Chapter 410 The Hidden Girl



I knew that Ace was probably thanking me for helping to organize the event on such short notice but also for hanging in there while I watched their perfect performance as the perfect couple on stage.

“Thank you. Should we head back to the office?” I suggested while trying to sound polite.

It went without saying that now that Ace was officially dating Elizabeth instead of being a hot and available bachelor while he was secretly dating me like before that I had to be extra careful about our interactions. I needed to play the role of his secretary perfectly and make sure that our relationship appeared nothing but professional.

“No, I’ll accompany Elizabeth back to her office first. You don’t have to wait for me,” Ace replied with a nod my way.

“Oh, sure…” I replied while trying to hide my slight disappointment.

Elizabeth smiled at me before Ace led her away. I stared at them until they exited the room and were out of sight. All the while, I couldn’t keep my eyes from the way that she clung to his arm as she pressed her body against his side. I knew that they were both still acting to fool everyone that happened to be around, but seriously, can’t a grown woman walk straight without clinging to a man’s arm?

“Thank you so much for helping us organize this event on such short notice…” a voice spoke up from behind me.

I turned around to see Elizabeth’s secretary standing there with a pleasant smile on her face. Since this press conference was related to work, I got the opportunity to work with Elizabeth’s secretary on the preparations.

“A big thank you to you too. I couldn’t have done this without you and your team,” I replied politely.

“Usually having these joint events isn’t something easy but working with you has helped to make all the preparations run smoothly,” she said before flashing me another smile.

Unlike Elizabeth, who appeared very cold and stiff in her working mode, her secretary was warm and extremely friendly. Her name is Helen, and she appears to be quite a number of years older than I was and more experienced in her line of work. We exchanged a few more words before parting ways. There were a few things that needed to be done to successfully wrap up the event. Helen was one of the only reasons why I counted myself lucky.

I rolled my eyes upwards before letting out a sigh. It was bad enough that I was Ace’s secretary. Thank heavens that Helen was Elizabeth’s secretary and not Kyle. Although I didn’t want to think of him, I couldn’t help but wonder what he was up to and what he thought about his wife playing Ace’s girlfriend. That thought occurred to me only for a brief moment before I swatted it away with a dismissive way of my hand as if shooing off a disgusting fly. Kyle was more than lucky enough to have Elizabeth looking out for him. In my opinion, she was more than he would ever deserve, and he should have nothing to complain about given the fact that she did not dump him right off the bat just as her father had suggested.

…

Taking care of the event gave me a convenient excuse not to work at the office for a few days while I waited for the buzz about Elizabeth and Ace’s relationship to die down. However, now that the press conference was over and done with, I had to return to the office even if I didn’t want to. Being away for a short while meant that I was behind on my work. I reminded myself that I owed Richard many big thanks and perhaps a few meals for covering for me while I was away.

Stepping into the lobby of the office building told me that I was wrong to expect the buzz to die down that fast. Basically, every word that I overheard had something to do with Ace and his relationship with Elizabeth. The rumors floating around in the news brought about a lot of commotion in the office already and now the confirmation brought along with it an even larger wave of gossip than before. It felt like everyone had to talk about it and couldn’t stop talking about it.

I quickly made my way to the elevator while praying that no one would stop and talk to me. Somehow, I managed to arrive at my project room without running into anyone that I knew. Before I could celebrate this small victory internally, a figure stood in front of me the moment that I opened the door to the project room.

“Hi…” I mumbled when I saw my project manager standing there.

For a second there, I thought that I had truly gotten into trouble of some kind. The serious look in the manager’s face quickly melted and was replaced by a look of pure curiosity. That was the moment that I wanted to turn on my heels and walk away as fast as I possibly could.

“Oh, Karina is here!”

“You have to tell us all about it!”

“What is going on? I can’t believe this…”

“I always thought that our CEO was single. This is like…super surprising…”

“Are they really dating? Do you know something about it?”

“Oh yeah, did you know about this beforehand?”

“They were engaged before, right? Are they seriously back together now?”

“Are they going to get married?”

I felt like my head was spinning from all the questions that my colleagues bombarded me with. The only person in the room who did not ask me about Ace and his newly announced relationship was Richard. I glanced over at where he was sitting at his desk while pleading for him to help me out with my eyes. Richard only grinned at me before his attention returned to the work in front of him and that only made my heart sank. I should have known better than to expect that he would help me out with this.

--To be continued…