“Yes, it’s a choice you must make between showing one person through various stages of life or to show different people in each stage. The former, as you said, shows the flow of time much better. The latter, provides a better sense of inclusivity because you can show people of different genders, race, and demographics,” Ace continued to explain. “In this case, we should probably go with your suggestion to capture the flow of time,” I said decisively.“Correct. If I were you, I’d do that,” Ace replied without hesitation. “Thank you, Ace. Oh…and welcome back,” I said before showing him one of my best smiles. Ace smiled back as his hand reached out to pat the top of my head gently. “It’s good to be back…” Ace said lazily. …Time surely flew by and the first pitch presentation where the contesting companies would present their story board to the committee was already in two weeks’ time. We had less than 10 working days to put everything together. Having a great storyline and an appea
One of these days, he’s going to get bored of me and then what we have would come to an unsightly end. Before I knew it, my thoughts started getting dark and very insecure. When Ace first asked me to be his girlfriend, I thought that it was the most ridiculous thing ever and I hated the idea. However, now I wasn’t sure what I wanted. Maybe there was a part of me that wanted something more with him. Do I want to be his girlfriend for real?I found my own feelings confusing but that wasn’t the only problem. One of the main reasons that stopped me from accepting his proposal to be his girlfriend was because I highly doubted that he was even serious about it. No matter how I looked at it, he was just playing around with my head and my heart. It’s probably best for me not to get too attached to him or get too serious about this. It was an easy thing to think and say, however, the pain and tightness in my chest told me that it was something very hard to achieve action-wise. “Excuse me…”T
I wasn’t the sore loser type. The desperate and insecure woman who seemed to be going through a fit in front of me was clearly worried about her husband. If I wanted to be a heartless bitch, I could have said some meaningful things to her; however, what good would that do me? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. “Then why did he go to your room?” the woman asked accusingly. Oh…was she spying on him or did she get someone to keep tabs on him. I didn’t want to know. I really didn’t want to know. I let out another sigh. Is it even possible to convince someone when their mind is so made-up like this?“You’re completely misunderstanding all of this. Kyle came to my room to pick up his things. That’s all. There was probably something that he needed that he left behind in my room. After our…sudden break up, we didn’t really talk or meet up…so…” I explained before trailing off with a shrug of my shoulders. If it had been up to me, I would have wished for him to never turn up at my door again. H
“You’re the one who is misunderstanding things. You see, Karina is my girlfriend now. She’s no longer involved with your husband. I can personally guarantee that,” Ace stated as his arm tightened around my shoulders. What did he just say?!Elizabeth’s eyes widened even further as she gasped and covered her open mouth with her hand. Her eyes travelled from Ace to me and then back to Ace again. It was clear that she was struggling to believe that we were dating. Well, I didn’t blame here. We’re not really dating and I’m not really his girlfriend. I had no idea why Ace said that, but it did seem to work in throwing her completely off her game. “If you don’t have any more questions, then I guess we’re done here. Karina and I have a dinner date together, so if you don’t mind, we’ll excuse ourselves now. Have a good evening,” Ace said as his arms dropped to circle my waist.With a slight push, he began leading me away with him. “Wait!” Elizabeth called out quite loudly from behind us.
“I think we are overall very ready for the presentation tomorrow. Just like the other years, we’re given roughly 15 minute to present the storyline and the storyboard. The 15 minutes also includes a couple of minutes to address questions that the committee members may have,” Richard explained sternly. “We should be fine with what we have. We’ve reiterated on it so many times, I’m honestly quite sick of it. Let’s get tomorrow’s presentation over and done with so we can move on to the next phase. The detailed planning should be exciting and so will the actual production,” Ace said with a nod of his head. It as true that we reiterated the storyboard many times. Since Ace provided his first round of feedback while we were in my bed together, the storyboard went through minor changes here and there based on his second round of feedbacks and suggestions from the other team members. Somehow, with Jeremy’s help, we were able to get everything right at the end. Everyone worked extremely har
I waited for the line to connect but it never did. After trying to call him a few more times, I gave up on it. The session was about to start and using the phone wasn’t possible anymore unless I went outside the auditorium. The lights started dimming a little and I was force to send Ace a text message to ask him where he was instead.“Do any of you know where Ace is? I can’t get in touch with him…” I asked the other team members.They gave me blank looks that told me that they had no idea. I couldn’t help but wonder why none of them were panicking right now just like I was.“He’ll be here in time for our turn to present. Don’t worry,” Richard told me with confidence.“Ok…” I mumbled in reply.If Richard who was usually overly strict said that it was fine, then I had to believe him and have fate that Ace would turn up on time. I knew that he was extremely busy as the CEO of the company so maybe that was why he didn’t have hours to spare to sit through this entire presentation.Suddenly
Why didn’t I recognize that I had been talking to the CEO of Chase Creatives? Even after I found out her name, I never connected the dots.Did the other people know about this already?But when my friends from my old department showed me their wedding photos, no one talked about the bride being the CEO of our largest competitor. Did they not recognize her as well?Their wedding was probably a very private event, and it was not covered on the news; however, there is no mistake that the woman standing proudly on the stage right now is Kyle’s wife.“Don’t look so troubled. Elizabeth just took over as CEO. It’s like her trial period so it hasn’t even been publicly announced yet. Just like me, she’s following in her father’s footsteps,” Ace explained as he secretly reached for my hand.She’s not that much older than me and she’s already the CEO. If what Ace said is true, then she’s the only daughter of the pervious chairman of Chase Creatives. I stared at the woman who smiled confidently
“Julianna, can you buy us some time?” Ace asked with a smile.“Leave it to me. I don’t work in marketing for nothing…” Julianna said as she got up from her seat.She seemed to believe that she could buy us some time and Ace seem confident enough to leave things on that end in her hands. It was clear by now that we can’t go up there and present the storyboard that we had prepared for this meeting. However, we can’t go up there without anything to present either.“Jeremy, you got this, right?” Ace asked as he turned to Jeremy.That was when I realized that Jeremy had his laptop open and was busy working on something. From where I was seating, I couldn’t see his laptop screen. Richard had his eyes on Jeremy’s laptop scream as he nodded his head. Jeremy started exchanging some words with Richard before he turned to Ace and smiled.“We’ve got this, Boss,” he said, completely unfazed.Rounds of applaud thundered all around us and that marked the end of Chase Creatives’ presentation. Now it