His Naughty Lessons -
Chapter 131: Straight to the Point
Chapter 131: Straight to the Point
** Harper **
As soon as she hung up, Harper had the impulse to talk to Eli immediately and tell him the news. Judging from his earlier text, he probably hadn’t gotten the same phone call yet ... But considering how much the sudden surprise had turned out to be a not-so-desirable end to an otherwise perfect evening for herself, she decided against it. It wasn’t worth it to spoil Eli’s side of the perfect memories as well.
So she waited patiently — with impressively minimum fidgeting — until the next morning arrived at an excruciatingly slow pace.
Their daily meetings were scheduled for smaller groups from Tuesday onward, which meant that she likely wouldn’t see Eli much within regular business settings anymore. But as Harper entered the first conference hall of the day, she still looked around hopefully, trying her luck at finding a familiar figure smiling up at her from the front row. She wasn’t surprised when she didn’t find it.
What she did find, instead, was a smiling Naomi greeting her at their table with a meaningful expression.
"Looking for Eli Sterling?" The marketing lead winked.
Oh. That kind of comment would typically send Harper grappling for excuses or diversions, but today, she couldn’t have asked for a better gossipy opening to help her ease out their updated relationship status. "W-Why would you say that?" she replied with a hint of shyness that came almost too naturally. "Is it that obvious?"
Naomi’s wink turned into a full-on laughter. "Come on, that searching gaze is becoming a new signature of yours! And it hardly takes any guessing, considering how he kept looking at you the exact same way yesterday in our other meetings."
Now, that was a piece of news Harper hadn’t expected. Eli had been looking at her like that during the meetings before? To be honest, it was precisely the goal she had in mind when she strategically chose her dress and perfume and seating yesterday. But once the presentations started, she had been too busy taking notes to pay attention to how well she had achieved that goal ...
"Aww, look at that smile on your face, so sweet!" Naomi interrupted her musing with a chuckle. "Last time I checked, I thought you were simply friends with our bigshot partner ... But from the look of it," — another meaningful glance — "is that still the case?"
Harper tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. The light flutters in her heart at this point weren’t a pretense — it was a real deal now, to admit that she had truly moved on from that "friends" category. "Well, this trip does make things ... a bit different, with everyone being so close together now." She smiled again. "And I mean, we haven’t seen each other in years until recently, so a lot of what’s happening right now is ... not exactly what I expected when you asked last time."
"Holy sh—" Naomi cut herself off before the non-work-safe word escaped. "Wow, I knew there must be something going on!" She lowered her voice to a conspiring one next. "How’s your progress? Do you need any help? Heck, it would be amazing to see someone like that fully invested on our side for multiple reasons!"
Harper blinked at the utterly business oriented perspective Naomi was coming from. It was quite a different response from the one she got from Chelsea ... and probably Lindsey too, if the latter were here—
As if the thought summoned the person, Harper saw from the corner of her eye that Lindsey was walking toward their table with a glass of brightly colored drink in her hand, followed by Wallace. "What are you guys whispering about?" Lindsey asked, slipping into the seat next to Harper.
"About ... ah, some exciting new developments in our project collaborations." Naomi winked between Harper and the new arrivers. "And about how popular our Harper is—" She darted a look at Wallace, who was carrying the same brightly colored drink as Lindsey. "I have a feeling that there might soon be a line of people wanting to bring coffee and drinks for Harper from now on."
There was a moment of suspicious silence as Wallace halted in his tracks.
"Oh oh, right, speaking of drinks — have you ladies tried this one yet?" Lindsey rescued the moment merrily, holding up her glass. "Pineapple and passion fruit mocktail. Sweet and refreshing, awesome for a juicy start to the morning! It’s just around the corner by the coffee station if you missed it."
Harper wondered how her cubicle mate always had such an amazing knack for coming to her rescue in less than optimal situations. "I did miss it!" she exclaimed, tapping her phone for the clock. "Is there still time to grab one?"
The conversation quickly derailed, and Harper soon ended up with the extra perk of a fruity drink in front of her just before the meeting started.
~ ~
The morning meetings were dense, and the energy boost from that sugary mocktail proved useful. Harper’s project scope and timeline were the main focus today, which made her the busy center of dozens of questions and discussions, as well as even more rounds of detailed explanations and demonstrations. Long after the last meeting was over, she was still typing up the longer-than-ever meeting minutes, making bullet points of all the valuable feedback she had received.
By the time she looked up from her laptop again, the room was almost empty. Only a handful of Sterling employees remained in their seats chatting about something related to lunch ... And only Wallace remained at her own table except herself.
"Sorry, didn’t want to interrupt you." Wallace nodded at her laptop when Harper gave him a complicated look, half wondering why he was still here and half suspicious as to why he was so uncharacteristically silent. "Um, I was wondering ... Can we talk real quick? Maybe walk to the dining hall together?"
... Well, that was unexpected. "Sure." Harper quickly finished the last bullet point and packed up her things. "Got questions about the project timeline?"
Wallace made a somewhat interesting face. As they stepped out of the conference room, he glanced around them, and he replied only after making sure there was no one else within earshot, "Um, I was actually hoping to talk about ... your web novel. Would that be too weird a conversation for you?"
Oh. It took Harper a moment to pull her head back out of the meeting and remember — this was a task on her to-do list today as well ... And she liked it when they could get straight to the point.
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