THE FIRST GLANCE

2018

"Clark! Come back here!" Ingrid called her five-year-old son running away from her because the little boy wants to tease her by running around while they were shopping. Her son just laughed at her,

"Mom, why do you run so slowly? Come on!" and the boy keeps on running. Ingrid was so tired running after him that she hurriedly sat on it and rested when she spotted a bench.

Raising her child alone for all five years has been challenging. Without her best friend's help, she doesn't know how to overcome the struggles of being a mother and at the same time facing the pressures of the corporate world.

She closed her eyes and felt that there is a small hand touching her face. She then opened her eyes and saw her son's big and gentle blue eyes staring at her intensely.

"Mom, are you alright?" the boy is close to tears.

"Oh baby, don't cry, mommy is okay. I was just catching my breath." She smiled and then tickled her son that made the little boy shriek.

"Mom, please stop," he pleaded, "I won't do it again, promise!"

"Are you sure?" the boy just laughed more and kissed her on the cheeks and caressed her hair. His eyes sparkled with a little mischief.

"I won't do it now, but... later, maybe." The child chuckled.

Not far away, a tall, blue-eyed handsome with broad shoulders man in his thirties passed by and suddenly stopped when he heard the shriek of laughter of a child just nearby and looked for it.

His eyes first glanced on a woman holding a little boy while sitting on the bench. The mother tickled his son and then looked at the boy with a questioning and amusing stare.

He could not ignore the aura of the woman despite that it's only her back was shown. She has shoulder-length hair, a fair complexion, and wore designer clothes.

The child was caressing the woman's hair, and only half of his face shown. He has wavy, golden hair, blue eyes, which seem familiar to him.

"Sir, what's wrong?" Gary Grey, his secretary, asked.

"Nothing." His secretary has already followed his master's gaze and became silent for a moment.

"Let's go." He snorted.

"Yes, this way, sir."

...

The next day, Ingrid went early to work and asked her secretary to come into her office.

"Good morning, Daisy, what's my schedule for today?"

Ingrid was now the Vice President of the Briggs and Briggs Company was a successful cosmetics company for centuries. The family's business was passed on from generation to generation and still expanding globally and venturing to different companies.

She is vying for the position of CEO and somehow confident that she will be the one to get it, thinking that the CEO, Mr. Clint Briggs, has neither a son nor a daughter to inherit the position.

"Uhm, at 9:00 am there will be a board meeting –" Ingrid interrupted

"Ugh! Another headache! Next?"

"The CEO would like to have a closed door meeting with you at 2:00 pm, ma'am, at his office. And here are some documents that you needed to review before signing."

She became severe upon hearing a closed-door meeting with the CEO.

The CEO treated her just like a daughter; he was training her to replace his position someday. However, she went to the hole of the needle before getting the position she has now.

...

At 2:00 pm, "Freya, is Mr. Clint in his office?"

"Ahh yes, Ma'am, he's expecting you." The secretary opened the door for her.

"thank you." Ingrid saw a 60-year-old man sitting on his desk.

The company's building's location is in the heart of the Diamond country, and the CEO's office was on the top floor of the building, which has easy access to the rooftop, and he could see the city from his office.

"Ingrid I've been waiting for you. Let's get down to business, shall we?" the atmosphere felt tense, and Ingrid doesn't like it, yet she shrugged it off.

"Yes, sir, what's this all about?"

"I have a son." He confessed. She was stunned. If she was standing, she might have swayed a little.