Chapter 306 - 306 Ignoring Signs

306 Ignoring Signs

“Sometimes, I just wish that he would be a little more encouraging…” Julianna hissed a complaint.

I laughed a little at her as she rolled her eyes. Ace did not respond and the team went back to work. Jeremy made some comments and suggestions here and there while I made some suggestions of my own. I looked forward to seeing how things will turn out tomorrow. Hopefully, things will turn around for the better and we would see some outstanding results. Now that I felt a little at ease that there would be some kind of progress, I felt less guilty about going out to dinner with Ace. It wasn’t like we could help with any of the work even if we stayed later in the office.

I let out a sigh when I realized that Ace was right again when he told me that we should simply leave things in Julianna’s capable hands. It was clear to me that she knew what she was doing and if things didn’t quite go as planned, I was sure that Ace would step in to help her fix it. After a few more hours of working, the official workday came to an end. As if on cue, Julianna stood up and stretched her arms above her head boldly.

“You guys can leave. Seriously, we’ll be fine here…” she said before flashing everyone a bright and confident smile.

“Are you sure?” I asked in small voice.

“Yup. We’ll handle this. Honestly, there’s not much that you can help with so there’s no point in wasting your time. Don’t stay here and just go home. Something might turn up that will require your effort tomorrow, so you’ll need the energy for that,” Julianna replied.

“I don’t have any plans for tonight so I can stay with you guys…” Jeremy volunteered almost at once.

“No need. Just go home and catch up on some sleep or something. Better yet, you can go out drinking in our place, so we feel better about camping here tonight,” Julianna replied with a laugh.

“Are you sure?” Jeremy asked with clear concern.

.....

Now that the time had arrived, I still felt quite guilty for leaving Julianna and her team to handle and deal with everything. Of course, she was right about the fact that there wasn’t much that I could do even if I stayed the night here with them. I couldn’t do graphics work and I had no experience with social media marketing. Clearly, it wasn’t a skill that I could pick up and put to work overnight. I thought about the dinner date that I had planned with Ace, and I suddenly started to feel even more guilty than before.

“It’s as Julianna said. The truth is if irrelevant people stay here, we would end up as inconveniences. To put it bluntly, we will get in her way. With that being said, everyone who is not formally a part of Julianna’s team, please just go home…” Ace ordered bluntly to put an end to our conversation.

His authoritative tone told everyone that the conversation must end there and that there wasn’t any room for debate or negotiations. Jeremy closed his laptop and shoved it into his bag before standing up from his seat. I quickly did the same and after that the rest of the people who were not on Julianna’s team also got up and left. Ace was the first one out of the door as if he wanted us to swiftly follow his example. Everyone basically did that as they filed out of the war room in silence.

I took one last glance at Julianna, and she flashed me a smile before she shrugged carelessly like there was nothing that she couldn’t handle. I mouthed the words ‘thank you’ before I also left the war room. By that time, Ace was nowhere to be seen but I figured that he would be waiting for me at his car in the parking lot. I reached for my phone to check it and was surprised to find multiple miscalls from Kyle. I didn’t think that he would give me another call after that. On top of that, there was a text from Kyle as well.

‘Call me back’

That was all the text said. Almost reflexively, I deleted the text without even thinking about it. Although I was curious about what Kyle wanted, I didn’t want him to stir up any more trouble between me and Ace. I also told myself that any issues that he had with Elizabeth wasn’t my problem and that I should avoid getting into contact with him. With my mind made up, I decided to ignore Kyle and act like nothing had happened while I headed to meet up with Ace at his car.

…

It didn’t surprise me that our destination for dinner was a surprise. On the contrary, it made me feel oddly excited. Leaving the office with Ace in his car made me breathe a little easier. It felt like I had regained a bit of my freedom and could leave the trouble at work behind me even if it was just for a while. Ace did not volunteer any information on where we were headed. I had gotten quite used to Ace surprising me with various fancy and private restaurants for our dates that I didn’t bother to press him on where he was taking me.

“Are you hungry?” he asked me casually.

“A little…” I replied honestly.

“The food is good at this restaurant. I think that you will like it,” Ace said lightly before he offered me a warm smile.

“It’s good to have something to look forward to especially after a busy day, I guess…” I said followed by a soft laugh.

The atmosphere in the car was unexpectedly peaceful and it felt like all the stress that had occurred during the day had already worn off completely. I truly enjoyed Ace’s company even thought we didn’t share much talk during our drive to the restaurant. Just being with him and sitting next to him in his car felt satisfying enough for me.

–To be continued…