Love me or hate me it's still an obsession

Chapter 22

"Meeting, one minute!" Ace said, tapping Effie's desk as he walked past.

Effie looked at him and smiled at his expressionless face. She stood up and grabbed his arm, turning him round to face her, "hey, are you okay?" There was something different about him.

He looked at her dirtily and brushed his arm where she had touched him, "don't ever do that to me again Effie, otherwise you won't last until the end of the day."

She watched as he stormed off towards the boardroom down the hallway.

"Ooooh, someone's in trouble", Sasha taunted, seeing Ace give Effie the cold shoulder.

Effie turned round and gave her evils, "fuck off Sasha. No one asked for your opinion." She grabbed her notepad and pen and followed Ace towards the boardroom. She sat down and put her hair behind her ears staring curiously at Ace. He seemed different, more like the Ace when she had first started. He was reserved, arrogant and rude.

Ace stood up as the clock changed to 5 o'clock. "Right, thank you everyone for coming on such short notice. We have been asked to confirm whether or not we are letting some of our housing to be part of the new Government scheme for under-privileged families. I don't personally want to back it up but it is something we can no longer ignore..."

Effie shook her head and accidentally knocked the person sitting next to her with her pen. "Shit, sorry..."

"Miss Reynolds, was there something you wanted to add?" Ace asked sternly, seeing her making a fuss at the back of the meeting.

Everyone turned to face her like robots. She stood up, flattening her skirt and looked at all their faces. "Erm, actually yes, I think we should give some of the property over to them. Everyone needs a place to live and some of the properties Wesley Incorporated own are in fantastic areas that could help the next generation thrive. Some people don't have a choice with where their lives end up. This is a big company with a lot of money and people supporting it; we should be doing all that we can to help those in need."

Ace looked at her disgustedly, not taking his eyes off her as some of his employees turned back round to face him. "Miss Reynolds, if I haven't made it clear before now you should not have any opinions on the things that we talk about in these meetings. You are here for one thing and one thing only, to take the notes."

Effie felt her face go red, the heat rising through her body in anger. How dare he speak to her like that, especially in front of all their colleagues. She opened her mouth to say something back but the man next to her put his hand on her arm, "it's not worth it. Trust me. I learnt that the hard way a few years ago", he whispered before turning back to face Ace at the front, not wanting to be in the firing line next.

"Right, Effie we will move on. Next on the agenda is Ocopia..." Ace flicked the screen to the next slide. He turned back round to face Effie, "Effie, do you have the notes on this matter?" Ace shouted over to her.

Effie looked up, still sorting out her papers angrily, "sorry, what notes?"

Ace sighed and threw his hands up in the air in frustration, "the notes... for the deal with Ocopia."

"Ococo what now? You never asked me to do anything with them otherwise I would have", she snapped back, not allowing him to dismiss her again like before.

"Seriously? What have you actually done this morning?" he raised his eyebrow at her, waiting impatiently for her answer.

All she wanted to scream was 'YOU', but decided against it, not deeming it appropriate in the context. She stood up, grabbing her notepad and pen and stared at him angrily.