Chapter 2: Mr. Lee

Florence gulped while holding the hand he offered her. Was this the guy everyone was talking about? She hadn’t seen him around before. She’d remember a face like his.

It would make a lot of sense if it was him. From the way he looked, he had everything a young billionaire CEO should. A perfect suit, an image to die for, a smile that could make anyone forget how to speak, and eyes as sharp as an eagle's.

Scott Lee. That name wasn’t unfamiliar to her. Where had she heard it? Lee, Lee…

“F*ck!” she murmured, covering her mouth almost immediately. “I'm so sorry, Mr. Lee. It was my fault. I wasn’t paying attention.”

Scott shrugged slightly, almost imperceptibly, but Florence couldn’t help but notice that his bodyguards were staring at her with very serious and unfriendly faces.

“Do you study here, Miss Haynes?” he asked, scanning her with a smirk she didn’t know how to interpret.

Oh, no… She was doomed. If he was really the man she thought he was, or better yet, she knew he was, he could decide to drop his donations to the university because of her.

Scott Lee was none other than the CEO of Lee Pharmaceuticals, one of the richest companies in the industry for generations. She now remembered Emma murmuring something about his company a couple of days before.

She always heard about how CEOs were mostly hostile and arrogant, so bumping into an impolite employee could be enough to make one change their mind.

“I-I actually work here, Mr. Lee. But I truly apologize for being rude to you. I didn’t mean to, so please don’t change your mind about your donation. It was completely my fault,” she spat out, not daring to look the man in the eyes again.

It was really hard to focus when he had those eyes examining her that way. Why did he have to be so good looking?

To her surprise, Scott laughed.

“Wow, I did not know my reputation was that bad. I’m not usually considered a jerk as you’re making me look like now, Miss Haynes,” he joked. “And I don’t think my donation would have anything to do with you being rude to me.”

Florence felt her cheeks burn with embarrassment. She was also never known as someone rude, but the fact that he got to meet her on a bad day and being something she’s usually not, made her feel very ashamed of herself.

“Of course not,” she murmured. “Anyway, I do apologize for that. I’m not having a good day, but that is no excuse for acting as I did.”

“You're right. It is not,” Scott said while one of his bodyguards came closer to him and whispered something in his ear. He nodded and looked at her again. “Well, I’m afraid I need to go, Miss Haynes, but it was a pleasure to meet you. Even in these circumstances. Excuse me.”

Florence watched him straighten his tie and nod at her, continuing to walk down the hallway as if she had been nothing but a stone in his way.

She turned around and rushed back to her office to tell Emma what happened. Her friend was definitely going to die when she heard how Florence treated the ‘oh-so-perfect’ Mr. Lee.

“You did what?” Emma yelled after Florence finished her story, receiving a bunch of harsh stares from the students in the library.

“Shhh!” Florence put her hand over her friend’s mouth, praying that their boss was not around to scold them. “Do you want to get fired? Shut up!”

“How do you expect me to stay quiet when you drop a bomb like that on my lap? I asked for gossip, but I was not expecting something like that,” Emma complained in a whisper. “Oh, my God! How could you be rude to him? You do know who he is, right? How powerful he is?”

“Yes, I do,” Florence rolled her eyes and sighed. “I wasn’t paying attention, so I didn’t know it was him. I was just frustrated and thinking about things at home, I didn’t mean to be rude to anyone.”

Emma shook her head.

“How could this happen to you? Are you sure he’s not dropping the donations? I heard it was like a huge deal.”

“He basically said I was not worth it,” Florence lowered her shoulders.

“Which he’s right,” Emma completed, making Florence slap her on the arm. “Ouch!” she whispered. “So, is he as handsome as those actors we see in Korean dramas?” Emma asked daydreaming.

“Hmm…” Florence murmured, also allowing herself to reminisce about her brief encounter with Scott.

“‘Hmm’ as in a good ‘hmm’ or bad ‘hmm’?” Emma interrogated expectantly.

“As in a good ‘hmm’. Very good, actually. He’s like a sculpture or something. I couldn’t even look at him for more than three seconds without feeling like he could melt my brain,” Florence said.

“Oh, God! You meet the first and only billionaire you’ll probably ever see in your life and screw it completely. I must have been cursed or something,” Emma complained, turning her chair back to her computer.

“How did this become about you?” Florence made a ball of paper and tossed it at Emma, frustrated at how real her words were.

Her friend was not wrong. In fact, if Florence was someone who believed in bad luck, she’d agree that she probably had been cursed.

Scott was, without a doubt, the only person as close to perfection as she has seen and probably will ever see in her life. The fact that he was also very gentle didn’t help. Not to mention he was a billionaire too.

She sighed again, not able to concentrate on her job anymore. She couldn’t believe she made a fool of herself in front of him.

In her defense, she was not being herself these days. She hadn’t been sleeping well, thinking about all the bills she needed to pay. She asked her boss if she could work a few extra hours to earn more money, but it turned out she was getting overburdened.

The only good thing about it all was that Scott seemed willing to keep his donations, and Florence was sure the university needed it. They had programs with a lot of communities that needed whatever help they could get, and she didn’t want to be the cause of something like that being canceled.

“I just hope I never have to see him around campus again. I could not stand the embarrassment twice,” she whispered more to herself than to Emma, feeling chills down her spine just by the thought of it.

If she only knew how wrong she was.