2 Ch. 2 - The Nerdy Looking Guy

"Ma'am Abbott, please don't fire me," the staff she just fired, April, dashed out the marketing office to beg on her. "Please, I'll do my job correctly."

She didn't budge and just continued walking. But the lady was persistent that she ran paased her and without second thoughts, kneeled down in front of her.

"Please, please, I'm begging you..."

The other employees were distracted with her noise and made them watched the scene. The ones who walked by, stopped to take a look. The lady continued to make a fuss.

Artemis crossed her arms.

"I'm not Ma'am Abbott though," she only said and walked passed her.

Yet the lady won't stop fron being persistent.

"Please!" she hollered and grabbed the heel of her shoes to stop her from walking.

Artemis was startled with her grab and was caught off balance. The scene was so fast but she readied her mind to land on the ground, but instead, she landed on somewhere like a wall.

She opened her eyes and she saw a mint checkered polo shirt. From the broadness of the chest, she confirmed that it's a chest of a man.

His arms were also around her to support her outbalanced body. Somehow, she felt ticklish.

She took back her composure and glared down at the lady. Just in time, the securities came to picked up the scandalous woman out of the building.

After April was out of sight, Artemis glanced around the lobby. The employees, who were afraid of getting scolded by her in no time, continued from what they were doing.

Lastly, she turned around to give thanks to the man who helped her, but she was just startled when someone walked past her.

It was the guy who helped her.

Upon looking at the back of the guy, he looked familiar. He looked like the nerdy guy who bumped her no, it was really him.

"Hey, nerdy," she carelessly called. She didn't know what to call him to made him stop.

But the nerdy guy didn't stop like he didn't heard her calling.

"The man with checkered shirt," she called again. It made the guy stopped and turned around to her.

When she saw his face, she froze on the ground. She saw him earlier and she thought of him as a nerdy person but it turned out that he was a good-looking guy even with his glasses on. And he was tall.

"What?" he boringly replied.

She was taken aback by the rudeness of the employee towards. She thought maybe he didn't know who she was on the building to speak like that to her.

And she remembered earlier when they bumped, sure, he said sorry but it was like insincere.

She let out an unbelievable laugh. "Nothing, I got the wrong person," she scoffed and turned around to walk back to her office.

She sat on her chair and leaned her back on it. She was still astounded on how she was treated by that nerdy guy. By his looks, he seemed new.

He was new yet he was rude.

"People are really surprising human. We are," she commented to herself.

...

She read the proposal of the marketing department for the 30th company anniversary that would be held in less than two months. Since it's the AC Apparel's anniversary, they needed to showcase that was different from the previous anniversaries. It's a 30th anniversary so they also have a pearly theme like a wedding. Because aside from the company's anniversary, it's her parents' anniversary too, 30th wedding anniversary. So she needed to do her best for that event.

After reading the proposal which was quite good already, she started to write down her own ideas that she wanted to add and be removed on the readied proposal.

They would also showcased the coping up of their company from bankruptcy and raise awareness for those who just started business on how to avoid it and maintain the status from falling down. And it'd be hosted by her.

She spent hours of revising the proposal that she forgotten about the time.

Her phone rang that caused her to stop working. It was a call from her father.

"Yes, father?" she answered right away.

"Have you had your lunch already, Artemis?"

Lunch? She looked at the clock and it was already one p.m. She lost track of time. But she was not feeling hungry though.

"I already ordered a box of chicken," she lied to keep her father from worrying.

"Chicken? What kind of lunch is that?"

"Fried chicken is still a food, dad," she pointed out.

"Get a more decent one, Artemis."

"I'm fine dad---Oh! My order has arrived. Goodbye, dad,"she acted out and ended the call immediately.

Her father was too old to keep on worrying about her.

Since she was still not hungry, she continued her work. After that, she'd do some researches on her own and might as well hold a meeting from the marketing team to proposed her ideas.

"Artemis?" the voice of the manager, Chris was heard at the door. Chris was her childhood friend.

"Come in,"

He entered. She noticed that she was holding a paper bag with a name of some restaurant on it. He handed it over to her. She received it cluelessly.

"What is this?" she was curioused.

"Uncle Archer was anxious about your lunch to be just a fried chicken..." He scanned the office to check the ordered chicken but there was none. "So I ordered some Chinese food for you."

She placed the bag above her desk and checked what's inside. There's sweet and sour pork and dumplings with fried rice.

She was awed by the food and how greatly it was smelled.

"Thanks, but you know I can't finish this," she reminded first-hand.

"It's okay as long as you eat to keep Uncle from worrying about you. Look at the time, you haven't eaten anything and you even lied to her."

"Okay, thanks."

"No problem. Then, I'll go now."

He walked out but he paused near the door. "By the way, are we still having a meeting this afternoon?"

"Yes, 3pm."

He nodded. "Okay," and he formed an okay sign with his hand and went out.

Surprsingly, she finished the food Chris gave to her. Maybe because she haven't had dinner the night before and a breakfast that morning.

Then, she readied herself for the meeting but since there was still a lot of time, approximately less than an hour, she did some research on the internet about her ideas for the 30th anniversary.

At ten minutes before three pm, she went out and headed to the marketing office. She directly went in the meeting room to wait for the marketing team to come in.

When it was three, the marketing team went in altogether. And her eyes caught one person who she immediately recognized as person who has the rude attitude in front of her. So he was in the marketing.

She kept on looking at the guy to wait for him to look at her and be surprised to see her. She wanted to see that look on his face when he recognized who she really was. But the guy didn't even bother not even glanced on her.

What an irritating guy.

"Who is he?" she asked any of them while pointing her eyes on him.

"Oh, he's new to our team. He was an intern before but now he's a full-timer," Chris explained. "It's the first time you see him since he came from another department. He replaced the one you just fired. Because of the event, we're short-handed."

She nodded.

"His name is Joseph Markus Reyes," he introduced. The nerdy guy stood up and bowed at her, but she really didn't caught a glimpse of his eyes.

"Okay, let's begin," she just said. He was really rude all over.

Artemis handed out some papers to Chris. "I've already read your proposal for the upcoming 30th anniversary. As you all know and in case if you don't know, it's my parents' wedding anniversary too. We are an AC Apparel so I wanted to present some wedding collection. But we'll keep it to minimum for our budget," she proposed.

"Yeah, that would be great. But so far, we're not into wedding gowns," Chris commented.

"That's why I'd personally go to Ms. Wang, the famous designer in terms of wedding gowns."

"But recent news about her was that she's nowhere to be found,"

"Yes, but I can find her," she proudly replied. "I'll take care of Ms. Wang. And aside from this, I want to raise an awareness also for those start-up business on how to keep their business from bankruptcy. Like how we did."

"It'll be a great opportunity to attract more investors and customers, also."

"Yes. So we'll do this along with our other activities on the first week next month as planned before the anniversary," she added.

Then, the meeting was finished smoothly. And the employees prepared to go home since it was already their time to go out.

"Send me an e-mail before this week ends about this new proposal," she informed Chris.

"Sure, no problem. We'll work hard on this," Chris responded and tapped on her shoulder before going out.

Artemis worked until late at night. She kept on contacting the number Ms. Wang's relative gave to her when they met on some villa. When she was still a celebrity, she met Ms. Wang accidentally and asked her to be her model for her gowns. She thought at that time that Ms. Wang was some sort of an old lady who has lost her mental stability, but it turned out that she was a legendary designer in comes to wedding gowns. She just knew it when she saw it on the internet upon researching.

But the luck wasn't on her side that night so she just went home. At the parkin lot, there were no cars only hers and the place was quiet. She walked to her car when someone unexpectedly covered her nose and mouth.

She was shocked and she tried to scream but it was useless. She tried to pull away from the unknown guy but he was so strong. Her senses were starting to fade away. But she needed to get away from him.

Then, someone kicked the person who made her free. She looked at the culprit and he was wearing all black. His face was even covered. She started to feel nervous, her hands were trembling.

When he started to come near her, a high kick landed on his face made him fell stumbling on the floor and left him unconscious.

He looked at the man who saved her. He was wearing checkered shirt. The guy turned around and looked at her. Without the glasses on, she knew it was the nerdy guy.

"Are you alright?" he asked as he walked closer to her.

Artemis nodded okay but not her body. She fell and lost consciousness.