twenty

Pearl POV,

"We moved in together," I said answering Sam's question and I awaited his reply but he was awfully quiet and I turned in my seat to see if he hadn't been listening, only to find that everyone was quiet because of a certain young man who had just walked into our working space.

I quickly stood up to greet him just like everyone did with a tight-lipped smile on my face.

"You, come with me," he said and turned to leave, and that made a slight frown set upon my face.

I don't have any business with the executive director of the company, and I don't think I know any reason why I would actually start to have anything to do with him.

I turned to look at everyone's face as if to ask why he was asking me to come with him and they all had a confused look on their face and they all shrugged their shoulders an indication that they also had no idea what was going on with them.

I quickly fixed my jacket and walked out of the office and went down the hallway to the elevator doors and found him waiting for the doors to open and when it did he got in and I also got in after him, he then pressed his floor button before moving back to stand beside me.

I was a nervous wreck, awaiting the usual drill that everyone rumoured to have gotten from him in an elevator ride at least once a year since they started to work in that office.

However, he was eerily quiet for a while not saying any words and the silence seems to build up more of my nervousness making my whole body becomes filled with tiny goosebumps.

"Do you know the new CEO, personally?" He spoke after a long while of nerve-wracking silence.

Although I heard his question, I remained silent for a while because I didn't understand why he was asking me such questions.

My parents might have known the Chairman of the company since they had been business partners for quite a while now, but I haven't met their son not even once as I've only heard about him because he wasn't always home when I and my parents go over to his parent's house for some business dinners.

I might have gotten the interest to work in this company from some of the discussions I've heard my parents have about it on the dinner table, but no one knew of the fact that I knew the chairman of the company personally.

"No sir," I replied after a while of silence.

"Were you contemplating on whether to tell me the truth or not?" He asked his voice sounding a little as if he was annoyed about something.

"No, sir," I said again in a somewhat low voice although I wanted to yell at him for doubting me even though what I said wasn't a lie.

"Why did you take a moment as if you were thinking of your reply before you spoke," he said again and I was quiet for a while, and just when I opened my mouth to speak, the elevator doors clicked open and a few with people walked in, making me shut my mouth again and he also didn't say anything more probably because of the other people in the elevator.

We reached the floor where his office was, and we both got out of the elevator and he walked in a fast pace making me run a little to keep up with him and when we were in his office, he sat on his chair and asked me to seat in the seat in front of his office desk before he spoke again.

"Why did he ask for you to do the presentation on your own then?" He asked with a raised eyebrow and I let out a sigh of relief.

I had no idea he was asking me all those questions for this same reason, and now that I know I felt a little at ease, so I sat properly on the seat before answering.

"Well, I don't know why that is, sir," I replied and he only shakes his head slightly.

The director was a middle-aged man who almost everyone in the office was scared of because he was well respected for his intellect but he was also feared for his short temper and lack of acknowledging and form of sluggishness from any of the workers.

"Have you prepared for the presentation? He asked you to do it today by 10:30 AM," he said and my eyes went wide at the sudden news.

I was thinking of preparing for it over the weekend because I thought the presentation was supposed to be a held next week but apparently, I was totally mistaken.

"Shit," I mumbled to my self thinking of how I'm going to pull this off.

"He said you should be ready for the presentation if you actually made the designs on your own without cheating," the Director said and that made me a little offended.

I felt insulted by the fact that he would think I cheated and probably copied the design from other departments or other companies, and that made all the fears of flunking the presentation went out of the window and was instantly replaced by the strong will to show him how original my design was so I swallowed hard and then spoke.

"I'm ready, he wasn't wrong about the fact that I should know my design because I do know what I had designed because I made it from scratch," I said trying my best not to sound offended by what he had just told me.

After saying that, I left his office to go back to our working space, and it was only after I got into the elevator and watched the doors closed, before I realized what I had just done.

"Shit! What were you thinking Pearl?" I yelled pulling my hairs from their roots and I'm sure some of it would come off from how hard i had pulled them.

I only have less than an hour to prepare a power point and also build up the courage to stand before criticizing eyes to present my very first design, and just the thought of it made my shoulders slumped instantly.

However, a thought occurred to me, and it was a really tempting offer...

....