“Ummm.” Miss Chen cleared her throat, sensing the high amount of conflict between them, and gently touched Tian’s arm, “Would you like a coffee?”
Ling honed in on the overfamiliar touch like a crazed shrew and shifted in her seat, crossing her legs with more force than required, flicking her hair out so hard it almost took Mr. Wren’s eye out.
“Mr. Wren, would you like me to make your favorite tea? Before the meeting starts?” She turned, fluttering her lashes, and coyly touched his wrist to reconnect his attention, wondering why he was rubbing his eyebrow and smiled seductively. Mr. Wren was startled by the sudden forceful attention of a woman who had been dismissing him for years and blushed so obviously.
Tian was at eye level with her butt, caught himself fixated on it and looked away, cleared his throat, and sat up to stare at his keyboard instead.
“What’s going on with you two?” Anna leaned in, whispering in his ear as more staff walked in and met only Tian’s blank and dismissive wave of a hand that signaled, ‘Nothing, leave me alone.’ She was getting the strong impression this was more than just a dislike between them and watched with more interest.
The room began to fill quickly as executives shuffled in and seated themselves, and Ling returned to her seat. She carried a teacup with an obvious teabag string hanging over the edge. She had gone for a regular brew, and Tian smirked to himself, knowing fine well Mr. Wren kept expensive loose tea in the kitchenette for meetings, and Ling had put zero effort in. Even being here briefly, he knew the older man’s preference more than Ling did. She was so transparent.
Tian rose, walked to the whiteboard when he was sure everyone was there, and waited for the last person to shut the door.
He caught Ling turning his way slightly, legs crossed, and blouse pulled so his full view at standing height looking down was impressive cleavage. He was a hot-blooded man and not immune; it was an impulsive instinct to look. Catching himself, he tilted his head to avert his eyes, inwardly chastising himself for getting a certain temperature-rising reaction. Flashbacks of having those assets naked and his face were not a welcome invasion.
He wondered if she was doing this on purpose and took a calming breath before leaning on the back of the CEO’s chair at the head of the table, which was sitting empty, and clearing his throat to get his head back in the game.
Tian was distracted by how Ling brushed her hair behind her ear and shoulder to get it out of her way. Exposing her long creamy neck in the wide gaping neckline of that blouse. Her eyes fixed on what she was doing, and he evaluated her side profile more intensely.
No matter the angle, he couldn’t deny she had been built to make men want her, and he found it irritating. The woman was sex on legs, knew it, and dressed the part, and despite his aversion to her, he couldn’t fault that she was attractive. Annoyingly so. He had to stop himself from glaring at her as weird feelings swirled up inside, setting him on edge.
He caught a flicker of Mr. Wren inappropriately touching Ling’s wrist, and a little subtle anger rose from his stomach, which had him shifting in his seat uneasily. Ling slid away from him, moved her coffee between them, and subtly dismissed the older man by leaning further to put distance between them. Mr. Wren recoiled and sat back, dropping his hands to his lap, unaware of the very focused stare from Tian as he did so.
Somehow, her gentle closing down of the interaction with ease, her non-reaction told Tian it was common, leaving him abnormally irritated. He made a mental note to have the sexual harassment policy revised and resent to all employees by the end of the day. That physical contact with coworkers came under sexual harassment.
Anna nudged Tian’s foot with hers to distract him from what she had seen. The obvious staring at Miss Huo and narrowed her eyes to ask why he was so off his game. Tian had been the constant symbol of professionalism and unwavering neutral behavior as long as she knew him. She had never seen him openly checking out an employee in a single meeting in her years with him. Let alone glaring at senior staff for sitting too closely to one.
She knew now that Tian’s behavior was more than rivals on two sides of Kai’s mess and wondered if Tian and Ling had been together. That shocked her, given his avoidance of romance as though he was allergic to it after his messy relationships of the past.
Tian had never been lucky in love, finding most women suffocating and needy, hating his demanding career, hating his lack of romantic coaxing, and it had given him an aversion to love. He couldn’t do irrational jealousy and control or someone wanting to sap every second of his free time. Tian wasn’t the type to have a woman clinging to his coattails, even though Anna knew he would have made a great husband. He had a heart of gold and was stable and safe with a realistic and logical mind and dedication to a career. He was loyal and gentle when he needed to be, and she was sad that he had been built far too independent for a woman to keep up.
He clenched his teeth, averted his gaze back to the speaker, and realized he had not taken in a word he had said in the last ten minutes. Tian frowned, tried to get his head back in the discussion, and sat up, adjusting his jacket to try and listen.
Ling was sulking.
Every time she raised her eyes across the table, that damn Miss Chen was making moon eyes at Tian, smiling his way and sighing. Anytime he made a move, she followed it with her gaze, and Ling wondered what the story was there. If it was unrequited or if she was sometimes a bedmate.
The thought churned up anger and seething in her stomach, and she had to control her outward expression not to throw daggers at the other woman and pretend like she didn’t care at all.
Why did she care?
Tian found his attention wandering back to Ling, given in a room of mostly dark-suited employees. She was wearing a silk baby pink blouse that drew attention and caught her fixated on Miss Chen. Pinning her with an intense stare, the other woman was oblivious, and he sat back, observing her. Amused by her hostility.
Ling was hot-headed, aggressive, and bold for a woman, and he shook his head at her. For all that sexy and elegance she oozed, she was a girl who would knee you in the balls for looking at her the wrong way, and he knew Miss Chen would be annihilated in a girl fight. There was no competition.
Ling was crazy.
He tilted his head, returning his attention to Mr. Lee, and felt a flicker of Ling’s eyes turn his way. He caught it in his peripheral vision as she glanced at him, her gaze moving up and down his torso, and snapped away again like she was angry or irritated at him. It gave Tian a sense of smugness that, for all her play-acting, like she was not bothered by what they had done, she couldn’t be more obvious about it.
For a woman with a reputation for being cool-headed, calm in a crisis, and always pulled together in this company, he didn’t see that at all. Since he met her, she had been one fiery demon with a knack for making him want to pick her up and throttle her.
He had learned over the years that women put more emotional emphasis on sex than men, and he wondered if that was what this was. He had screwed her, so she expected him to be affected by it. She was annoyed he wasn’t hung up on her and kissing her ass for a night of wild fucking. To him, it was a drunken and regrettable night with a woman he should never have touched.
Even if it was undeniably memorable sex.
He found that thought amusing, given how much that woman swanned around these halls, flirting with every man with a pulse and acted like she could have any of them eating out of her palm at any given time. Maybe it was a dent to her ego that his initial wake-up reaction had been one of ‘What the fuck did I do.’ He knew it was no deeper than that, yet it gave him a sense of power.
Ling stood up abruptly, pulling him out of his thoughts, and he realized he had zoned out on Mr Lee’s report and the marketing director too. Ling was eyeing him oddly and then pulled up her bag to slide out a pile of papers. She leaned in and pushed to the center of the table, and Tian stretched to get one that Anna held out to him, glancing over it but keeping it upright so Ling was in view along the top edge.
Ling in work mode was exactly what they said about her.
She took on a completely different persona of cool elegance. Authoritative and confident in her work. She had no qualms about standing up to give the report and understood everything she was laying out in front of them.
Tian had always found intelligence attractive, and she was known in this company to be dedicated and talented in her chosen specialty. A career woman who was serious about her job, even if not too long ago, told him she didn’t care if he fired her.
That memory made him chuckle to himself, given how any other employee would have been marched right out the door. Remembering how fierce and volatile she had been in defending her friend, even faced with senior staff in the CEO’s office, he gazed back at her, admiring that kind of gutsy loyalty.