Spice

13 || Cumin

The next day, after a fitful sleep, Silver got up with achey, bloodshot eyes. This was a product of intermittently waking up to cry herself back to sleep like a loser, and the more she looked at herself, the more she felt annoyed.

A trusty bottle of eye drops helped even out her aching eyes and regulate the colour of them, but even then, she wasn't happy.

Why had she cried so much? What was wrong with her?

Her face was pulled into a scowl, and it took way too much energy to get herself ready for the day.

She got mascara on her eyelid twice, and had to re-do her eyeshadow just as many times. The hand that held her lipstick shook, and the burgundy tint smeared at the corner of her mouth.

Her lips wobbled, and she burst into tears. Again.

It was going to be a very long, and very bad day if this was how her morning was starting out.

By the time she was finally able to leave the house, Silver realised that she had been entirely correct.

It was the day she had to report to her boss on the proceedings of her trip. That task in itself was not very difficult, if not for the fact that she was choking up just by inhaling.

She felt ridiculous. Her hand smoothed the crease of her blazer over her empty stomach and trembled.

You're fine. It's fine. Everything is fine. This is just a normal Wednesday.

"Miss Bailey, welcome back." Gavin Woodrow smiled like a benevolent Buddha at the sight of her walking down the hall. "I trust everything went well?"

Silver nodded her head stiffly, not even bothering to try for a close-lipped smile. Her thoughts were a mess, but she still knew that she'd look worse if she tried to force her cheeks to spread.

Mr. Woodrow looked at her carefully, and pushed open the door of the meeting room. "Come on in."

She stepped past him and stopped short when her eyes fell on the conference table, or more specifically, the people who were not supposed to be there.

"W-what's—" She cleared her throat, took a deep breath, and tried again, but slower. "What's going on?"

What she'd meant to ask was why the hell Jared Jung and Ross Garth were in the meeting room also.

"We will be listening to your joint reports." Mr. Woodrow settled down in his seat, and motioned for her to do the same. "You worked on this together, so it's fair to report on it together."

Silver took her seat, feeling a little confused. She didn't know that they would be presenting a joint report, but as a first-class employee, who was she, if not adaptable?

She generously let Jared present his report first, then stood up to do the same. She changed her I's to we's and gave him equal credit to everything in order to be polite about carrying more than half of the workload.

It should have been simple. All she was doing was presenting a report on how their presentation for a marketing campaign went. That was all. She did this for a living, so it should be easy.

But it wasn't. She nearly flopped back into her chair when she was done. All of her felt very tired. The previous night had been endless.

While the men were talking, she turned her gaze out of the window and sighed internally.

She should have called in sick.

"I think Miss Bailey and Mr. Jung work well together, Gavin."

"I think so, too." Gavin Woodrow nodded, chancing a glance at his lacklustre employee.

Silver's head felt like it was filled with helium. She wanted to drop to the ground and pretend to faint, but she wasn't good with the dramatics.

On the other hand, Jared looked at her and smiled like a demon. She hated the sight of that smile. It truly made her consider the fainting farce again.

"Miss Bailey and I have a good professional relationship and a broad understanding of each other, so any projects you give us should reach a satisfactory result."

She wanted to strangle him.

It was obvious at a glance that she did not want to work with Jared anymore, but all three of the men in the room made a point to ignore that fact.

"I will not work with you anymore," she said bluntly.

"Why not?" Jared's smile widened. "You scared of me?"

She squeezed her hands into fists. If looks could kill, he would have long been turned into a human sieve.

"If you make me work with him again, I will quit." Silver turned to look at her boss. He had already given her the promised bonus, so she wasn't afraid of threatening him now.

Normally, these would not be words that she would say after a successful work trip, but at this point, she felt like a bug dangling at the end of a rope. What did she have to lose?

Every single cell in her body was fed up.

She respected Gavin Woodrow as her boss, but she wasn't scared of throwing that dynamic out of the window as well.

"No need." Mr. Woodrow shook his head. "I actually want to put you up for Vice Director of Marketing, so you wouldn't have to travel anymore."

Silver was caught off guard, and couldn't hide her shock. This promotion wasn't just an additional jump in her pay check, it was also a surprise.

She was a senior executive of her department, but Vice Director was a few ranks up from where she currently was. In the future, she wouldn't have to take business trips or handle the creation of ads by herself.

In the future, she would be part of the recruitment process, she could help strengthen and disband teams, assign projects, and approve projects.

Also, she could represent her company at any events. This was really too huge. Her annual salary would be in the millions now.

"Congratulations, Bailey."

Silver's fuzzy eyesight caught Jared's good-natured smile. He was sitting against the light, and the glow of the sun made him seem ethereal. The image of him seemed to imprint itself into her pupils indiscriminately.

"Congratulations, Miss Bailey."

"Thank you." She glanced down at the report folder on her desk, secretly questioning herself.

Was it normal to not feel happy?

"If you're willing, there's a work dinner on Saturday night. We can announce your promotion then."

"I won't be here, I'm going out of town," she explained to her boss. "My notice was put in days ago."

"In that case, never mind." Mr. Woodrow waved a hand. "Your new office will be waiting for you when you come back."

Just like that, the matter was settled. Silver didn't say another word until the meeting was over, after which she spent the rest of the day in her office until it was time to leave.

Thenia called it escapism. She ran away from her problems by hyperfixating on her work. She called it productivity.

At the end of the day, she clocked out as soon as the clock turned to six. The moment she stepped out of the elevator, her phone chimed with an incoming email from the clinic with her test results.

She grimaced, debating whether or not to open it. Part of her was truly fearful that she would have something, especially since she would have to explain it to someone else. The other part of her was wanting to get it over with quickly.

Feeling annoyed with herself, Silver quickly opened the email and the attached PDF, where her results had been printed. Her eyes quickly scanned the page, and upon reaching the bottom rung, her restless heart finally settled down.

Fortunately, she was clean. At least in that aspect, Victor didn't fuck her over.