Chapter 3

Chapter 3.

COLDHEARTED AND TAKEN HR.

JANE'S POV.

I slowly turned to where the voice came from and I saw my HR manager with his face pulled together as ugly as an ape.

His glare was on me, and it bathed me with coldness.

"What are you doing, Miss Shane?" He asked me again, even after seeing what had happened. Or, was he blind?

"Nothing, sir."

His big eyes ran from me to the people behind me, Ben and his girlfriend, "And what was that rubbish I heard you say about you and the intern in a relationship?"

Yes, that was a thing in the company's rules: no relationship among the colleagues. It was the rule that was written in everybody's heart, a rule that Ben and I successfully broke for the three months we were together, and nobody noticed.

I turned to Ben to see him fidgeting like a chicken that was under the rain for a long time.

He didn't reply to the manager.

"You better be joking lamely about it, else, I won't be sorry to fire your ass."

"Yes, sir. I was joking about it."

The manager glared more before walking away.

I turned to the intern with Ben, "Let me give you a little advice, get yourself a boyfriend who is not a chicken, not one who shakes so much under a glare."

I walked away from them and this time, they let me go.

I settled into my cubicle and checked my schedule for the day's work.

I had not settled enough when words came that everyone should report to the meeting room.

"It must be for the announcement of the new manager." The girls around me squealed.

I could see them as they began to adjust their skirts and shirts.

My eyes took in what I was wearing... pants, and I wondered, 'How do you adjust pants to be shorter?'

'Why adjusting?' I reasoned.

I rolled my eyes and got out of my seat.

Sarah skipped to my side and came with her tireless worries, "Jane, do you think my skirt is short enough? Do you think the new manager would notice me?"

"Ah! Sarah. If you want to keep talking about any guy today, avoid me." I sneered at her.

She pouted her lips, "I'm sorry."

I grabbed her hand and dragged her along with me to the meeting room. Thanks to her, we got there late.

We stylishly took our seats under the glare of the soon-to-be old manager, and the meeting began.

My mind was not in whatever whoever was saying in the meeting, it kept on drifting off from the man I spent the night with to my ex-boyfriend, who was also in the room. He was waiting along with others.

My eyes were fixed on the empty chair that was opposite where I was sitting, and I soulfully dreaded the man who would be occupying that seat.

".... and, the long-awaited time. Let's all welcome Mr Kennedy Reilly, the new HR manager in my stead." Those words managed to creep into my subconscious mind, and I stood up with the others.

We put our hands together and everyone's eyes, except mine, were turned to the open doors.

I clapped with my eyes on that space until it was occupied by a big body.

Slowly, I raised my head from the body to the face, and like a sledgehammer hit on my skull, memories hit me.

I staggered backward like a bad air carrying me to where I didn't know, and I clashed with my chair, falling my butt on the space.

"MISS SHANE!" The old manager shouted my name with all the anger I have ever heard in my life, and I couldn't dare to stand up from that seat.

My butt was glued to it.

It was not only my butt that was glued to something, but my eyes too. They were glued to the too familiar warmth of the eyes in front of me.

"You're fi..." The manager was shouting, but the new one cut him off.

"It's okay, sir. I will take it up from here." He spoke delicately as if, if he talked more, he would crack up his voice or worse, lose it completely.

He spoke just the way he did to me last night, when he was whispering the words I wanted to hear into my ears, and I was doing the same.

The old manager huffed and sat down.

The new one leaned on the table across from me, pulling his face closer to mine, and I gulped, almost gulping down my brain.

He smiled at me gently.

But like a devil, in the next second, the smile vanished, "STAND UP!"

Did I say the old manager shouted so much? Oh god! That was because I never heard the new one's shout. Hearing it now almost took my eardrums away from me. I became temporarily deaf.

His shout was louder than the old manager's shout. It got me jerking off to my feet like my butt had suddenly caught fire.

Did he swallow a speaker or something?

"I... I'm sorry." I apologised and my eyes could finally leave his face.

I could hear some giggles and mock cricket beside me and around the room from my colleagues. My gaze fixed on the table and embarrassment ate me whole.

He faced the room with his hands pushing into his trousers pockets, "Let me warn you all, you see my face and think I'm gentle and could be trampled upon, well, to your disappointment, I'm not like my face. I'm not gentle."

My gaze rose to his face, and his eyes on me were corny, and he completed his words, "Especially to the people who make my first day memorable."

'What was he talking about? What first day? Was it last night or now?' My stupid mind managed to think in my embarrassed moment.

"I have a few rules of my own," He stated and made us remain on our feet in attention like military men. "First, I don't want a daydreamer among my workers."

What? That was who I was.

"Secondly, I don't want anyone to approach me about anything aside from work, I'm happily taken."

Wait, what?

'What does 'taken' mean again?' My mind cracked up in thought.

'Taken? By who? Me?' I thought hopefully, but what made me think that it would be me? We were not compatible.

He was that gentle green snake on green grass, and I was me.

But I could make us compatible.

A bang on the table jolted me back from reverie, "I said, I don't want daydreamers among the HR." He said with his gaze locked on me and once again, everyone's gaze was on me, and his on me? Oh god!

Is it too late to resign?