Love Slave to My Devil CEO Boss R18

304 Never Too Busy for a Date

“I guess…” Ace replied vaguely.

I nodded my head slightly as I turned to stare up at the large screen. The commercial that we made looked so touching and beautiful up there that it made me feel sentimental about it. I was probably biased and saw more than what was actually there because I could vividly recall the hard work and all that we had to go through just to put that work up there on the screen like that.

“Let’s head back to the office,” I suggested after turning to face Ace again.

“Are you free for dinner tonight?” he asked invitingly.

I stared up into his face as my heart started to race from excitement. He was just asking me out for dinner, but I couldn’t help but feel like it was something major. I was happy for a moment before I realized that with what was going on at work, it may not be the right time for us to go off on a dinner date together.

“Umm…are you sure that it’s, ok?” I asked as I hesitated.

“What do you mean by that?” he asked as if he couldn’t understand why I was hesitating.

“Well, you know…with all the problem at work and all that…” I replied as I shifted a little nervously on my feet.

Ace gave me a confused look before he chuckled in a very carefree manner. Suddenly, it seemed like I was worried about nothing at all. I wanted desperately to believe that everything was fine, and that Julianna would work something out based on Ace’s advice just as he had told me.

.....

“It’ll be fine. I’m sure that we’ll work something out before the end of the workday. I plan to chase everyone except Julianna and her team back home at the end of the day anyways. There’s no point in having everyone camping out in the war room if all we can do is wait for the next set of numbers to come in,” he replied as he offered me his hand.

“I truly hope so…” I murmured.

“Do you want to drop by and buy something to eat before heading back? You haven’t really eaten, right?” he asked knowingly.

“Let’s do that…” I replied decisively.

I was worried about the project more than I let on. While walking back to the office, I made a silent oath to myself that I was going to help Julianna with whatever I could so that I could rest easy later in the evening when I went out with Ace for our dinner date. If I can make sure that Julianna had concrete next steps for what she wanted to do to handle the situation, then I could rest easy and enjoy my dinner with Ace and that would be like killing two birds with one stone.

“Welcome back…” Julianna said without looking our way when we entered the room.

No one seemed surprised that Ace and I returned to the war room together but since none of them asked any questions, I just focused on acting normal. Ace took his seat while I chose to sit next to Jeremy. The atmosphere in the war room was as intense as it was before I left. Julianna and her team seemed more focused than ever on their work. I wondered whether they have figured something out from the files that Ace had given them.

“That took you a while…” Jeremy mumbled.

“Oh, I went out. Actually, I wanted to snoop around and ask some of our viewers for their opinions but that didn’t quite work out,” I replied regretfully.

“What happened?” he asked curiously for more details.

“Well, you know, the closest spot that our commercial is showing is actually just down the street, right?” I asked.

“Yup, I’ve walked past there but just only once before,” Jeremy replied.

“I went there and discovered that no one around here pays any attention to our commercial. I guess, just like us office workers, everyone is too busy with their lives to pay any attention to a commercial playing on the side of the road. Everyone just walked past it without a care. I mean it, I was standing there for a while, and no one even gave it a glance…” I grumbled.

Although I tried my best to sound neutral and professional about it, I knew that it probably sounded like I was complaining. Jeremy listened to me intently before his brows creased in a frown that made his face appear years older than he actually was.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to come across so gloomy. Anyways, because of that, I didn’t get a chance to talk to anyone and I didn’t learn anything useful. Basically, it was all just a waste of time except that I got a good chance to exercise from walking there and walking all the way back,” I said before laughing to disguise how fowl my mood had become just from recalling my failed mission.

“Don’t worry too much. I haven’t had much luck in helping out the team either. Ace seemed to have found something useful and had given it to Julianna and her team already. I’m sure that they can figure something out soon enough,” Jeremy replied as he always tried to smile.

“Ace seems very confident that Julianna will figure something out too. I think out of all of us, Ace is the calmest about all this…” I muttered.

“Well, he’s clearly been through situations like this much more often than we have. Plus, we still have time before the end of the competition. It has pretty much just started,” Jeremy said before he turned to refocus on his laptop screen.

“I guess so…” I mumbled while still feeling very worried inside.

Jeremy tried his best to smile at me but I could tell that he was also very worried about the project. Just like me, he was busy trying not to let all of his worries show. I felt like I understood him best because I was in a very similar situation and feeling pretty much the same thing that he did.

–To be continued…