Ophelia stood by the door with a huge smile on her face. While she rode the elevator up to his room, she forced herself to smile even though she was boiling inside so badly. While at work, she had received a message from Sue that she had been fired and Charles had reassigned Harper as Cade’s new assistant.
As much as she wanted to ignore the thought, she could not help but come to see for herself if any of it was true. As she opened the door, Harper was standing there at his desk, dressed in formal clothes. She kept chanting the words ‘There is no way this is true’ in her head as she began to walk to him, hoping that her face was not giving her away.
“Ophelia, what are you doing here?” Cade asked, standing up from his chair. He felt a bit exposed to having her there. He was going to tell her about Harper anyway; he just did not like that she had gotten to know about it this way.
“It is almost lunchtime,” she said, going over to the other side of the desk so she could stand opposite Harper and read her very well. “And I know we did not make plans to see this lunch, and we had barely left the house, but I was missing you so much that I had to come done here to see you,” she said, latching on to her hand.
Ophelia could see the rage on Harper’s face, and it put a smile on her face. “Harper, it has been a while since I saw you, and I never thought the next place I would see you would be here in my husband’s office.” Ophelia knew that she did not need to say anything about the things she did, but the satisfaction she got from the look on her face was enough for her.
“Yeah,” Harper’s voice was dry, and she looked around. How could it be the first day and she was already ruining her work? “Mr. Vale, you have an important meeting to attend to, so I don’t think that lunch with your wife would be possible,” she said, turning to Ophelia at the end of her statement.
Ophelia would have defended herself, but she hoped that Cade was at least smart enough to know that Harper was not supposed to get away with any of this. He had to treat her right, especially in the presence of others. “Oh, is that it?” she asked, starting the conversation. “Oh my god, I am so silly. I had thought that you would be so busy. I guess I came at the wrong time.”
Ophelia could feel her entire body shaking so vigorously at the smile that was drawn across Harper’s face because she heard that she was backing down. Ophelia was only backing down, so it was like she was proving things. Cade had to act interested in her that way to win.
“Oh, honey, I am sure we can find some time to have lunch together. We have been both so busy with work that we have not had time to have lunch together these days.” Cade said understanding the situation. Ophelia was proud of how much he had grown; he was able to do something so fast without her having to spell it out for him.
“Really?” she asked, her eyes shining bright as if she had just been presented with a very marvellous gift.
“Of course, anything for my girl,” he said, turning to her with a smile on his face as he admired her. He knew that he would have to explain the situation, but he was glad this was happening. They needed to send more signals to Harper that he was unavailable because it seemed like she was not getting any of the ones they had sent to her earlier.
“But sir…”
“Are you saying I should not have lunch with my wife?” Cade asked, turning to her with a questioning look on his face. “Look, Ms. Davis, you are in charge of my schedule, but you do not dictate how I use that time or with whom I use it,” he added.
Harper’s face turned sour. He was being a real pain for him. He swallowed and nodded. “I understand that very much, but what do I do about the meeting?”
“Tell Mr. Holt that I might have to push the meeting back by a few hours and I would get back to him,” Cade said to her.
“Noted, sir,” she knew that there was no need for her to go head-to-head with them. They seemed to have their stories so coordinated that it would be difficult to fault them at all. She had to go back and restrategize to find some alone time with him, even if it was a few days.
“Dismissed”
Ophelia held to his hand because she knew that anyone could burst in at any time. “You have a lot of explaining to do,” she whispered from the corner of her mouth.
“I was planning to tell you after dinner tonight, but it seems you heard about it early; who did you hear?”
“Sue sent me a message, and I bless her heart for doing so. Who knows what would have happened if I did not get here early?”
“It is not that bad,” he said, and she nodded.
“I guess if you say so. Shall we go have lunch and continue being the ideal couple now?” She asked, and he took off his coat from the stand.
When they got outside, he stopped by her deal and asked her to draft a letter to the secretaries general office asking for a male secretary by the end of the week. Ophelia had not asked him to do that, but she felt touched that he was thinking so ahead of it that he knew what to do. He also told her not to wait for him, as he would go to the meeting by himself.
As soon as both of them were in the elevator and it had begun to go down, Harper called Cael.
“This plan might not work out.”
“We have to make it work.”