Now that things had progressed to such a state, Heather had also lost her urge to sleep. She spent the whole night making corrections to her end of the proposal. It had been quite some time since she pulled an all-nighter for work. She suddenly recalled her time in Europe while she was in charge of expanding the new market there; although the work was tiring and tough, she found the effort quite worthwhile.
At this moment, dawn broke and she stood in front of the window while staring at the passersby below her. Life was ever-changing but to her, everything felt the same. The city life that she experienced now was leaden for her and it was completely different from what she’d envisioned.
Heather would occasionally wonder whether there were people with superpowers present in this city. She had been seriously considering the matter of reality and the imaginary world during this timespan. Recently, she kept having the feeling that reality was very much like an illusion in Thailand whereas the imaginary world seemed quite realistic. Over time, she seemed to be unable to differentiate between reality and imagination.
Then, she hugged herself. The temperature was quite low in the early morning and she could feel the cold from outside even while standing in the room. She breathed out on the glass window and saw herself from the foggy reflection; in fact, her blurry self looked exceptionally beautiful.
It was quite rare for her to admire herself, so today, she revealed a beaming smile toward the window pane. However, the reflection shown on the window pane revealed a blurry shadow and even her smile looked quite forced. She resembled a beast showing its teeth.
Heather lifted her hands to wipe the water vapor on the window pane. Soon, her features were clearly revealed; her brooding eyes indicated that there were a lot of secrets within them and she gave a slight smile. It felt like her soul had only re-entered her body at that moment.
She glanced at the clock and noticed that she was short on time as there were a lot of important issues that she had to deal with. The proposal was all set to be submitted and it was the result of her and Tony’s hard work. Next, there were also other steps of the process that required their joint effort to complete.
Therefore, the first thing she had to do was to look for Tony now. Recently, she hadn’t been sleeping well at all and she reckoned that Tony was likely facing the same issue too. She clearly remembered his shocking bloodshot eyes from yesterday.
During the process of freshening up, Heather suddenly realized that her eyes were equally as shocking and bloodshot as his. However, she was rather blasé about it. I’m still quite beautiful with bloodshot eyes.
Throughout the journey in which she drove her car, she was extremely anxious to see Tony as soon as possible. After they had come to a mutual agreement, she was pressed for time since there was plenty of work for her to complete. I hope time will pass by slower today. It was at that moment when she glanced at the stack of documents on her passenger seat and lamented, These are extremely important documents!
There was a pleasant smell in the air and she enjoyed the crisp, fresh air, which was less polluted, in the early morning. However, the downside was that morning was the peak time for traffic and she used double the time than normal to arrive at Hart Group.
Because Heather only swung by the office yesterday and was now back again, the new secretary was quite surprised to see her. Zephyr scrutinized Heather from head to toe before enthusiastically greeting her. “Mr. Hart is lecturing someone in the office. Miss Langston, why don’t you take a seat and wait for a short while?” she elaborated with a slightly embarrassed look. Again, Heather had arrived at an awkward time.
“Sure,” Heather replied. There was no sign of exhaustion from her face and she looked quite energetic on the surface. If it wasn’t for the obvious redness in her eyes, it would have been quite hard to tell that she’d stayed up the whole night.
Zephyr looked at Heather with slight trepidation. Heather’s bloodshot eyes made her seem even more distant than before and Zephyr was unsure on how to make small talk with her. As such, Zephyr lowered her head and continued with her work. As for Heather, she didn’t intend to continue probing Zephyr for more information, so both of them quietly continued with what they were doing and left each other alone.
Heather would occasionally raise her head before she glanced at the door to the director’s office from time to time. After some time, she noticed that there didn’t seem to be any activity inside the room.
What’s wrong anyway? Why is Tony chiding someone so early in the morning?! In fact, she was quite anxious, but she put up a patient front and didn’t reveal anything. She didn’t want to appear rude as it was quite inappropriate to barge in while he was telling someone off. She had always known that he was a conscientious boss; he had strict expectations from his subordinates, but it was quite unexpected that he would lecture someone for such a long period of time.
Somehow, Zephyr sensed Heather’s anxiousness. She took the initiative to respond to Heather, “Miss Langston, Mr. Hart’s usually busier in the morning, so you might have to wait slightly longer.”
“I understand.” Heather pretended to be alright with it and responded. I guess I’ve chosen the wrong time to come and visit Tony. I was too hasty in that split second. Usually, one would either be extremely busy or rather free in the mornings. She slightly regretted her decision to pop in without calling Tony beforehand to let him know about her arrival. It was her normal style to usually pop over whenever she had something to discuss with him and she rarely gave prior notice. At this moment, she lamented, I think I should change this bad habit!
Come to think of it, Heather would normally swing by to pay her close ones a visit without prior notice. However, if she had to meet her business associates, she would normally make an appointment with them before the meeting time. Besides, she was never late for a meeting and would always turn up earlier than the agreed time.
At this time, she thought, I’m bored out of my mind. Maybe I should set up an appointment with Paige in advance. It had been ages ago since Heather last contacted Paige via text messaging and she hadn’t been in much contact with Paige recently. Nonetheless, Heather didn’t have many qualms about it and she went straight to the point by informing Paige that she wanted to meet Paige to discuss the opening ceremony of the company via Messenger.
Unexpectedly, Paige immediately replied after seeing the text message, ‘I’m kind of busy today…” Her words had a slightly resigned tone to them.
Heather was quite aware that Paige wouldn’t easily say such words, so Paige must have been tied up with her job responsibilities. After contemplating the situation, Heather texted Paige, ‘I don’t mind going to see you at your office. I just need you to spare about half an hour of your time for me.’
Since Paige was rather busy, Heather decided to take the initiative to meet her. After all, Heather’s timetable was much more flexible than Paige’s. Heather had initially planned to have a chat with the Staffords, but it looked like she could only chat with Paige alone today. As a result, Heather’s timetable was no longer as packed and she had much more time to spare.
“Can we meet during lunchtime?” Paige wasn’t one to beat around the bush either, so she asked directly.
Heather responded with an affirmative. Now that the first two tasks on her list were basically sorted, she only had one final task to complete. However, she had no idea how to initiate the reconciliation with Leon.
Yesterday, she was disappointed with Leon. Right now, she seemed to have no choice but to forgive him for the sake of their interests. She realized that it was quite a challenge for her because she was not ready to forgive him yet.
Heather was in fact still quite annoyed with Leon. She stared at his profile picture, but hesitated to click on it. At this moment, she bit on her lower lip and decided that she would only consider this last task after she met up with Paige.
Meanwhile, the door to the director’s office finally opened from inside while Heather was trying to decide how to deal with Leon. From inside, a couple of mid-level associates of the Hart Group walked out with darkened expressions.
One of them recognized Heather and took the initiative to greet her with a smile. Heather responded with a forced smile. It was quite obvious that her smile wasn’t sincere because one could tell by the smile, which was uglier than a sad face, that she was quite unwilling to do so.
“Hi, Miss Langston. I haven’t seen you in ages.”
Heather had a recollection of the said person, but because she didn’t have a good impression of him, she didn’t bother to give much of a response. The rest of the associates fixed their eyes on her before they suddenly realized who she was and greeted her in a hurry.
A resigned Heather responded to each of them before she slowly made her way into the director’s office. She found small talk an extreme waste of time.
Tony noticed the impatient look on her face and teasingly asked, “I wonder who it was that offended Miss Langston?”
Heather noticed that he was in a good mood so she went along with him. “Well, offend is quite a strong word, so it’s not exactly as bad as that. However, it seems that all of your company’s mid-level associates are quite long-winded, right?”
As soon as he realized that she had thrown the ball back into his court, he stopped teasing her and returned to his solemn mood. “Are you here to show me your proposal?” He pointed at the document file in her hands. Unexpectedly, she’s quite efficient.
“Yeah, I spent the whole night on this.” Heather directly handed the file in her hands to Tony.
Tony reached over to take the file and immediately opened it. Then, he quickly located the proposal and started to peruse it. Meanwhile, Heather intently kept her eyes on Tony and paid close attention to his expression as she tried to gain some insight from his face. However, his face remained impassive, so she wasn’t quite sure whether he was satisfied with the proposal.
The time slowly flew past while she patiently waited for his evaluation. Because she wasn’t quite sure of how he would react, she felt a slight sense of trepidation because she wasn’t quite sure of his response. It would be quite awkward if he showed his displeasure. She had never experienced such anxiety at all from her past experiences of presenting proposals. As a result, she felt the air turn still all of a sudden while her breath became shallower.
After quite some time, Tony finally closed the proposal shut and shot a meaningful look at Heather. Somehow, she was able to comprehend the meaning behind his deep gaze.
“Heather, it seems that you have some reservations.” Tony was quite surprised by the proposal that she had submitted because it wasn’t her usual style. It seemed overly soft by her standards.
“I’ve made an accurate guess. Director Hart, it seems like you have some queries about my way of handling this?” Heather had originally decided on a soft approach to deal with the situation, but it seemed to be at odds with Tony.
“I’ve heard of Director Langston being quite decisive with business dealings and having a hard stance too. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find the resoluteness that I’m looking for from this proposal,” Tony subtly rejected. She seems different than before.
“Perhaps you should take another closer look at it?” Heather’s lips curled upward as she confidently mentioned.
Meanwhile, Tony stared at her with a wary expression. He wasn’t sure whether to trust her words, but he had a moment of hesitation when he noticed her confident smile.
“Okay,” he replied.
She smiled at him before she walked to the couch by the side to take a seat. The demure expression on her face was unlike her. He had no idea what she had experienced all this while, but he felt that her behavior was quite strange.
Nevertheless, Tony lowered his head and carefully went through the proposal once again. Her methods are too soft. Does she intend to fight back by going in the complete opposite direction? He couldn’t help but focus his gaze on her before noticing that she was quite relaxed and comfortable in her spot. At this moment, he narrowed his eyes and thought, I really don’t know what’s on her mind!
Meanwhile, Heather felt his eyes on her. She was also taking furtive glances at him from the side. Indeed, a man who’s focused on work looks the best. Tony’s looks are quite extraordinary compared to the regular male.
In fact, Leon’s well-sculpted features were incomparable to Tony’s looks. Heather was quite content with the fact that Myra had captured the heart of such an outstanding male.
Once again, Tony slammed the proposal shut. He had discovered Heather’s dilemma from this proposal and he understood the effect of a relationship on a person, so he didn’t want to force her into making any decision. Since that was how it would be, he planned to agree to this proposal for the time being. After all, there was a chance that the plan could change directions when they were executing it.
He finally acceded, “I agree with your proposal.”
Then, Heather gave him a pleased look as it was the sentence she was waiting for. Meanwhile, she caught the meaningful look in his eyes as they exchanged looks. “Director Hart, I’ll execute the plan accordingly then.” She suddenly felt that her mood had lightened. My first task is considered complete!
