Corrections? How dare he refer to those insults as corrections? Vanessa wondered as she tried to maintain her composure despite the red anger that glazed over her eyes.
Yesterday, she had been so sure that she was going to damn the consequences and give him a piece of her mind, but today she wasn't so sure anymore.
Apart from the fact that what he had done was nothing in comparison to the humiliation and embarrassment she had faced at her former places of employment before now, he was her boss, and she knew exactly how much effort she had put into getting this job so she couldn't afford to lose it. Not when she still had debts to repay and her younger sister to cater for, and especially not when she wasn't even sure yet if the insemination had worked or not.
"Yes, sir. I saw them. Thank you for the correction. I'm going to work on them," she said in her most polite tone, and Alex narrowed his eyes in disappointment as he watched her.
That wasn't the reaction he had been hoping for. He wished he could look into those green eyes of hers to figure out what she was thinking. Whether she was angry or not.
Sitting directly in front of him, Vanessa couldn't miss the perusing and calculating gaze he had fixed on her, and rather than feeling curious she felt enraged, but not enough to yank his head off.
She heard a low sigh ease off his lips as well as the low words he mumbled out. "I guess I'm wrong." His voice was low and faint, but the words had manageably wove through her ears.
"Sir?" Vanessa muttered.
"Meet my secretary. He'd give you a draft, work with it." He ordered and she nodded as she hastily rose to her feet. She'd do herself a great disservice if she spent another second in his presence. Her hold on her fraying anger might just lose its grip and she might just say something she will forever regret, something that may put her back on the queue of job-searching individuals and back in the hole she was trying to crawl out from.
Alex watched her as she walked to the door, and just when she reached for the knob he found himself speaking up. "Assertive." He said, making Vanessa pause and turn towards him with a confused frown sitting between her brows.
"Your resume, that was what it said, along side the word creative." Alex said when he saw the confusion dancing in her eyes. "I remember this because it was oddly written in italics, and it had caught my attention. Do you bother to tell me, Ms. Scott why you did something so unconventional?"
Vanessa narrowed her brows, her eyes nearly drawing into a squint as she wondered why they were talking about her resume and where this conversation was headed.
The use of Italics in a resume wasn't applicable on words or phrases especially in the middle of sentences unless it was an official title or organization name. This she knew very well, yet she had damned the rule and boldly went at it.
"Because of the attention, sir." She replied earning her a cocked brow on Alex's face.
"Assertiveness is a key trait of every designer, and seeing the word had caught your attention then I guess it's purpose wasn't defeated." She added and Alex agreeably nodded.
He lulled back on his swivelling chair as he intently observed her countenance, but all he found was confusion and a tinge bit of indifference. Interesting, he thought.
"As a designer who claims to be assertive and has been awarded a project which I aforementioned is very personal to me, I find it amusing that you can't even sell your idea to me. It makes me wonder if I made the right decision in hiring you."
Decision in hiring? Vanessa frowned. She wondered what idea she was obligated to sell to him.
When did she...
Her thought paused when a chord of realization stroke her. Seeing the look of discovery gleaming in her eyes but also heavily coated with blaring fury, Alex held back what could have been a smile. He stared at her as she did him.
"I didn't know I was supposed to convince you. And your 'generous' corrections had by no chance hinted your interest or open-mindedness towards being swayed." Vanessa breathed out, while she held her teeth from gritting.
His generous correction. Alex didn't miss the sarcasm she had buried somewhere in that statement. The edge of his lips twitched but he wouldn't say it was out of amusement.
"Then Ms Scott, I think you should be properly educated on the scope of your job. As an employee the general performance of the company should be your foremost and utmost concern, and in your case the project you've been employed for."
"As I believe the emotional and mental health of your employees should also be of importance to the company." She witfully retorted not being able to control her anger any longer. "With all due respect, sir, employees can only bring their best when derogatory comments aren't handed out on their first day except of course, they're part of the educational package. Well if they're then please enlighten me." Vanessa bit out. She almost bit her lips for blurting that out, but she steeled her spine and brazened up telling herself she wouldn't have muttered out those words had he not poked at her.
There was nothing wrong in being reprimanded by a boss, who in this case was the owner of the company she now worked for, something far different from being scolded by the managers who were in charge of the restaurants she worked in, but what he had done was too hurtful.
Those were her designs, ones she had worked on for weeks, and she hadn't even submitted to him, but he had ordered her to leave them behind.
'Be honest to yourself, Van.' She heard a voice say in her mind. Alright, maybe a part of her had subconsciously wanted to show off her works, but he shouldn't have bruised her confidence like that.
A pregnant pause loomed across the room. Alex calmly stared at her, observing all the unnameable emotions that flickered through her eyes as she struggled to contain herself.
He found himself oddly itching to say something, but he stopped himself. That would be an unusual act, and he wasn't used to unusual, even though this unusual amused him as well as irritated him.
He wryly sighed and tipped his chin towards the door. "You can go." He said surprising Vanessa who had been prepared for a retort or whatever his lips had twitched to say seconds ago.
She curtly nodded and dashed out of the office, making a quick stop at his secretary table to pick up the draft while Alex watched through the glass door.
Maybe he was right. His new employer was one with a temper and a somewhat witful mouth, but she was also a puzzle. For some reason he couldn't see past those green eyes of hers, and this he found very strange and challengingly irritating.