Chapter Text
"Neung... I'm screwed, I don't know what to do."
Neung had a lazy smile as she watched Lada pace around. "Lada, you drove half way around town, from your company to mine, and you're pacing my office now because?..." She tried to hide her grin, she knew why Lada was panicking, but it only made her happier to hear it again
"Because I'm screwed" Lada threw her hands dramatically into the air, her usual composure cracked with obvious panic
"How exactly are you screwed?" Nueng urged her to say the words
"I need to transfer her... to a different branch... or just fire her... "
"Woah woah woah, that's a bit too far Lada, don't you think?"
Lada stopped pacing looking at Neung Incredulously, she walked closer and leaned against the desk. "What do you suggest I do then? Because I can't keep working like this."
"Lada, it's not that big of a deal-"
"Not that big of a deal? I can't stop thinking about it."
Lada plopped down on the chair with a sigh. Her words low and shaky " Neung... I'm screwed, I want to kiss her so bad... I want to take her in my arms and discover parts of her no one else ever had. Every time she walks into my office, in those tight pencil black skirts and a shirt tucked in perfectly, all I can think about is how it would look bundled around her waist while her legs are wrapped around mine."
Her head fell into her hands and she groaned while Neung unapologetically laughed excitedly.
"It's not funny Neung. I feel like a pervert. I ran out of my office like a dog under cold water when she dropped off documents and had to bend to pick up a damned run away paper."
Neung's laugh finally died down, seeing the panic that her younger cousin was going through.
"Oh C'mon Lada, it's not as bad as you think. Besides, I've seen your assistant, she is pretty hot, so it's understandable."
"Neung, Earn is 22. She just turned 22. I turned 29 a few months ago. She's basically still a baby. Every single thought I'm having, could get me arrested."
"22 is not that young anymore Lada, and you're probably over thinking things because you haven't had any action in months... actually, years."
Neung stood up and walked around the table, leaning across Lada, they'd been having this conversation for months since Lada's secretary hired Earn as her new Personal assistant.
"Come drinking tonight with Me and Sam, it'll help you loosen up and take your minds off a certain 22 year old in black pencil skirts?" She snickered a little in her words, but she meant it.
"But I need to work Neung, and-"
"And one night won't kill you, and who knows, it may help you way more than you think."
~
Lada sat behind the steering wheel of her car and watched her office building with a grim look. She had been out for over an hour and needed to get back to work, but she took the long way back from Neung's office.
She stepped out of her car, her face the perfect mask of composure as she passed the keys to the valet. She'd turned down Neungs offer of a night out. But as she looked at her office, she was already wishing that she hadn't.
'This is ridiculous Lada, you are the CEO of a multi - billion dollar bhat company, and you're scared to enter your own building because of a 22 year old.'
She walked in, adjusting the jacket that hung on her shoulders. She nodded briefly to a few people on the ground floor, with her eyes trained on the private elevator only she was allowed to ride.
She stepped in and hit the 26th floor. Clearing her throat when the doors shut. She liked the quiet, the alone time she was awarded with in this silence, until the doors opened on the twelfth floor and in came the last person she wanted to see.
"Miss Lada, Good Evening."
Lada didn't spare her a glance, muttering out a greeting of her own. Her private elevator was for her and her assistant alone, to make sure she didn't need to wait, but now in the quiet elevator with fourteen more floors to go, she regretted that decision.
"I was just on my way to your office ma'am"
Lada hated that endearment... 'ma'am...' it reminded her, how much older she was and why her thoughts and fantasies were wrong.
"There's a meeting you need to prep for and you're needed in Hong Kong tomorrow by 2pm for the opening of our new branch."
Lada just nodded quietly. Averting her eyes entirely from the young woman. 10 more floors to go.
The sound of a phone ringing ripped through the earlier suffocating silence. Earn answered the call and tried to be silent. "Yes? Ofcourse... Get fish instead."
Lada found it embarrassing how much her ears seemed to strain to hear the conversation.
"Baby, Fish or beef, it doesn't matter, I'll make it however you like when I get home. Okay?"
Lada tensed at the word 'baby'.... 'great, not only am I fantasizing about someone almost 8 years my junior, she's also someone's girlfriend.'
She blurred out the words of the conversation, trying not to pay attention. They exited the elevator and Lada basically fled to her office. She sat in her chair, letting her head fall back and sent a text to Neung.
'Scratch what I said, I definitely need a drink.'
Neung replied with a laughing emoji, followed by
'You haven't been back at the office for 5 minutes Lada.'
~
Neung and Sam weren't expecting her to show up till 9pm and it was still 7pm. Most of her employees would be home by now. The reflection of the outside world into her office was dim, proof of the sun's steady descent beyond the horizon.
Lada tapped on her laptop, reading through some documents. The meeting she'd prepped for earlier went well enough. And she was reviewing the minutes to her liking.
A light knock on her door made her look up. She sat straight and muttered a 'come in'.. she knew who it was. One of Earn's duties was that she wasn't allowed to leave until Lada dismissed her or left herself.
Earn walked in with her work pad in hand and her brows furrowed.
"Ma'am, the numbers for this month and last month aren't balancing."
Lada, who was previously admiring those long legs that seemed to call her name in a language only she understood, looked up and gestured for the iPad.
The blonde passed it to her and Lada pointed at a seat. She got the message well enough and sat down while she watched Lada focus on the confusion that had brought her here.
"Ah, see the problem here Ms Sanitada." She watched the CEO stand and walk around to her, placing the Ipad back in her hands and leaning over her shoulder to explain.
Earn tried to listen, but the expensive smell of Lada’s perfume distracted her more than she'd like to admit. Her mind seemed fuzzy with her eyes trained on the light outlines of veins on Lada’s fore arms.
The older woman had rolled her sleeves up after a while, becoming a distraction to the yonger.
"Do you understand Ms. Sanithada."
Earn felt like she was snapped back to reality with those words. She looked at Lada, hoping she wouldn't get caught staring, but the coffee brown eyes that met hers made her breath hitch.
'I should stop. I can't feel this way about my boss.'
Lada felt like those bright brown orbs she looked into were pulling her in slowly, the space between them seemed to be almost non-existent, her heart was thumping irregularly, the sound of the rhythm the only thing she could hear.
Lada's eyes traveled down to the pale pink heart shaped lips she'd been fantasizing about, her lips trembling with the urge to close the distance.
Earn saw the small flicker in her boss's eyes, the way they seemed to travel to her lips for a second longer than necessary before meeting her eyes again. The space between them seemed to shrink even more.
'I shouldn't be doing this.' It was a shared thought... their bodies hot with equal tension...
'Why her?' Lada thought, her mind flickering back to the call in the elevator and her talk with Neung. Her eyes hardened and she moved back, breaking whatever connection that wanted to form between them. She cleared her throat loudly.
"You're dismissed." Her tone came out harsher than intended, but it took everything in her to remember why this was wrong in so many ways. She moved for her Jacket, she needed a drink now.
She sent Neung a text and shut her laptop off. Earn stood, flushed and trying to understand everything.
Lada made to leave the office first but Earn called out
"Uhm, ma'am, we have a flight by 11 am tomorrow, we're staying in Hong Kong over night, and we'd be back the day after tomorrow."
"Noted." The reply was swift and clipped while she exited the office.
Earn remained alone and let out a breath she didn't know she was holding in. "That woman is going to be the death of me..." She put a hand over her forehead
"Fuck... I wasn't paying attention to what she was saying, and this is due tomorrow..." She groaned...
This was new territory entirely for her... she'd never felt so much physically for anyone, even with her current girlfriend, 'Engfah'... they'd barely even kissed, and that wasn't for a lack of Engfah's trying. She just had her fears of intimacy stopping her... she wanted to feel something more... especially when she kissed anyone... but since she'd started working for the literal definition of 'Sexy and confident'... she was feeling things she'd never felt before with anyone... feeling things she thought she wasn't capable of feeling.
She let out a breath and refocused on her work... her mind drifting back to those coffee brown eyes every once In a while.
~
Lada pulled up to the club and went straight for the Vip area. She sat down beside Sam. "Hey, you're here early."
She snatched the drink in Sam's hand, downing it once.
"Hey hey, Lada, that's mine."
Lada ignored her and reached for Neung's drink but Neung was faster, chugging it before Lada could hijack her drink aswell.
"Oh no you don't." Neung was chuckling as Lada glared.
Sam motioned to the waiter for 3 more drinks and turned to Lada.
"You better have a good reason for taking a perfectly good drink from my hands."
Neung was already chuckling, waiting for the explanation to come.
"Don't start Neung."
"Start what? I just remembered something funny, that's all."
"Yeah? And what exactly is this 'funny thing?'" Sam asked while grabbing the drinks from the tray of the waiter that just returned.
"Oh?, well it's nothing serious, Just Lada wanting to fuck her assistant on her desk or anywhere else for that matter." Neung said it innocently, earning a groan from Lada.
Sam and Neung shared a look before bursting into laughter. Lada reached for an arrangement of 12 shots and downed 4 at once.
"Calm down Lada, you'll get drunk wayy too fast st this rate" Sam was already trying to get the drinks out of her way
"Let her be Sam, she needs to let loose, she's too wound up."
"Why is it so bad that you're attracted to your assistant? I mean... it's proof that your dick still works, we were starting to think you had a problem."
Neung was nodding along with Sam's words, hiding her snicker along the way. "Yeah, what she said."
Lada looked between them and muttered 'idiots' under her breath. She looked away and grabbed another drink.
"She's 22, and has a partner. I can't have these urges, especially at work. I need to transfer her." Her voice was low and resigned, the humor around the table finally died when the understood how torn Lada actually was.
"Lada, C'mon, you can't just transfer her... it wouldn't be fair."
"Sam's right, it's the same thing I said. You can't just send her away."
"I don't know what to do. Those eyes of hers that seem to hold so much mystery... and something else... the way I tense up when I smell her perfume, even the way I catch myself staring. I... it took everything in me not to break all my rules and cross that boundary tonight. I feel like a pervert. I'm supposed to travel to Hong Kong tomorrow. Once we're back, I'll have her transferred."
Sam and Neung shared a look before patting her shoulders. She glanced at them before grabbing another shot.
"Lada, think about it... she just landed what is probably her dream job, think about how she'd feel if she got transferred like 3 months in."
Lada looked ready to protest, but Neung beat her to it "Just really think about it. Don't try to be a hero and end up a villian."
"Let's dance? Hmm, there are a lot of fine females on that dance floor that are eyeing us like meat, and I'm pretty sure none of them would say no to a drunk Lada."
Lada looked ready to protest, already feeling the effects of the alcohol she'd ingested, but Sam and Neung were already on their feet and dragging her up swaying with the music and shoving another drink in her hand.
The rest of the night passed in a blur, when she woke up the next day in bed, she glanced at the time groggily... '10:38'
"Shit, I'm going to be late."