44

Scarlett came to a halt, recognizing her mistake in stopping.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she retorted curtly, making her way toward the entrance of her building.
The blond man intercepted her path.
“Ms. Ambrose,” he smiled politely, undeterred by her denial, “I work for Ace Hardwood. I would like you to come with me.”
“I don’t care about what you would like. I don’t know who you are,” Scarlett responded flatly.
The man, identified as Michael Adams, chuckled. “My name is Michael Adams. I have been sent to personally escort you to Woods Towers. Mr. Hardwood is very keen to meet you.”
“I have never spoken to Ace Hardwood in my life,” Scarlett stated.
Refusing to give in was advisable; men like Ace Hardwood enjoyed the chase.
“Hence, why he would like to meet you,” Michael said.
“I’m not going anywhere with a strange man in a tinted car,” Scarlett declared, pointing to the town car.
Michael stepped towards the car and opened the door. “You’ll be perfectly safe; I can assure you.”
Scarlett offered a sarcastic smile. “Forgive me if I don’t believe you. How the hell do you even know my name?”
“Mr. Hardwood has a way of knowing things,” Michael replied.
“Well, he should have known that I wouldn’t go anywhere with you,” Scarlett said, crossing her arms over her chest.
“I’m sure he can explain to you,” he assured her.
“Why does he want to meet me?” she asked.
“I’m not the person to tell you that. When you meet him, Mr. Hardwood will tell you himself.”
“Mr. Hardwood isn’t here, is he?” Scarlett questioned, “If he wants to meet me, you can tell him that since he knows where I am, he could just come to me.”
“Ms. Ambrose, do you really want a strange man in your house?”
Scarlett shot him a look. “Well, then I am perfectly capable of getting myself places.”
“Well, Ms. Ambrose, I am going to Woods Towers, so might I suggest we carpool?” Michael quipped.
“Might I suggest that you get back in your car and go tell your boss that he doesn’t get everything he wants?” Scarlett countered.
Michael smirked and raised an eyebrow. “Au contraire, he does get what he wants very often.”
“You can go tell your boss that if he wants to meet me, I’ll come by myself or he can wait to get served with a fat lawsuit for kidnapping,” Scarlett said firmly.
Michael stared at her for a moment, realizing he wouldn’t win. He sighed, reaching into his suit pocket to retrieve a small business card.
“Here’s my card,” he said. Scarlett took it suspiciously. “You can find the address on it. The front desk will let you up to meet Mr. Hardwood. Be there in an hour.”
“I’ll be there in my own time, cowboy,” Scarlett retorted, reading through the business card, “I don’t owe your boss anything.”
Michael smiled. “I’ll see you soon,” he said, getting back into the car.
As soon as the door closed, he pulled out his phone and dialed a number.
“Tell me,” Ace Hardwood’s voice came down the line.
“Are you sure you want her?” Michael asked.
“Why?”
“Well, she outright refused to come back with me, threatened to sue if I made her, and told me to tell you that she’ll be there in her own time,” Michael responded.
Expecting Ace to be enraged, Michael was surprised when he heard Ace chuckling.
“I was hoping it wouldn’t be easy,” Ace said and hung up.
Michael shook his head in confusion.
On the curb, Scarlett observed the car drive away. She turned and ran up the stairs to the lobby of her building, pulling her phone out from her bag in the process.
“Come on, come on, pick up,” she said to herself, pressing the phone to her ear as she made her way up to her apartment.
“Scarlett? How can I help?” Dan asked when he answered the phone.
“Ace Hardwood wants to meet me,” she said, slipping into her apartment, “One of his men just came up to me on the street, right outside my apartment building and told me that he wants to meet me.”
“And?”
“I told him to get lost,” she said.
“Scarlett, that’s the opposite of what Terrence wants you to do.”
“I’m going there, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of complying with his demands,” Scarlett told him.
Dan sighed. “Well, you know best how to do something like this, I guess. Let me know what happens after you meet him.”
“I’ll call you,” Scarlett promised, “And do you mind telling Terrence?”
Dan agreed and hung up.
Scarlett looked around her living room, wondering how she could make the best impression. One thing she now knew about Ace Hardwood was that he wasn’t in the habit of wasting time.
She slipped out of the pale blue blouse she was wearing into a royal blue one, which matched the tie Ace had been wearing that morning, and pulled her hair into a low, elegant updo.
When her taxi pulled up outside the main entrance to Woods Towers, Scarlett was ten minutes early. The building was tall and contributed to the city’s skyline. The reflecting glass-pane windows made the whole place look like something out of a film.
At the door, she was greeted by Michael.
“Ms. Ambrose, so nice to see you again,” he said, “Shall we?”
“Lead the way,” Scarlett said.
Michael led Scarlett through the grand atrium to a large elevator lobby with seven elevators. He led her to the one that was nestled against the back wall. It was a large and sleek contraption with mirrored walls. Michael swiped a card and pressed the button for the fortieth floor.
Scarlett tried to keep everything she saw in mind to relate it to her employers.
Once the elevator reached the fortieth floor, Michael led Scarlett down a hall similar to the one on the ground floor, except for the fact that, other than the elevator they had just exited, there were only two others reaching that floor.
Scarlett had seen this before; Ace Hardwood’s floor was only accessible by select personnel with access to those three elevators.
The office was entirely empty; the reception lacked a receptionist; the couches were deserted, and there wasn’t much sound other than the muted sounds of Scarlett’s and Michael’s footsteps against the carpet.
They stood outside double doors with a shiny gold plaque that read ‘Ace Hardwood CEO,’ and Michael turned to Scarlett. “Wait here,” he said and slipped in through the double doors.
Scarlett stood outside the room, observing the luxury of Woods Towers. There were luscious green potted plants and modern, well-equipped conference rooms. The desk outside the room had the name “Gretchen Williams.”
The double doors opened fully, and Michael smiled at her.
“Mr. Hardwood will see you now.”
Scarlett walked into the office, which was massive with a wall of glass panels streaming in natural light. The day was turning to night outside, and the city lights were twinkling as she entered. A wall paneled with dark wood displayed various awards, accolades, and accomplishments, along with framed photographs of Ace with notable personalities. A small seating area sat on one side of the office, and at the end of the room, in front of the windows, sat a grand wooden desk.
The sky was dark outside, with specks of light, providing a background to the broad frame of Ace Hardwood, who gazed at Scarlett intently through those striking green eyes she had seen two days prior. He stood behind the tall leather office chair, without a smile on his handsome face.
Scarlett gazed back at him with the utmost indifference she could muster.
Ace attempted to read the expression of the woman in front of him, but she wasn’t revealing much. As adept as he was at reading people, he couldn’t read this woman very well.
Scarlett walked all the way to his desk and stopped.
“Ms. Ambrose,” Ace Hardwood said, his voice deep and rough, not taking his eyes off of Scarlett’s face, “How nice of you to join me.”
Scarlett raised an eyebrow. “Your lackey didn’t give me much of a choice,” she said, her voice, in contrast, was feminine, but commanding.
Ace smirked. “You always have a choice. You chose to come here. To meet me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. I didn’t come for you,” Scarlett sneered.
Ace raised his eyebrows, leaning against his chair. “Then what did you come for?”
Scarlett flicked her eyes behind him. “For the view.”
Ace’s eyes were hooded by his dark eyebrows as he let out a single chuckle. “Sit down, Ms. Ambrose.” He flicked his hand towards the seats in front of his desk.
Slowly, Scarlett pulled out a chair and sat down. Ace’s eyes still lingered on her face, wordlessly.
Scarlett stared back, unrelenting. “Why did you want me to come here?” she asked, “You need fashion advice?”
Ace’s eyebrows rose, not entirely used to being spoken to with the amount of attitude he was receiving from Scarlett. “You think I need fashion advice?” he asked.
“At least someone to tell you that that dot of a coffee stain on your collar has probably been there since breakfast,” she smirked, triumphantly.
Ace was perplexed. He reached down and pulled out his collar to investigate and sure enough, saw a dot of a coffee stain on his collar. He smoothened down the collar. “You have a good eye,” he commented.
“Two, actually,” Scarlett said.
Ace stared, as he usually did when he was trying to figure someone out. With the amount of power he had, no one ever questioned him. That was all Scarlett seemed to do, however. “Ms. Ambrose, I have a job offer for you.”
“I already have a job,” Scarlett said, airily.
Ace scoffed. “As a pencil-pusher for Dan Andrews?”
“Oh, why? What do you want me to do?” Scarlett asked, sarcastically, “Tame lions?”
Ace’s smirk returned. “I have reason to believe that you have some skills that I would like to have on retainer.”
“What reason?” Scarlett scoffed, “My rare shade of lipstick?”
Ace’s eyes flicked down from Scarlett’s eyes to her lips for a moment. “It is a beautiful shade.”
“Why the hell would you want me to work for you?” Scarlett said, “You know nothing about me.”
“On the contrary, Ms. Ambrose,” Ace said, straightening himself up to his full height, “I know that you’re not easily trusting, you’re at least moderately intelligent, you have a great eye for detail and you know how to get what you want. Best of all, you’re not boring. You have a quick, sharp tongue.”
Scarlett cocked an eyebrow. “You want me for my tongue?”
Ace’s triumphant smirk deepened. “Well, you could prove your tongue useful subsequently.”
“I’m not an escort,” Scarlett said, disdainfully.
“I don’t want you to be an escort,” he said, “I have much more value for you. I want you to be my PA.”
Scarlett scoffed. “You already have one. Her desk is right there.” Scarlett pointed to the door.
Ace emerged from behind his chair that he had been using almost as a shield all this time. “Gretchen is my secretary. I need her for professional matters. I need a PA to handle my personal life; my schedules and other things.”
“How is that not a pencil-pusher job?”
“You don’t need to do any paperwork. I need you to be in the field, on the go, ready to do the things I need you to do; things that I don’t have anyone else to do,” Ace explained.
“Let me get this straight,” Scarlett said, shaking her head, almost amused, “You have a secretary, a whole building of people working for you, definitely a driver and a housekeeper, a goon to do your dirty work for you, but you still need another person on your payroll?”
“I don’t need another person, Ms. Ambrose. I need you. I need your skills.”
“I already have a job. What makes you think I’m just going to come work for you?” she asked.
Ace slowly walked around the desk, moving closer to Scarlett. “You’ll come work for me. You’re obviously obsessed with me.”
Scarlett sneered. “Excuse me?”
Ace perched himself on the edge of his desk and leaned over to Scarlett. “You look at me so intently that you see the stains on my shirt collar.”
Scarlett shook her head. “I just have an eye for detail.”
“And you clearly want to impress me,” Ace said, airily, with a smirk.
“And why is that?” Scarlett asked, raising an eyebrow artfully, staring back at him, not backing down.
Ace flicked his eyes down to her blouse. “Because in between the time of meeting Michael and coming here, you chose to change your blouse to one that brings out your eyes more.”
It was Scarlett’s turn to smirk as she leaned into Ace. “Look who’s obsessed with whom now.”
Ace nodded, bobbing his index finger towards her, with a smile. “That’s the quick wit I need in my PA.”
“I’m not your PA,” Scarlett shook her head, laughing.
“I’ll pay you double what Dan’s paying you,” Ace said, easily.
“What if it’s not about the money?” Scarlett asked.
“Then, I’ll pay you thrice what Dan’s paying you,” Ace replied, not thinking twice.
“What if it’s still not about the money?”
“Well, you also get the privilege of being in my company,” he shrugged.
“I’d rather not work for an arrogant prick, who thinks he’s all that,” Scarlett countered.
“I’ll throw in that view you seem to admire so much,” Ace pointed behind him at the cityscape.
“You’ll give me your office?”
“You want this space?” Ace laughed.
“No, I just want to know all your dirty secrets,” Scarlett said, with a smirk of her own.
Ace laughed. “We’re going to have fun working together, Ms. Ambrose.”
“I haven’t accepted your offer.”
“But you will.”
Scarlett tossed her hair over her shoulder. “And why is that?” she asked, leaning back.
In a motion so sudden, Ace grabbed the arms of the chair Scarlett was seated on and pulled it closer to him so that he was staring Scarlett dead in the eyes, the tips of their noses inches apart. A quick gasp escaped Scarlett as she steadied herself.
Ace leaned into her with his sinister smirk. “Because if you don’t, you’ll spend the rest of your life regretting it. You’ll go into work with Dan every single day, thinking of me and what might have been; your thoughts will be consumed with the what-ifs swarming your brain as you wish that you could come back to this moment and change your mind; because you want to know exactly what it’s like to work for Ace Hardwood.”
Ace stood up and walked around his desk and sat down in his chair, feeling triumphant as Scarlett sat speechless.
He pulled himself to his desk and leaned back against his chair, his fingers steepled. “So, Ms. Ambrose, are we in agreement?”
Scarlett shouldered her bag and stood up. “You’ll pay me what you promised and you’ll get me a car or a driver to run your little errands for you.”
Ace smiled, slowly, thinking he’d won. “What kind of car would you like?”