Once Celsie walked out of Benne’s office she heaved a deep sigh of relief as she collapsed into her seat. She just realized one thing. Calling the CEO a weirdo didn’t cut it at all. That was a very big understatement. As a matter of fact, she now believed that calling him a weirdo seemed like a very big compliment for someone like him. He was worse than a weirdo.
Why had he called her into his office if he had no intention of saying a word to her? She had just stood there like a statue, staring down at her feet while trying hard not to raise her head to look at him just in case he was watching her. She had stood there by the door with her head bowed, for what seemed like forever until he tapped on his desk to get her attention.
She had managed to raise her head a little to look at him, hoping he would at least say something to her, but the weirdo had only waved her off, but not without turning away so she wouldn’t see his face. Luckily she had caught a glimpse of the side of his face in time before he turned away from her completely. At least she now had an idea of what he looked like. The color of his hair, and many beards.
The most annoying thing she had discovered was the fact that he wore glasses. To think that he had stopped her from using her glasses whereas he was also wearing glasses. She had no idea whether the glasses were medicated or not. She didn’t care. He had no right to wear glasses after asking her to not wear her medicated glasses.
Right now all she could do was wish every lady who was interested in him good luck. She intended to give Sonia a call later and tell her to get rid of any idea she had in her head about them marrying both brothers. Not that she had any intention of getting married to anyone, but even if she had slightly entertained the thought because of Sonia and her family, she would rather die than have anything to do with a person like her boss.
Inside the CEO’s Office, Benne chuckled as he walked over to the door and locked it with his key before taking off his wig and glasses. She seemed really terrified of him. He had watched her all the while she stood there with her head bowed, and he could swear he had seen her hands tremble for a moment. How was he supposed to seduce her if she was this scared of him?
Benne winced when he felt his head throb painfully and raised a hand to his temple before looking at the wig with a frown. He couldn’t help but wonder how some ladies coped with wearing wigs when his head ached this way only after wearing it for only a couple of minutes. He walked into his closet and took off everything, including the suit he had worn over his shirt. Once he was sure everything was in place and he looked like Benne the bad boy again, he returned to attend to some documents on his desk.
By the time he was done with the first document in front of him, it was lunchtime. He dropped his pen at once and pushed his seat away from the desk before standing up. A part of him really wanted to share lunch with her, but he knew he needed to do as Bryan had suggested if he wanted more from her than just a friendly lunch.
Bearing that in mind, he took his private elevator and exited the building before walking around his private car park to the entrance of the building which everyone else used. Once he entered inside the building, he observed that most of the staff were already heading to the cafeteria, so he joined them.
“Wow! Isn’t he hot?” One of the ladies whispered to her friend when they sighted Benne walking towards the cafeteria from a different direction.
“I think I’m going to say hi to him during lunch today,” another whispered to her friend excitedly.
A beautiful blonde lady who was walking not too far away from the ladies, glanced in Benne’s direction when she heard them whispering about him, and she raised a perfectly arched brow when she saw the familiar face, “Benne?” She called out loud in a questioning tone since she wasn’t sure he was the one.
Benne paused and turned in her direction when he heard the familiar voice, and raised a brow when he saw Anita smiling and waving at him. What was she doing here? He wondered as he remained where he was, and waited for her to walk up to him.
“It is really you? I almost didn’t believe it!” Anita said excitedly as she joined him, and smiled when she noticed the envious glances she was receiving from the other ladies.
“Why are you here?” Benne asked impatiently.
“Come on! That is no way to talk to me. Why don’t we talk over lunch? You look very different by the way,” she said with a pleasant smile that suggested it was a good kind of different.
Without waiting for him to say anything she slid her right arm under his left arm, and dragged him along with her towards the cafeteria.
Benne who was wondering what she was doing in his company premises allowed her to lead the way until they got to a table and she sat down, “Excuse me for a moment,” he said in a polite tone before walking away from her to where the food was being served.
He wasn’t going to let Celsie starve simply because he was talking to someone as insignificant as Anita. Once he got Celsie’s lunch, he looked around the cafeteria until his eyes fell on the lady he recognized to be Celsie’s secretary, and he approached her table with the lunch pack.
“Hi! Could you please help me deliver this to Miss Miller in her office? Let her know I couldn’t deliver it myself because I’m having lunch with someone,” Benne said, as he jerked his head towards Anita. Although he tried to make it sound like a humble request, it still came out like an order, and Celsie’s secretary gave him a quick nod as she took the lunch pack from him and stood up to do as he had asked.
“Thank you,” Benne said before walking away. Once he returned to the table where Anita was seated he pulled out the seat opposite her and sat down.
“So what are you doing here?” Benne asked again, wondering why she hadn’t bothered to go get her meal while he was away.
Anita had thought he went to get their meal when he excused himself, but seeing him return empty-handed she tried not to let her disappointment show.
“Well, as you might have heard, OmniGlobal recently took over Oceans airline, the company where I work, so some of us were invited here for a meeting with Mr. Harry,” Anita explained. Although she had been hoping to meet the CEO.
How could he have missed such a significant detail? Although he had already started bidding for Oceans airline before he met Anita, he couldn’t remember her mentioning she worked there… That was probably because she had deliberately kept it away from him for reasons best known to her.
“I see,” Benne said disinterestedly.
Celsie checked her wristwatch impatiently for the third time as she waited for Benne to show up with her lunch. She thought about giving him a call to find out what was keeping him but remembered that she didn’t even have his phone number. How could she call him her friend when she didn’t have his number? She made a mental note to exchange numbers with him when he brings her lunch.
It wasn’t like she couldn’t go down to get her own lunch, but somehow her mind was becoming programmed to expect him to deliver it. When he comes she would just tell him how she had caught a glimpse of the boss and tell him what she thought the CEO looks like. And then she would ask him to leave before the boss comes out. She still had no intention of allowing him to eat with her. Who knew if his madness comes only when they were eating together?
Her thoughts were interrupted when a knock sounded on the door, and she looked up when the door was pushed open, expecting to see Benne, but her brows creased when her secretary walked in, instead of Benne.
“Yes?” She asked as she looked at her secretary in confusion, wondering why she was in her office with a lunch pack.
“Your driver asked me to bring this to you. He is having lunch with someone, so he couldn’t bring it up himself,” she explained, making Celsie’s brow furrow.
“He asked you to bring this to me?”
“Yes ma’am,” the secretary said with a nod.
“Who is he having lunch with? Male or female?” Celsie asked thoughtfully, thinking that he was probably having lunch with the lady he liked, and this might be her chance to find out who the lady was, and what she looked like.
“Female.”
“A staff?” Celsie asked making the secretary wonder if something was going on between Celsie and her driver, or perhaps Celsie was just upset that her driver had chosen not to deliver her lunch because be was busy with someone else.
“I don’t know. I don’t know all the staff in the company,” she answered politely.
“Thank you. You can leave now,” Celsie said dismissively and tried to stay calm long enough for the secretary to have left the hallway before picking up the lunch pack and rushing out of her office in the direction of the elevator. She needed to be fast before they would both leave the cafeteria.
Once she got out of the elevator she looked around, wondering where the cafeteria was, and then she noticed some of the staff coming from a particular direction, she decided the cafeteria had to be in that direction, so she walked in that direction, trying not to attract any attention to herself.
She didn’t need to spend a lot of time looking around before she spotted Benne at one end of the hall seated with a beautiful blonde lady. He was seated with his back to the entrance, while the lady was directly facing Celsie. Seeing the lady’s bare legs which were crossed under the table, Celsie could tell she was wearing a pretty short skirt. Was this his taste in women? She wondered as she watched them converse from the distance.
“I suppose you were coming here to have lunch? You should go and get something for yourself,” Benne suggested, wanting to take his leave.
Anita raised a brow very slightly. The Benne she knew would have offered to help her get her lunch like the gentleman he was. It seemed like his physical appearance wasn’t the only thing that had changed about him, “What about you? Don’t you want to get something for yourself?” Anita asked with a curious smile.
“No. I only came here to get lunch for my boss. And now that I’ve done that I need to attend to something else,” Benne said, waiting for her to take the clue.
His boss? So he worked here? “Let’s talk for a bit before you leave, okay? It’s not like we are enemies, even though you dumped me,” she said with a small smile. Benne leaned back in his seat and looked at her without saying a word as he waited to hear what she wanted to talk about.
Taking his silence as a go-ahead, she asked, “So what about you? What are you doing here?”
“I’m one of the company’s drivers,” Benne said in a flat tone, making her wrinkle her nose in disapproval. She had been expecting something better.
‘How Typical,’ Benne thought in his head. He had noticed how her attitude towards him had changed from the moment he told her he was a handyman. She had taken their relationship for granted because she thought he was a mere handyman, and now she was going to be under his payroll? How funny. He wondered how she was going to react when she finally gets to know his true identity.
“I don’t suppose you are the CEO’s driver, are you?” She asked hopefully, leaning forward to hear his response.
“No. But I drive his personal assistant,” Benne said, and Anita pursed her lips as though she was thinking about it.
After a while, she shrugged, “Not bad. I guess you must have seen the CEO then?” Anita asked hopefully, making Benne narrow his eyes.
“No. Why?”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.