thirty

                                    

                                          
Later that week
Jia Mei
"Ms. Rose?" I hear my secretary, Soohyun call my name as she approached my desk along with one of my top sales representatives, Yuuki- or as I like to call her, Yu. She's also a good friend of mine.
"Yes, Soohyun?" I ask, looking up from my paperwork. Soohyun then turns to Yuuki, who clears her throat and bows before speaking up.
"My apologies for interrupting your work, Ms. Rose, but I have some files to hand off to someone working in Royal One-Seven named 'Seungcheol' about our meeting today, but I wasn't told what he looks like. Could you point him out to me?"
I smiled "Of course, we have a meeting with some Japanese investors today, don't we?" I then lean forward a little more to see the file folder as she nods "Great! I'll introduce you later on when we meet up with them."
She smiles as she bows "Thank you so much, Ms. Rose."
I chuckle as I shake my head "No need for formality with me, Yu. We're friends, remember? Not to mention you are older than me."
"Yes, but you're my boss and-" She then realizes what I said and responds, slightly annoyed "Hey, I'm not that old! I'm only four years older than you!"
I laugh at her expression when she realized she snapped at me, only for me to pat her on her shoulder "That's more like it. Come on Yu, I'll get you coffee before we meet up with the Diamond Clan for the meeting."
We then walk out of my office and head down to the lobby café to get drinks for ourselves. It felt nice being out of the office every now and again, especially when my head was starting to hurt from the non-stop notifications of texts from Longwei. He's been texting me every hour or so, asking me out to dinner and checking up on me. I'm constantly declining his invites and assuring he didn't need to worry about me, but he just won't stop.
<DING!>
<DING!>
<DING!>
I groan, dreading the sound as it kept bothering me. Yup. There it is. Pulling out my phone, I read the previews before swiping to make them disappear as I went back to chatting with Yuuki again about business and recent projects before getting another notification on my phone. I thought it was going to be another regular set of texts, but it really sent chills down my spine:
Stop ignoring me, flower. 
<DING!>
I know you're not busy right now. 
<DING!>
You're just talking to that employee of yours.
<DING!>
Also, I love what you've done with your hair today.
<DING!>
You look very pretty today ♡
I suddenly touched my hair as I began to panic, starting to feel a little scared as I kept looking around as I stared at the message, trying to see if he was nearby.
I haven't seen him at all today. How does he know what my hair looks like?
Is he here?
<DING!>
I look down at my phone to read his text, and suddenly I felt my sink to the pit of my stomach.
Don't bother looking around, flower.