173 Not your forte!

Jia Li composed her thoughts and started talking. After a few more general questions, she had gotten more comfortable and confident with her answers. It was right then that an unexpectedly familiar face walked in front of her. Jia Li stopped mid-sentence in surprise.

"Mr. Ying? Why are you here?" she asked without pausing to think through her words.

"Shouldn't that be my question, Ms. Lin?" he countered, challenge in his voice.

She looked from one man to another, trying to figure out what was happening there.

"I am not sure what you mean by that. I applied for a job vacancy and I was asked to come here," she offered the explanation slowly.

"Well, that's quite the coincidence, ain't it? First Shanghai, then Tunisia and finally here. Are you stalking me by any chance?" he asked, only half-jokingly.

Jia Li bristled at the statement and replied, "you must be mistaken, sir. If this were to be true, then I would say that you have got it in reverse. I am NOT the one following anyone."

"Oh, so you mean to say that I am following you? Why? Are you a celebrity? Or someone so beautiful that one look and people leave everything else and start to blindly come after you," the mask of politeness had come off his face.

She paled at the ferocity of his remark. Her head was reeling, not being able to figure out the bizarre turn of events. During her cursory research on this company, she had vaguely read about the company belonging to a British national. The way that he had walked in the room and was conducting the conversation, it seemed that he was the chief honcho here. So how did she get it wrong? But it didn't matter. She wouldn't stay and let the vile man keep saying whatever he felt like to her, CEO or no CEO.

She pushed her chair back and got up to announce, "I am neither of the above. Now, if you are done insulting me, I would take your leave. Have a good day, gentlemen."

"What is the hurry? We haven't reached the interesting part yet. Please take your seat," Hui instructed her.

"Excuse me? Did you just order me? On what grounds? I am not your employee yet and after this, nor do I intend to be," she replied tartly.

Eric tried to calm him down. He hadn't seen Hui show this kind of reaction to anyone before. The woman would have been an interesting person to have around Hui. Unfortunately, she was a spy. Having met her though, he was finding it tough to digest that fact. What if Hui was wrong? Because the woman looked absolutely enraged and not guilty at all. Maybe she was a great actress but maybe she was innocent. He decided to take a chance.

"Uh, maybe we should all calm down here. It seems that we have rubbed each other the absolute wrong way. Ms. Lin, may I please request you to step outside and wait for us to call you back in after a few minutes?" Eric said in a polite voice.

Jia Li gathered her file and walked out without a single word. She had no intentions of staying here for even a nanosecond. She handed her visitor's card at the reception and exited from the building.

"Why did you ask her to leave? I wasn't done interrogating her," Hui said, irritated with his colleague.

"Because I think you are wrong in your assessment. Hear me out please. Had this been a permutation/combination question, I would have blindly followed you but we are talking about humans, which I am afraid is not your forte. From whatever I saw of her today, I don't think she is capable of being an actress forget a spy. I also think that she may be an appropriate candidate for the vacancy on the basis of her resume. Just put your suspicions aside and think for a minute about it. Had you not met her at the airport or Tunis, would you have had any reason to reject her? Or forget that. You said you worked closely with her in Tunisia. How do you think she performed there? Even the best people slip up in their acts few times when being observed so closely. So I want to ask you if she gave you any reason to suspect her by her actions apart from the fact that she showed up at the same places same time where you did," Eric argued.

Hui's phone rang before he could offer a rebuttal to Eric's argument. Eric stood up and went to stand next to the window which offered an enviable view of the lush green Hyde Park. He turned to look at Hui when he heard him bid farewell on what had been a quiet conversation. There was a weird expression on Hui's face, one which he couldn't seem to decipher.