the new product we are looking to produce and distribute to the public will bring a lot of controversies, but we have to diversify and not focus on one product. Suddenly moving from construction services to student friendly products after sixty years in the construction sector is a very big move. With that, we are all gathered here to brainstorm how we would make this dream a reality. How we can appeal to the public…" the speaker, Bellony, was saying when a hand shot up.

It was Alyssa.

"My first suggestion is to be strategic about everything. I think we should just go to the press and announce our products to them, then we take time in curating the perfect advert to gain lots of sales from it," she said meticulously as she gave a side glance at Ammon who seemed to be distracted by the person beside him.

She was taken aback and horrified to see Marie. When had she even come in?

On the other hand, Ammon was whispering into Marie's ears. "So, what do you think about that? What will your suggestions be?" The coldness of his voice was gone as he whispered softly into her ears. 

Marie was suddenly aware of nothing and everything, especially how his breath tickled her ears and how close they sat next to each other.

"Sir? What do you think about my suggestion?' Alyssa's voice came in loud and clear this time, cutting through the warmness that Marie had began to feel with Ammon's proximity.

Alyssa gave Marie a hard glare, and Marie understood that look as she slightly raised her hand in surrender.

"That is a good contribution," Ammon said plainly as everyone turned to focus their attention on him. "But," he turned towards Marie fully this time. "I was wondering if Marie here has a different contribution, especially as she is in the sales department. Do you think we should go along with Alyssa's plan?" His voice smooth and even. "Or do you have something different to say? I really hope you do." He finished his sentence, earning nods of approval from the different staff around.

Of course, they would go with anything the CEO says.

"Er…" Marie stuttered as she was suddenly thrown into the spotlight. She knew Ammon wanted her to say something different, while Alyssa's glare told her to shut up and go with what had been said.

Marie took a deep breath, rearranging her thoughts, she started. "Alyssa's suggestion is the perfect suggestion," she could feel the glare begin to lessen as she continued. "First of all, as a staff in the sales department, the question 'why' comes first. Why are we diversifying? Then, I think that as we go to the public to announce our new product, we do it by throwing some kind of family-related event and also sponsoring children-related things. This will give the press something to speculate and talk about," her last words had suddenly become high pitched because a certain man decided to tuck the strands of her hair that fell on her ears, behind her ear.

The delicateness of his fingers caressing those sensitive spots made her shiver in a way she secretly liked. Marie subtly stole a glance at Alyssa, and she had never seen anyone more pissed.

*

An hour later and the meeting was over, Marie stepped out of the conference room, her breath shaky as she tried to calm her erratically beating heart.

She heard footsteps behind her and turned, just in time to see Alyssa pulling her by her hand and into her office. The door was shut behind them and Alyssa turned to glare at Marie.

"What was all that about?" Her voice was hard.

Marie knew what was going on, but she decided to play dumb about it. Even she had no idea what had happened back then in the conference room.

"What? What happened? I don't understand,"

"Don't you dare play dumb with me!" Alyssa's eyes widened in anger. "I'm talking about the constant attention of Ammon on you! How he suddenly became so touchy with you and your hair and your dress… yes, all that! What is going on between you two? Are you sneaking behind my back?"

"Alyssa, please chill!" Marie suddenly stopped her. "Nothing is going on between your boyfriend and I. I thought the attention was on me because I'm in the sales department. We make the sales of products happen and my contribution would have to be crucial, especially now that there is a new product on the line. We need to make sales…" she paused, watching as Alyssa subtly calmed, before she continued. "As for the physical touches you've said, I barely even noticed what he was doing. I don't recall if he touched my hair or clothes or anything. It's insignificant to me."

Alyssa gave her a longer stare, trying to see if she could buy into Marie's point of view. When she c

ouldn't read into the other woman's body reaction, she sighed and warned.

"Be careful, Marie."