The next morning, Alisa woke up with a soft smile on her lips. She had dreamt something particularly strange. In her dream, she imagined last day's interview with Derek, but Adam never interrupts them. She had imagined hours sitting in his cozy office, talking, laughing. She slapped her forehead with her palm, clearing those images from her mind before getting up and choosing an outfit. She chose a light, white dress which came up to above her knees and she left her hair untied.
When she reached the office by cab, she stood in front of the large glossy building and sighed contently. Finally, something was going her way! Maybe the dark spell of bad luck she was going through was finally over.
She reached the giant sliding doors and she found a short, petite woman standing at the entrance. She had long white hair and wore blue earrings. She smiled a large smile when she spotted Alisa. She hurriedly jogged over to Alisa and shook her hand.
"You must be Alisa Goldfield?" She asked in a slightly squeaky voice.
"Yes...uhm...I'm sorry, have we met?" Alisa asked, confused.
"No, I am Crystal Holland, StarWorld's receptionist. I was sent here by Mr. Stone to give you a tour and explain the basics of the company to you!"
"Mr. Stone?"
"Oh, yeah I understand the confusion. All three brothers have the same last name after all haha. I am talking about Mr. Derek Stone…"
"I see…I am excited to start! And it's nice to meet you Crystal." Alisa smiled softly. She mentally giggled at the fact that out of all the brothers, he cared enough to send Crystal when he was the one who had asked her to stay away and mind her own business.
Both of them rode the lift to reach their floor. Crystal guided Alisa down the hallway to a smaller office filled with beautiful green plants and colorful posters. Alisa could see Adam seated inside, speaking to someone on the phone. From his expression alone, she could tell that he was in an argument.
"This is Mr. Adam Stone's office. He is the eldest Stone and the Chief of Creative Content of the company. He is mostly sweet but it's better not to disagree with him." Crystal narrated in one breath. Alisa nodded slowly, still gazing at his heated expression. She wondered who he was fighting with when Adam slammed the phone down and looked up. Upon noticing Alisa, his expression instantly softened, a smile creeping into his face. With two long fingers, he motioned for them to enter.
Crystal entered first and then Alisa. Crystal waved, almost shyly, "Good morning, Mr. Stone."
Adam barely shifted his gaze to her though, his eyes were fixed upon Alisa, hovering over her pink lips subtlety.
"How are you enjoying your first day Alisa?" He asked in a voice so smooth, Alisa understood why Crystal was so nervous, she obviously had a crush on him.
"I am doing just fine Adam. You have…uh…something on your neck…" She said pointing at the splash of golden paint at the base of his ear. She also remembered how he had blue paint on his neck yesterday.
Adam looked at himself on the glossy black screen of his laptop and chuckled. He pulled a napkin from a box before saying, "Would you wait outside, Miss Holland? Alisa will be just out."
Crystal gazed wide-eyed first at Alisa then at Adam before scrambling out.
Adam raised the napkin towards Alisa. Seeing her confused expression, he laughed, "Would you wipe the paint off my skin? I would do it myself but I'd just mess it up even more, I am quite clumsy…"
Alisa nodded and plucked the napkin from his fingers. She moved around his desk to stand before him, so close her nose filled with the wonderful cologne wafting from his skin. She bent down to start wiping off the paint. She definitely noticed that he had started breathing more heavily.
"Where does the color come from? I noticed it yesterday too…"
Adam let out a long breath before replying, "I paint sometimes…"
Alisa smiled widely, "You do? You have to show me your work someday! I absolutely love paintings."
He swung his neck to look into her eyes at this. His expression was soft and fragile. It was plain as day that no one had ever reacted about his paintings the way she just had. His eyes trailed ever so slowly from her eyes to her lips. For a moment, time stopped still. Alisa had the strong urge to lean in further but forced herself not into. She cleared her throat and moved away and the spell broke.
"All clean." She whispered, wishing with all her might to exit his office even though she truly didn't want to.
To dispel the tension even more, all of a sudden his phone rang loudly. He looked at the display screen and groaned. The caller ID showed the name, 'Kylie'. He swiped on his phone to cancel the call and sighed irritably.
"Who is that? I thought I saw you having an argument with someone a while back…" She said. After asking him this, she mentally cursed herself for speaking so brazenly. Her very first day and she was already overstepping boundaries with her boss.
But fortunately, he didn't seem to mind. "Yeah, well…that's my ex. Can you believe that we broke up a month ago and she still calls me to yell? She stalks me every other day to see if I am dating another girl or not. It's insane. Anyway, have a nice first day."
Once outside the office with the door shut behind her, Crystal leapt up with a dozen questions.
"Did you just call him Adam when the entire staff calls him Mr. Stone? Did he just call you Alisa too? And to think, it's just your first day here!" She yelled with a suppressed voice.
Before Alisa could answer any of that, Crystal yelped again, grasping her shoulders tightly, "Did you just kiss Mr. Stone?!"
"What?!!" Alisa jumped with shock, "Why would you think that?!"
"I was looking in through the glass panel and I saw you lean in towards his face. What else were you doing if not kissing?"
"You did what!?" Another male voice echoed from behind them. A young man stood there with a gaping mouth. He held a stack of files in his hands but he looked ready to drop them.
Crystal nodded vigorously at the man, "Yes, Ralph! I clearly saw them kissing!!"
"Stop! Both of you! We did not kiss or anything of that sort. It is just a misunderstanding. Crystal, do you want to continue the tour or risk being reprimanded by Derek for wasting time?" Alisa said as firmly as she could before walking down the hall. 'What just happened?' She thought shakily.
Ralph gazed at her back, "Did she just say Derek…?"
Crystal began hurrying after Alisa but not before saying, "Yup."
Walking down the hall again, they came before the second door which Alisa immediately recognized to be Derek's. The office was empty with the lights turned off.
"This is Mr. Derek's office as you know. He is the CEO of Business Relations. He is off on a client meeting today. He is the one who does some actual work anyway…" Crystal said before turning a right and setting off towards the third office. Alisa noticed the Chinese man, Kai, from before, standing in front of his office, eyes glued to his phone. He wore an emerald green suit and his shiny black hair was styled to perfection. All the three of them are blessed with unnatural beauty, she thought automatically.
"And this is the youngest, Kai." Crystal's voice was now a whisper. "The most charming yet annoying man you'd ever meet. I'd advise you to stay away from him. He can be very persuasive."
"What's his job?" Alisa whispered back. They were drawing closer to him now.
"No one knows. All we know is that he shows up everyday with a different girl and ends up wasting his day away doing god knows what in his office…Anyway here is where my duty ends, best of luck on your job Alisa. I can already tell that we'd be great friends!" With that Crystal turned around on her heels and raced away leaving Alisa alone, only a couple feet away from Kai.
"Hello, Mr. Stone. I am Alisa, the new secretary." She said politely.
Kai looked at her with a bored expression at first. Shamelessly examining her from head to toe before saying, "It's just Kai. Don't address me with Stone ever again. If you can't already tell, I was adopted. I prefer to leave Stone out."
"Alright…Kai. It's very nice to meet you." She smiled at him sincerely which made his expression lighter too.
"Do you drink soda?" He asked with a wink, opening his office door and walking in, not bothering to hear her reply. She blinked once or twice before slowly following him in.
"So, I heard you kissed Adam?" He asked, a special tone behind his voice that Alisa couldn't decipher.
She walked two steps into his darkened office to collide softly into Kai's chest who was standing at the entrance, one hand perched against the wall. He smirked at the contact, but his smile wasn't vile or dirty, but rather amused and intrigued.
Alisa's heart was now drumming wildly against her ribcage. "I didn't kiss…How did you know?"
"I know things. That's just one of my special talents. Anyways, all I am saying is if all you wanted was a good kiss, this was the door you should have knocked on…"