Chapter 13

Nate's POV:

I decided to skip office that day because I was mentally fucked up. I still couldn't believe that she walked out on me, not after a date like that. I've never put so much effort for anyone except her. Maybe it didn't mean anything to her. I was pissed out of my mind and swore never to see her face again. The sound of my phone brought me back to present and I looked at the caller ID.

It was Ryan.

"What?" I snapped as soon as I picked up the call and regretted immediately for showing my anger on him.

"What the hell, man? Where are you and Why do sound like an ass?" he asked in annoyance and I let out a huge sigh.

"I'm taking off today. Just inform David that I'm sick or something," I muttered, rubbing my eyes. There was a long pause before he replied.

"Dude, are you okay?"

"Yeah, just feeling under the weather." I lied through my teeth and heard him scoff on the other end.

"Cut the crap. What happened?" he asked in a more concerned voice and I told him everything.

"She just left, man. What am I supposed to do?" I groaned in frustration, placing my phone on the other ear.

"Are you sure you are over Rebecca?"

"Yes, of course. Why would I want to spend more time with her if I'm still hung up on Rebecca?"

"Sounds fair. Some chicks like the chase, dude. Maybe you should go after her again," he suggested and I rolled my eyes.

"No fucking way. I'm done with her. She can't lead me on and then blow me off just like that." I spoke and heard him sigh through the phone.

"Alright then, just forget it. I'll come over tonight and we can hit the club or something."

"Okay, bye." I cut the call and tried to fall asleep to get her out of my mind.

The next morning, I reached office a little earlier than usual and started to do my work. The entire floor was empty except for me and I put on my earphones, losing myself in my music and work. After an hour or so, I noticed people coming in and decided to take a break.

"Hi, buddy." I heard David's voice behind me in the break room and turned around to find him smiling at me with a cup of coffee in his hand.

"Hey, man. What's up?" I gave him a small smile and continued to make my coffee.

"You weren't in yesterday and Ryan told me that you were sick. How are you feeling now?"

"Yeah, I'm all better now." I assured him, but he looked like he wanted to continue the conversation, which was weird because he and I had nothing in common.

"So, I wanted to talk you about Ms. Perez. How do you feel about working with her?" I almost choked on my coffee with his question.

Fuck.

"Why do you ask?" I blurted in an instant and he raised his eyebrows.

"I spoke with the client and gave them a suggestion about using some aspects of virtual reality and they loved it. It would involve changing the design. Ms. Perez is good in VR technology and I thought you could take her help and complete it," he explained and my mind went blank. I tried to calm my raging self.

"Why would you do that? The client was happy with our design. God, David, why didn't you ask me or anybody before discussing this with the client?" I groaned, running my hand through my hair.

"I thought this could be like an update to the game a month or so after its release," he tried to justify his stupid plan.

"What if we can't bring out the desired output? This is a whole new area of interest for our team," I spoke through gritted teeth. I was already fucked up and now he was giving me more headache by making me work with her which was backfiring with my plan of ignoring her.

"I believe in you, Nate. I'm sure you can do it and so just connect with her and get to work." He smiled and walked out of the break room and all I wanted to do was punch him in the face.

Christ, this day couldn't get any worse.

I stormed out of the break room and walked towards her office. I didn't need her help for God's sake. I was fine on my own. On reaching her office, I knocked on the door and heard some rustling and shuffling sound behind it.

"Come in," I heard her muffled voice and slowly opened the door. I noticed her eyes go wide but she quickly averted her gaze from me to her laptop.

"Ms. Perez, this is regarding the upgrade for the game with the VR technology," I started and she had a confused look on her face.

"Go on," She spoke, not looking up from her laptop.

"I just wanted to let you know that I don't need your help, just in case Mr. Smith mentioned it." I stated boldly, maintaining a straight face and she lifted her gaze to look at me through her thick lashes. I felt a tug at my heart and all I wanted to do was take her in my arms and kiss her but I remembered why I was mad at her in the first place and tried to divert my mind.

"I had no idea about this. When did he tell you?" she asked with a frown.

"Just few moments back."

"We will have a meeting regarding this in the afternoon. You can start working on it as you prefer after that," she spoke coldly, going through her files.

"Alright," I replied and remained standing in front of her. The entire room was filled with awkward silence and tension.

"Can I help you with anything else?" she asked in almost a whisper and I could sense her voice breaking or I must be imagining things.

"Nope." I rushed out of her office and closed my eyes, taking a deep breath to calm myself.

How can she act so cold and normal?

God, I hated her Or did I?

"So Mr. Smith, why are we doing this upgrade again?" Samantha asked, standing in front of the round table in the conference room. Our entire team were assembled and listening to her attentively.

"B-because I thought it would be a different venture, and an upgrade is always better than a downgrade, isn't it?" He gave her a nervous smile while she pondered it for a while.

"Please do approach me before talking to the clients as I'm the project manager and I should be discussing these matters with them," she spoke to him in an angry tone and he looked like he was about to shit himself.

"S-sure, Ms. Perez." he stuttered, feeling intimidated by her.

"I don't think we can go ahead with an upgrade for a game that is almost developed because it would be super complicated. However," she paused, thinking for a while before continuing, "We can go with this upgrade for a new gaming application."

"I think we can manage fine, Ms. Perez. We've given our word to the client, and it would look bad if we chickened out at the last moment just because we were too scared to even give it a try," I argued, stressing the last word while everyone looked at me with wide eyes. She raised her eyebrows at my response, giving me a challenging look.

"We could lose the whole project if it doesn't work out, Mr. Wilson." She replied in a pissed off tone and folded her arms in front of her chest to look intimidating and my eyes automatically flicked to her breasts. She looked so sexy in her yellow low-cut blouse and black pencil skirt.

How can someone look so bitchy yet so tempting at the same time?

I wanted to push her against the table and fuck her so hard.

We kept looking at each other and it was like we were having an intense staring contest. Ryan cleared his throat beside me, and I blinked first, pinching the bridge of my nose and trying to distract my dirty mind by thinking of something less appealing. I stood up from my seat, shoving my hands in my pocket.

"Or we could gain another project if it works. It's all about taking the leap, Ms. Perez." I smirked and saw a change of expression on her face. I knew I hit a sore spot and we both were aware that neither of us were talking about the project anymore.

"Yes, Ms. Perez. I completely believe in Nate. He is our best guy," David backed me up and I knew I was digging my own grave because I had no idea about this whole thing but that was something to worry about later.

"Fine, then you are completely responsible for this upgrade since you are pretty confident about it. Good luck, Mr. Wilson." She gave me a tight smile and started to collect her things. The meeting came to an end and everyone started to leave the room one by one.

"Dude, are you fucking insane? That was like the dumbest thing you agreed to do," Ryan freaked out beside me.

"I know but we will figure it out," I grinned at him widely.

"Oh, no fucking way. There is no 'we', asshole." He jumped from his seat with a horrified look on his face.

"When have I left you out? This is a part of the bro code, man and you are helping me figure this shit out," I smacked his head and walked outside with him, following me closely behind.

"The bro code doesn't apply to this, dumbass." he mumbled under his breath, making me laugh out loud.

I didn't know what came over me to burst out in the middle of the meeting like that. I agreed to work on something that I had no idea about just to prove a point. No matter how much I convinced myself that I was going to stay away from her, I always ended up doing the exact opposite of it.

This woman was driving me crazy, and the fucked-up part about this whole thing was I wanted her anyway.