When Wendy swung open the door to Henson’s office, she noticed that he had an overcast expression on.
“You sure have a lot to talk about with Ross, huh? I called you more than an hour ago and you’ve only arrived now. You really don’t care if I die or not, don’t you? Aren’t you afraid that I’ll starve to death?” he whined.
She remained calm as she replied, “What does this have to do with Ross? After you called, I immediately ordered something for you which arrived 10 minutes later, but when I arrived at the company, I bumped into an employee from the Training department and was ushered there which took some time. It was only until then Joye took me upstairs,” she explained.
“Well, I think you were scared to come up by yourself, which was why you purposely went to the Training department to ask Joye for help,” he huffed.
She rolled her eyes at him in reply. “Smart *ss. Come and have your lunch already,” she said.
He got up from his seat and walked over to her. Upon seeing a lunchbox full of chili peppers, he frowned and shifted his gaze to her.
She pursed her lips and flashed him a wide grin. “I remember you told me you liked spicy food, so in order to let you enjoy your meal better, I specifically requested for moooore chillis,”
she said in a singsongy tone.
“Was this woman doing this on purpose?” he thought as
he sat down. “Uh… muuuuch thanks,” he said
in a singsongy manner too, imitating her.
She sat down beside him on the sofa and stared at him, fully prepared to see him go mad from all those peppers. She was expecting it to be a hoot and a half.
The last thing she’d expected was that he’d be able to handle this level of spiciness.
He acted as if nothing was wrong and continued eating his food with no qualms.
She couldn’t help but frown at his lack of reaction. “What’s this? Isn’t it spicy for you?” she asked.
“Why don’t you give it a try? I doubt the chef even knows what real spicy food tastes like,” he said nonchalantly.
Skeptical, she used two fingers to pick up a piece of duck meat and sent it into her mouth.
A single chew was enough to make her go mad from the spice.
She immediately got up and ran out of his office to pour herself a cup of water.
Dayne, who was sitting in a corner, looked at her all confused.
Upon returning to his office, she piped up in an upset manner, “Can’t you feel the spice? Is there something wrong with your taste buds?”
“I think it’s just fine,” he replied in between bites.
“Wait, but didn’t you tell me you could only handle a bit of spice before?” she asked.
He put down his fork and glared at her. “So, you DO know I can’t handle my spice well, yet you purposefully requested for more peppers. You did this on purpose, didn’t you? he shot.
“I-” she gasped and blinked her eyes in disbelief. She was at a loss for words as she’d been caught red-handed.
“How gutsy of you, Wendy. To think you even had the nerve to mess with me,” he said.
“Didn’t you tell me before that you were lonely at the top? I just did what I could, which was add some ‘spice’ into your life, out of my goodwill in hopes of quelling your loneliness. It’s up to you if you want to accept it or not,” she said
and puffed her cheeks up. She then started looking everywhere except look at him
as she also felt somewhat guilty for messing with him.
“I can eat spicy food, but I rather not as I don’t like the feeling of being all sweaty and bothered, but I suppose I can let it slide this time since the weather’s somewhat chilly lately,” he explained while he continued to chow down on his food.
He later raised an eyebrow and shot her a smug look. “Better luck next time you mess with me then. Just know that tricks like turning off the air-conditioning unit or overloading me with peppers won’t work in the future. Honestly, it’s degrading for such a clever girl like you to reduce herself to cheap tricks like these, you know,” he said.
She became tongue-tied in an instant after hearing that. “How’d you find out that I was behind the air-conditioning incident…” she trailed off and
immediately covered her mouth after realising what she’d said as her gaze remained fixed on him.
Was he even human being? How could he find out about everything?
He then put down his fork to start explaining, “Weren’t you aware of all the CCTVs lurking in every nook and cranny on campus?”
“Wait, don’t tell me you had someone check the surveillance footage just for this non-issue?” she asked, flabbergasted.
“I was just curious why you suddenly left in the middle of my lecture. Apparently, that led me to discover your little plan,” he replied with a poke to her forehead.
She heaved a big sigh and started grinding her teeth while looking at him. Why was it so hard for her to even mess with him?
She pouted and started feeling embarrassed.
She refused to believe she was the stupid one. She rather believe that he was too smart for her.
He later crossed his legs and asked, “What made you suddenly want to meet up with Ross today?”
“Big Bro Ross broke up with Sally,” she replied.
“And why’d he ask to meet up with you when he broke up with another woman?” he asked, his tone upset.
“I was the one who asked him out actually. Sally had phoned me earlier and asked me if I could help them reconcile, to which I refused,” she said.
After clarifying Ross’ and Sally’s relationship together to him, she added, “I can’t possibly help her now that it’s come to this. I just feel that Big Bro Ross deserves better, you know,”
“By ‘better’, do you mean yourself?” he shot back.
She could only roll her eyes at his reply. “You totally reek of Sally right now,” she scoffed.
“Your tone suggests that you’re looking down on me. Please don’t tell me you plan on dumping me after finding out about their break up,” he said with an eyebrow raised.
“Henson,” she called out his name in a gentle manner. “You must be bored out of your skull to even think of that. What’s this talk about dumping you when we haven’t started anything in our relationship yet? And even if I wanted to be with Big Bro Ross, why would I even bother to inform you about it? I told you time and time again, my feelings towards Big Bro Ross aren’t like what you think,”
“That’d better be the case,” he smirked and got up,
“Come on, I’ll send you back,” he said.
“Are you leaving this early?” she asked after looking at the time.
“It’s weekend,”
“But there are people working overtime,”
“They get paid to work overtime, I don’t. Plus, I’m hungry…” he said and
glared at the spicy meal she bought for him out of the corners of his eyes. “… and I dislike junk food,”
She pouted as she thought to herself, “Who were you trying to impress by acting like you could handle your spice then?”
After getting up from her seat, she said, “I’ll be heading down first then. See you at the basement parking.”
The moment she finished, she dashed out of his office like a gust of wind.
Dayne was puzzled upon seeing her leave in such a hurry. Why was Miss Evans, the woman his boss worshiped, running away for?
Henson left his office shortly after while chuckling to himself.
Dayne rubbed his chin and thought that Wendy was a miracle worker. After all, it wasn’t every day one could see him laugh like that.
While she was sleeping soundly in the dead of night, she was disturbed by a strange ruffling noise coming from the edge of the bed.
She opened her eyes to see Henson, who was hunched over at the side of the bed.
This caused her to flick the lights on to see what was going on. “What’s up with you?” she asked.
He didn’t reply.
She then threw the covers away and crawled over to his side to look at him. Before she could ask again, she noticed that his forehead was drenched in sweat.
“What’s wrong, Henson?” she hurriedly asked.
The surrounding temperature was just right, so it was strange that he was breaking out in a cold sweat now of all times.
He tried to force a smile as he turned to look at her. “It’s nothing, it’s just that my tummy doesn’t feel good. Go downstairs, wake Donald the Butler up and have him fetch a doctor for me,”
She obliged in an instant.
Twenty minutes passed before the family doctor finally arrived.
“Did you have anything spicy today, Master Henson?” the doctor asked after giving him a thorough examination.
Spicy food?
She suddenly thought of the lunch she brought him in the afternoon…