Bound To The Seduction

Chapter 1: The Big Day

On this day, the presentation that Sarah had prepared for a whole month had finally arrived. Today, the board members and directors would decide which branch of the company will take over the big project they recently won. Each subsidiary had sent one representative to present their proposal and choose who had the most preparedness to take on the job. Sarah came from the main branch in city B.

Sarah sat at the long table in the conference room. Everyone focused on the giant screen at the front of the room. One man from another branch of the company did the presentation on the impacts of expanding to the foreign market.

He methodically explained without any glitch. Occasionally, he would pause to let the people present digest the information. Once in a while, the board members would nod their heads in approval or ask a few questions to understand better.

Sarah's turn came to take the stage and convince the board members why they were suitable. She represented the main branch.

Sarah stood, clutched her laptop, and made her way to the front. She tucked her black silky hair behind her ears while walking, exposing a heart-shaped golden stud earring that flattered her light brown skin. As she took long confident strides, her knee-length navy blue pencil dress outlined her dainty figure without being too revealing. The white waistband emphasized her slim waist, curvy hips, and her not-so-ample chest. On her neck, a heart-shaped pendant dangled as she walked.

Her bearing and professional look had many directors nod their heads in approval. Well, let's ignore the fact that her palms were sweaty, and her heart pounded in her chest. Her mother had once said, 'Even if you are about to collapse from nervousness, try your level best not to let any of that show on your face. Only you had to know.' She connected her laptop to the projector and got everything ready for her presentation.

The big screen lit up as she opened a PowerPoint presentation. She had gone through it a couple of times and she had everything at her fingertips. She needed it only for a few references and, of course, the facts and figures were stated clearly. The document took a while to open today, which was a bit abnormal, but Sarah didn't take it to heart.

She let it load. In the meantime, she shifted her attention to the members seated and introduced herself. Halfway through her introduction, she noticed most of the members frown, and their eyes darted between her and the screen. She followed their line of sight and her eyes widened when she saw the screen. On the screen, an erotic image of a woman was there for all to see.

"I'm sorry, I got the wrong thing," she apologized as she tapped her mouse pad frantically, hoping to get the embarrassing picture out of the screen as fast as possible. This was strange. She never had such images on her laptop at all and yet it had to pop up now of all the places. Talk about bad timing!

Sarah tried her best to maintain her calm because she knew that everything would really be over if she panicked. She focused all her energy on getting the right thing up this time because she could tell these directors were getting impatient. She could feel all the judgmental looks from the members and her face heated up. All these might seem that it was a long time but all these happened in a matter of seconds.

"Oh, it looks like the main branch has some interesting hobbies," Director Jones sneered, "to think we placed so much hope on them."

"..." Hobby my foot! I'm about to wet myself here, okay?

The presentation officially started again and she clicked the PowerPoint presentation. She waited for a perfect slide to come up and she prepared herself to engage the audience. She soon noticed that the file could not open again. She found a relevant video to cover up the delay. "Ladies and gentlemen, let's watch this short clip first before I get into details." She said with a smile as clicked a video, her voice sweet and gentle; the kind of voice you would like to listen to after a long day.

However, what played out was a short video of her grumpy manager, walking around in a bathrobe with his chest slightly exposed. All eyes turned to Manager Chen and his face reddened. There was an awkward silence in the room as the eyes glanced from Manager Chen to Sarah.

"Not that," Sarah said in panic. She disconnected it fast from the projector. "I'm sorry, I clicked the wrong thing." Oh shit, how could she have forgotten that she had saved that video with the same name?

"It happens. Please show us what you got," Director Nathan responded amicably, trying his best to hold in his laughter.

Ka-ka!

She used the fastest speed to reconnect her setup and got ready to start. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves and regain the confidence she needed to clinch this deal.

This time, she double-checked every detail before opening it, and it was exactly as she had saved it. She had personally written the entire proposal without any third-party interference. Besides, this wasn't her first presentation. She had stood in front of such meetings in the past and nothing went wrong. The worst had already happened. What else could possibly go wrong?

Sarah took a deep breath, clicked it with confidence, and prepared to start the most professional presentation of her entire career. She maintained eye contact with the audience as the slide loaded. She expected to see a serious atmosphere as she scanned the room but she noticed the exact opposite.

The people present had constipated faces trying to hold in their laughter. Some of them looked like they were about to pass out from holding it in.

Puzzled, she followed their amused gazes and her eyes landed on the giant screen behind her. The image caught her unaware and she burst out laughing before closing her mouth abruptly.

A/N: what do you think about this first chapter? Do you like it? What would you do in such a situation? Let me know in the comments.

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