ARIA'S POV
The company was in disarray at the news of the President collapsing but the Assistant managing director managed to calm everyone down and assured us that the President was fine.Everyone went back to work but we could hardly concentrate because Lena and Nixon who went with the ambulance that took the President were not back to give us any news of his condition.I hadn't gotten the chance to meet the President but according to Summer, he was a very nice person but strict at the same time which explained why everyone was sad because of what happened to him.The paper I was sketching on was long forgotten as I kept staring at the door, waiting for Celestine to come back with some sort of information concerning the President. Everyone else was either listening to music or sleeping at their desk because none of our brains were settled to continue working on our project.As the door opened, everyone shot up their desk and approached Celestine who walked in and closed the door behind her."Did you hear any news?" Caleb, a guy on the team asked."Lena and Nixon returned a while ago, and they said he's fine."We all let out a sigh of relief and went back to our desks. With curiosity about what happened clawing inside of me, I decided to go and see Lena to find out."I need to go to the restroom," I said to no one in particular as I exited the room.Instead of going to the restroom which was down the hall, I went up to Lena's office and knock on the door."Who is it?" she asked."It's Aria.""Come in."I pushed the door open and stepped in, closing the door behind me. As I moved closer to Lena, she raised her eyebrows at me and said, "You want to ask about what happened, right?""Yes." I sat in front of her desk. "So what happened at the meeting?""Well, the President's son refused to take over the company, and the shareholders decided that the president was too old to continue handling the company himself and should step down so that they would elect a new President," she started."Do they have the right to do that?" I raised my eyebrows at her."They are the company's shareholders, so they have a right to the company in a way." She shrugged. "The President got agitated when he began to argue with them and collapsed due to his high blood pressure.""Poor man." I sighed. "I heard he's better now.""Yes, but he was still unconscious when we left.""Okay, I should go back now." I stood up from the chair. "I can't be caught slacking off on my second day.""You are close to the Head Designer and the managing director, you shouldn't be scared of anyone except the president." She smiled and I returned the smile before exiting her office.I went back to our team's room and sat at my desk. The first I did was chuck the piece of paper I'd been working on inside the waste bin. I took out a new sheet and began to work on my new design. I was able to complete the first design before we got off work late that evening and I made a mental note to show it to Celeste the following day.As I exited the team's room, I caught Lena stepping out of her office with her bag in her hand. I approached her and we walked into the elevator together. The elevator stopped on our floor and it opened to reveal Nixon who had his suit jacket hanging on his left shoulder, leaving him in his white inner shirt.We stepped into the elevator and Lena stood right beside him. "Are you going home yet?""No." He shook his head. "I have to check on the president and I also need to talk to Dave.""I think I should stop by at the hospital too." Lena nodded.Nixon placed her hand on her shoulder, staring at her with deep concern in his eyes. "No. I can see the tiredness in your eyes, you need to go home and get some rest. You can always check on the President tomorrow.""But..." She started but he placed his finger on his lips to shut her up."Listen to me for once, please." His blue eyes bored into hers and they held each other stares for a while.It was so obvious that those two were into each other, if not for the company's stupid rule that was keeping them apart.The elevator stopped on the first floor with a ding which made the two of the cut eye contact. Lena cleared her throat before she replied, "Okay, I'll visit him tomorrow. Send my greetings to Mrs. Mendez and please talk some sense into your best friend's head.""I'll try but let's hope he listens to me. Dave can be very stubborn." He shook his head as we got out of the elevator.We walked in silence into the parking lot and Nixon watched us get into Lena's car and drove away. I so much wanted to tease Lena about what happened between her and Nixon in the elevator but I decided not to because I knew she was still worried about the President's well-being.When we arrived at the apartment, I went to my room to take a shower and put on some comfortable clothes before going into the kitchen to prepare dinner.Lena was still in her room doing God knows what while I took care of our meal for the evening. A few minutes into my cooking, soft footsteps approached the kitchen followed by Lena's voice. I couldn't pick out what she was saying because she was still at a distance.She walked into the kitchen with her phone in her ear and she sat on the counter, so I was able to hear her side of the conversation."Really?" She asked as she covered her mouth with her hand in surprise. "That's good news." She grinned from ear to ear. "Okay, I'll see you tomorrow." She hung up."What happened?" I asked as I turned my back to her to check on what I was cooking."Looks like we will have a new President soon."ARIA'S POVThat night, I was up way past my bedtime talking to Savannah about how I was adapting to my workplace and things that I have occurred in the few days I'd been here. We got off the call by one in the morning when I told her that I had to go to work early the next morning. "Ari, wake up. We are going to be late," I heard Lena's voice in my sleep before the quilt got yanked off my body. "Five more minutes." I groaned as I curled on the bed."Do you know what time is it? It's 6:40." She yelled and I shot up the bed with wide eyes."Why didn't you wake me up earlier?" I climbed down the bed and rushed into the bathroom. "That is because I wasn't expecting you to still be sleeping by this time," she shouted after me. "Hurry up and meet me in the living room, we have to stop by the hospital before going to work." "Okay." I stood in front of the bathroom mirror to brush my teeth. It was all Savannah's fault that I was getting late for work. If only she hadn't kept me awake til
DAVE'S POVWhen Nixon broke the news of my taking over the company to my parents, they were over the moon. My dad was all smiles that day and the doctor was surprised to see my father's health improving faster than usual. My Mom concluded that it was the good news that fastened his healing process. Dad joined in by saying if he knew collapsing in the conference was all it would take to make me join the company he would have done it a long time ago. Before we left the hospital that night, he instructed Nixon to put me through everything I needed to know about the company. They planned to officially make me the president of the company when my dad recovers fully.At first, I wasn't happy about my decision to join the company, but seeing how delighted my parents were made it all worth it. Since my brother died, I had never seen my parent that happy which made me satisfied that I had granted my brother the favor he asked of me. That night, Nixon spent the night in my penthouse, teachin
ARIA'S POVMy mother had always warned me that my hot temper and running mouth would get me in trouble one day, but I never expected that day to come so soon. How would I have expected that the simpled dressed guy who bumped into me and broke my phone would turn out to be Dave Mendez, the new president of the company I worked in? What kind of evil spirit was following me? If only I had been a little patient, my job in Styles won't be hanging on a thin thread. When we left the hospital that day, I kept on begging Lena to talk to Nixon to convince Dave not to fire me. Since they were best friends, there was a high chance he would listen to me. Lena disregarded my begging and told me to face the consequences of my reckless actions. Before we left the house that morning, I went down on my knees to pray, asking God to save me from getting fired. My heart thudded in my chest as Lena's car approached Stlye's building. We got out of the car only for me to hear a familiar voice calling Lena.
DAVE'S POV"Are you sure?" I asked with a smirk on my face."Yes." She nodded.Standing from my chair, I walked to the front of the desk where she was kneeling and perched on the edge. "Stand up," I ordered and she complied. "You said you would do anything, right?" She nodded with her head down and her hand held tightly together in front of her. It was funny as she was sweating under the air conditioning in the office but I couldn't bring myself to laugh at the moment. "Okay then. From now henceforth, I want you to get me coffee every morning. Not just any coffee, I want it from Brendan's cafe before eight in my office."She glanced up at me with shock written all over her face. "Coffee?" she asked and I nodded. "Just Coffee?""Why? You can't do it?" I raised my eyebrows at her. "Of course, I can." She smiled. "All I need to do is get you coffee every morning and that's it?" "Not really. But for now, I just need coffee. If I need anything else later, I'll let you know." I smirked
ARIA'S POVUsing all the self-control in me, I managed to get into the elevator before I jumped and squealed, hugging the new phone to my chest. When the elevator stopped on my floor, I hopped to Lena's office and barged inside without knocking. "Look who got a nice phone," I announced as I waltz inside holding the phone packed up as my partner. A clearing of the throat made me stop and I looked back to see Nixon staring at me with a raised eyebrow while Lena was busy laughing at my expense. My face was red with embarrassment that I wish I could just disappear. "I'm sorry, I didn't know you were busy. I'll come back later." I turned to leave but Lena's voice stopped me."I'm not that busy," she said when she stopped laughing. "So what did Dave say? You were saying something about a new phone." Turning back to them with a smile on my face, I raised the phone pack for them to see. "He got me a new phone." "Really? Dave got you a new phone?" Nixon stared at me shocked. "Yes." I mo
ARIA'S POV The rest of the week ran by quickly with me serving coffee to Dave as promised every morning. That weekend the President was discharged from the hospital and they were planning a company party for the next weekend to officially announce Dave as the President.Sunday was a free day, so I took that opportunity to video chat with my brother with my new iPhone. The rest of the family joined the video chat and I seized that opportunity to boast about my new phone. I explained how I got it to them, leaving out the part of me serving coffee to Dave every morning. They didn't need to know that.That beautiful Monday morning, I rushed to work because my team was running behind with the project that we were supposed to submit that Monday. Other teams turned in their projects as expected, so Lena gave us the grace of two more days. After delivering Dave's coffee as usual, I joined my teammate as we strived to complete the project before the deadline. We didn't even get to eat lunch
ARIA'S POVWith a scowl on my face, I walked into my team's room, mumbling to myself. I sat on my seat and tossed the flash drive on my desk, cussing at Dave in my head."What got you all worked up?" Summer whispered as she leaned closer to me.Before I could reply, Celestine's voice boomed in the entire office. "That's enough talking, Aria and Summer, get to work. We began working on our project and I made a mental note to start with the design Dave gave me once I was done. Like the last time, our team didn't go for lunch as we were planning to finish and submit the project that day.It was an hour before our working hours were over when Celestine collected all the designs and saved them in her flashdrive before submitting them to Lena. Not long after Celestine came back, the door opened again, drawing everyone's attention. Lena peeped in with a sheepish smile on her face. "Can I talk to Aria for a minute?" "Sure," Celestine nodded at me.I stood up and walked toward the door wher
DAVE'S POVGoing through all the designs Lena submitted to me, I groaned in frustration for the tenth time. I had gone through two teams' projects and none of them were to my liking. I went through the third team's project and thankfully, I was able to find two designs that were good enough. I was hoping to get something good from the infamous Team 4, but I received a report from Lena later that day that they were running behind and she had to give them extra days.Out of frustration, I called my Secretary using Telecom. "I need you to get me all the resumé of all the current designers in the company. " "Yes, sir," he replied and I hung up.While I waited, I decided to go through the fifth team project and I had to admit that it was better than the last three teams. My Secretary walked in with a load of documents in his hand and placed it on my desk."The files are arranged according to their teams and each team file is arranged according to when they joined the company," he explain