Ava

"The product design." I said, addressing everyone in the conference hall. "Who finalised it?"

"Hayden from the production department." One said. "He pretty much made the entire product so Mrs Collins let him choose the design."

"I'd like to meet him. Ask him to meet me in my office after lunch."

"He has work, he's the head. He's not free all the time to see you." The same man muttered. "Women." He scoffed under his breath.

"He'll be jobless by the end of the day if he isn't free today. Tell him that." I said. "So might you."

"Excuse me?"

"You insulted my position, and my power. And you insulted the entire female population. Do you want me to report you to human resource? Actually, no need for that. I could fire you right this second. No need to approach anyone."

Stupid egoistical men. It was a pity there wasn't a single female in the room today. This gave them more power. They thought they could corner me. Foolish men. They didn't realise I was still the boss, still the one in charge. I could fire them without giving two fucks and they'd have no option but to leave.

"Why?" Robert asked suddenly, scowling. "What did Hayden do?"

"I never implied he did something, Mr Yale. I simply said I wanted to meet him, could be anything. Funny you'd assume that of all possibilities." I raised an eyebrow.

"What does that mean?" 

"That means whatever you want it to mean." I said, closing off the presentation. "I think we're done here. Have a good day, gentlemen."

I walked out like a boss. Maybe introducing myself as an employee was a mistake. Maybe I should have been stricter since the beginning and kept them in their boundaries. The women in this office were still easy enough to handle, but the men thought they were in power. They thought they could do things their way and get away with it. Maybe in Mrs Collins' time, but not in mine. Never mine.

I called up my boss when I reached my office, pushing my chair back. She answered on the third ring. "Tavron's design. Someone called Hayden finalised it."

"Hayden Gates, yes." Patricia said from the other side. "What about it?"

"It was signed with a deal of six hundred thousand dollars. Hayden's bank statement shows a transfer of two hundred thousand in his account. I believe it's from the six hundred we transferred to the designing company."

"How do we know it's related to Tavron?"

"Same date as the deal. A duration of two hours between both transfers."

She took a deep breath. "You know what you need to do, Ava."

I asked Brenda to clear out my schedule for the rest of the day. Hayden's involvement in the fraud wasn't yet confirm, but I'd always trusted my gut. My phone rang and I picked it up on the second ring, a smile instantly forming on my face. "Elias."

"What are you doing?"

"Planning to get a guy to spill his secrets out."

"Fun." He murmured. "You gonna be late then?"

"I can't say. I'm skipping gym today. If I'm right, the secrets he spills would have to be taken care of." I said.

He chuckled. "You sound so badass when you talk like a boss."

"I am the boss."

"Of course, at work."

I chuckled. "I have to go. I'll speak to you later, okay?"

"Take care, amor."

Brenda gave me my coffee the next moment. I needed two doses everyday. One in the morning to wake up, and the second in the afternoon to keep going. Work was hectic some days and I didn't want to take advantage of being the boss and leaving early. My employees already disliked me, I didn't want to give them another reason.

It was 5 pm when the door to my office opened and came in a man dressed in a suit. He appeared to in his mid thirties and his expression was a mixture of anger and hesitancy. Hesitancy. Good, he was nervous. That was a step further.

"You called me, Ava?" He asked. Arrogant. 

"I did." I opened the drawer at my side, asking him to sit down. He did so with doubt, eyeing the white envelope I handed him. "That's your termination letter. You're expected to leave by the end of this week."

"What the fuck is this?" He got up. "Is this a joke?"

"It's not. You stole from the company. I don't see any reason for you to continue anymore." I replied, resting my hands on the table. 

"I'll ruin you. I'll go to the board-"

"The board has given me enough authority to fire people like you. They won't do a single thing." 

"I-I didn't steal." He said, the anger on his face being replaced by nervousness again. The reality was starting to sink into his brain.

"No?" I asked, placing another file in front of him. "Mind explaining that then?"

His face lost colour when he saw his bank records. "How did you get that?"

I shrugged. "I have my sources. Tell me you didn't take the bribe and I'll tear off your termination letter right this second. Tell me-"

"I didn't take the bribe to leak information. I swear."

"What was it then?"

He sighed. "I changed the design. They asked me to change it to something they had decided. And I didn't pay much attention to it."

"You took the money without checking if the design was already patented or not. Smiths faced charges because we used a design that was already in use by someone else under their patent. Do you understand what could have happened, Hayden?"

He looked down. "I'm sorry. Look, I just- don't fire me. I won't repeat this again."

"You can go to jail, do you know that? One phone call to the board and you'll go to jail for taking a bribe." I said.

"Please-"

"I'm not phoning them. Not yet." I added when he looked up at me with hope. "You owe me one. Remember that. You cross one boundary and you're out. Clear?"

"What- what do you want me do?"

"You'll know in due course of time. Get back to work now."

I eyed the innocent letter kept on the table, chuckling after he left. He was stupid enough to believe me. If he'd have bothered to open it, he would have found out a plain piece of paper inside. He was never really fired. That was just another tactic to get him to open his mouth.

I couldn't help the smile that bloomed on my face after he left. I'd got the information I needed. The first step now was to change our designing contractor. The other would be to find the rest loopholes and get rid of the backstabbers. I bid farewell to Brenda when I left. Most people had already left the office at this time of the hour. I got in my car, staring at the dashboard for a minute. Then I turned the other way and drove to McDonald's.

Fifteen minutes later I was ringing the doorbell to an apartment I'd never been in. Elias opened the door, his face showing surprise. A pair of glasses rested on his nose, a book in his hand. My core fluttered and I felt the breath leave my lungs. There was just something about guys in glasses. But Elias looked too damn sexy, it was sinning.

When he saw the take away parcels in my hands, his expression turned into one of delight and the smile that appeared on his face made up for the shitty day I'd had. He stepped back without a word, letting me in, shutting the door behind me. 

His apartment was massive. He lived in a penthouse on the forty fifth floor of a building, and while that wasn't enough to give away he was rich, his apartment definitely was. It looked like a one storey palace. I kept the food on the centre table, turning around just as he kept his glasses and book beside the food, wrapped his arms around my waist and picked me up in a hug.

"I was going to eat cereal tonight because I didn't want to cook." He said in my neck. 

"Cereal is not food."

"It is when you're lazy."

I chuckled. "You being lazy? That's a first. What were you doing?"

"I talked to Mom a while ago. I told her you shifted here. She was very happy."

"Yeah?" I smiled. "How is she?"

"She's good. She wants to visit but Dad and her are being busy these days so I didn't force." He put me down on the ground. "I'm starving."

"For food?" I teased him.

"No. But food will do for now."

Elias and I did something that night we'd never done before. We watched a movie. I didn't even remember its name, but that wasn't important. What actually was important was us behaving like a legit couple when we weren't really one. And that I actually liked it and wasn't scared of us behaving like one for the first time.

I slapped his shoulder when he stole my food. He grinned, sticking his tongue out at me. I bit back a smile. "What if I had done that?"

"That's considered to be the same as rolling eyes." He said. "Use your imagination. I know you have a vivid one."

My cheeks burned and I slapped his shoulder again. He chuckled, taking a huge bite out of my burger. I gasped, "You-"

"You wouldn't have eaten that much." He continued eating. "I'm just saving food, amor."

"Sure."

Elias had a beautiful apartment. He'd given me a tour before we started eating, and I just didn't want to leave. There was a pool, a gym, a fucking library even. He'd been very amused by my reaction, but his apartment back in New York wasn't even a third of what he had right now. Jett had told me he'd moved to a bigger one, but this was massive.

Jett. Fuck. Fuck. "Eli?"

"Hm?"

"What- what about Jett?"

He paused, tilting his head. "What about him?"

"He doesn't know about this." I pointed a finger between him and I aggressively.

"Do you want to tell him?"

"He should know, right." It came out as a question. "Do you think he'll be mad?"

Elias scoffed. "He's dating my sister, Ava. I have every right to date his."

"And you do remember what your reaction had been when you found out about them." I pointed out. "You almost killed him."

"I found him having sex with my sister in a living room. What did you expect me to do?" He raised both of his brows to emphasise. "I almost killed him only because he was my best friend. Any sane person would have done a lot worse."

"You took time to get used to them. Look, he'll know eventually. I don't like putting Isabella in a situation where she has to lie to him, I don't want either of us to lie to him."

"Alright, we'll tell him together, okay?" He tilted my chin to his side. "Hey, Ava. We'll be okay. I accepted them because I saw they were serious about each other. I saw that he won't hurt my sister. He'll see the same, and we'll be okay."

I nodded, wrapping my arms around his neck and pushing him back until he laid on the couch. His hands came up grab my waist, pressing a kiss to the side of my head. "If this is what dusk feels like," I murmured. "I don't want it to end."

I felt him smile against my skin. "Dusk is nature's creation, amor. Even if it does end for a little while, it always comes back. Always."

-⍣-

I don't know about you, but I absolutely loved writing that last part, especially Eli's last sentence. Comment and tell me what you think of the story till now.