Chapter-08

As usual, after cooking for herself. Sophia went straight to the flower shop, she could see Lala already sitting in front of the shop with her frowning face. Sophia smiled and approached her.

"How unusual La, coming before I came." Sophia chuckled.

"Hmm, Ms. Pia forgot."

Sophia's brows furrowed, "Forgot what La?"

"Today-"

Lala stopped her speech when she saw a luxury car stopped not far from Sophia's flower shop. She frowned, it was a car that Lala had seen many times in the past until now when Sophia opened the flower shop, at lunchtime, and also in the afternoon. But Lala didn't know who owned the car, when Lala or Sophia approached the car, the car drove away at a fairly high speed. She didn't know what to do with it, but she was afraid that the person in the car was a bad person. Especially with the rampant kidnapping and sale of human organs for a fantasy value.

"Good morning." greeted the man with a friendly smile.

And of course, Lala was mesmerized.

"Good morning." greeted Sophia again.

As the man approached, she looked around the flower shop in awe. "Phia Florist?" even a silly question suddenly came from the man's lips.

"Yes. What is it, sir?"

Hearing the word sir, the man immediately lowered his sunglasses and looked at Sophia with a displeased look. "Don't call me sir. Just call me Alcand."

Laughing a little, Sophia felt bad. She invited Alcand to enter her shop. Of course, Sophia asked Lala to immediately finish what was unfinished yesterday, she knew Lala was fascinated with the handsome man currently sitting in front of Sophia. If left unchecked, Lala would get hooked and stop working.

"Do you want to order flowers?" Sophia asked to confirm.

Alcand nodded, not only ordering flowers but this time Alcand came with a specific purpose. He likes flowers and so does his mother who likes to collect a lot of flowers. His mother would certainly like to see Sophia's flower shop which is fairly complete, there are many types of flowers to flowers that are difficult to find.

"You're giving too much credit, it's just a small flower stall."

"But it has a lot of customers. One of my friends is a customer of this flower shop, and recommended it to me."

Sophia smiled embarrassedly, this was just a small flower shop. Indeed, there are already many customers, because this flower shop has also been established for a long time from Sophia's childhood to this size. Sophia is just continuing what her father started, and that's why Sophia loves this flower shop so much.

"I came here to work with you," Alcand said finally.

Sophia's eyebrows furrowed perfectly, cooperate?

***

Turning the car into a restaurant, Alcand asked Sophia to get off carefully. Finally, Alcand managed to get Sophia out of the flower shop and accompanied Alcand to have breakfast first. From the clothes and vehicles the man was wearing, it seemed impossible that he wouldn't eat first at home. For example, Shaka, despite not wanting to eat rice in the morning, would often munch on whatever bread was in the house for his morning meal, as well as the box of vanilla milk that he often brought to the office. Think of it as yesterday afternoon's boy, but that's what she's seen these past three days living with Shaka.

"What would you like to eat?" Alcand offered enthusiastically.

"I-" she felt like refusing Alcand's offer but Sophia felt bad about it herself. She was afraid that Alcand would be disappointed when she didn't want to accompany him to eat. "Just the meat side dish," she replied.

Alcand smiled, he immediately mentioned what he wanted to eat this morning together with Sophia. Let's just say that Alcand was trying to prove what Shaka said about Sophia was not true. Although she was physically handicapped, Alcand was sure that Sophia had a good nature and a soft heart.

"I'm sorry, I skipped breakfast this morning. Instead of discussing our cooperation, we had breakfast first." Alcand chuckled.

Sophia could only smile while looking at this place to eat. You could say that it was quite simple, almost every table was full of people coming in and out just to fill their stomachs. The place was also clean, unfortunately it had to be far from Sophia's flower shop.

"You don't like the place, do you? But I often eat here." Alcand said again after seeing Sophia's expression.

"No, I don't. I like the place, it's just a pity that it's so far from my flower shop."

"If you want, I can pack it for you."

Of course, this was immediately rejected by Sophia. She didn't want to inconvenience Alcand who had to bring food for her. Before going to the flower shop, Sophia had also cooked and brought food from home. Alcand didn't need to worry about that, Sophia wouldn't starve to death if she worked at the flower shop.

Soon, their food arrived. Sophia smiled when she saw that her portion wasn't that big. She had thought that a place like this would have an unreasonable portion, aka a large portion of coolies. But it wasn't.

Slowly but surely Sophia was enjoying her meal. Likewise with Alcand who occasionally paid attention to how Sophia ate. Shaka said, his wife was so annoying and embarrassing in public. But what was in front of him this time made Alcand think twice. She is a quiet woman who likes to pay attention to the situation, she also does not ask for strange and embarrassing things. Maybe what Shaka said was embarrassing when the woman was walking, more precisely dragging the right leg that was deformed due to Shaka's actions. Even if you look at it, Sophia looks very beautiful with her natural face.

The clinking of spoons made Alcand turn his head. He saw one person who had just arrived who accidentally dropped his spoon on Sophia's plate.

"I'm sorry, it was an accident," she said pleadingly.

"It's okay, I also apologize for not knowing."

This was the first time someone was innocent but apologized.

Finishing their meal quickly, Sophia and Alcand hurriedly left for their destination. In the car, not a single word came out of Sophia or Alcand's mouths. They were busy with their thoughts, occasionally Alcand who was still stealing glances at the woman beside him who looked so tired. Was it that painful being married to Shaka that made Sophia take a few deep breaths?

It only took fifteen minutes for Sophia and Alcand to finally arrive. The woman got off slowly and stood beside Alcand's car. There was nothing unusual about the building in front of her except for a lot of garbage and useless piles of wood. Sophia's eyebrows also furrowed at the sight of dried plants that were not maintained at all.

"This is the place?" Sophia asked to confirm.

"Yes, this is the place. What do you think?"

If Sophia thought it was bad of course, there was no good impression at all. Maybe it was because the building had been empty for so long that it was not maintained. As for the position, Sophia admitted that the position was quite good, with a fairly large parking lot inside.

"Do you plan to build a flower shop here?" Sophia asked back.

Alcand laughed, "You haven't answered my question, you're asking another one."

Scratching the nape of her neck and looking down, Sophia became embarrassed. She was so enthusiastic about this cooperation because she had already thought a lot about what plants to bring to her new place of work.

"It's a good place if you fix it up, and the position is pretty good too."

"Not bad?" repeated Alcand.

"No, it's not. That's not what I mean, this place has a large parking lot. Whether you want a car or a motorcycle, you can enter freely." Sophia explained.

Alcand nodded, he also thought so. This place is quite spacious, that's why Alcand is interested in buying it. He already had a name, in a matter of seconds, this place was crowded with visitors.

"So I have to clean it up huh?" asked Alcand unreasonably. To be more precise, any fool would know that a place as bad as this would have to be cleaned first and then occupied.

Laughing at the question, Sophia said, "If you want it like this, that's fine too. It looks like a haunted house that has been unoccupied for forty days." she chuckled and Alcand couldn't help but chuckle.

***

"This afternoon with Alcand?" asked Shaka.

This time they were at the dining table with gazes that were difficult to interpret. Shaka continued to stare at Sophia who was busy eating her food, while Shaka returned with a white plastic box with the food Valery had brought.

"Do you know him?" Sophia looked at Shaka questioningly, could it be that they knew each other and wanted to bring Sophia down? Because all this time Shaka wanted to get rid of Sophia quickly.

But since Sophia is Shaka's wife here, she decided to tell Shaka so that he wouldn't misunderstand. Afraid that Shaka would think that Sophia had betrayed him with another man. Even though none of that happened. Whether she hears it or not, it is clear that Sophia will still tell Shaka about this collaboration.

"He is my coworker. I saw you coming out of the restaurant."

Sophia confirmed the words, she had indeed had breakfast with Alcand at her favorite place. After that, Alcand took Sophia to go to their destination. Alcand wants to invite Sophia to cooperate, but here Sophia must first know which place they will open a business. After knowing, Sophia asked Alcand to clean the place first, and then Sophia and Alcand could work together according to what they wanted.

Shaka snorted, "Cooperation to open a flower shop again?"

"I thought so at first, but when I found out about the place-"

"Stop!!!" interrupted Shaka quickly, "I don't care what cooperation between you and Alcand. He's just my coworker, and you have to know what our goal is. Don't just because you are close to Alcand you forget what our goals are, I don't like it!!!" he continued and walked away, making Sophia immediately silent.

Don't like it? What makes Shaka dislike it? Is it because she saw Sophia and Alcand? No way, yes, no way Shaka doesn't like seeing that!!!

To Be continued