Royally Kissed | ✓

01; the heiress

Her eyebrow arched when he'd slipped a white folder to her direction, the texts still unknown to her. "What's this?"

Owen haphazardly scratched his stubble down his chin before rearranging his tie, which apparently had been loosened from having a 'good time' with one of his staffs in his office. Paige had to wait for roughly an hour down at the hotel lobby, thinking he was occupied with meeting again as he was the manager of the Manor Hotel.

If only she knew that her definition of meeting was vastly different from Owen's, making him clearly aggravated when she'd interrupted God-knows-what with three loud knocks on his door.

Oh, it didn't actually end there, no. Paige really had to spit derogatory remarks because the idiot was asking for it. Her words had stopped halfway through when he opened the door, even more speechless when she realized he wasn't alone in the room.

From how the woman swayed her hips quickly to help her skirt slide back down, brushing a hand through her pixie-cut locks, and her cheeks faintly turning to crimson, the gears in Paige's head were fast roaring to life.

"I was stressed," he'd defended, unfazed by her reproving looks and, instead, flaunted a stupid smirk on his face. "She was kind enough to alleviate it."

She could only stress that the woman was more than kind enough. If that was the standard of the hospitality industry, she deserved the Employee of the Month certificate. Apparently, her service didn't only apply to 'customers' but to her manager as well.

"You're almost twenty−"

"That's right," her tone rather rigid, crossing her arms over her chest.

"−and it's an on-going tradition of your family to pass the legacy to the descendants," Owen continued in that business-like tone of his, "and since Isolde has always trusted me and she has too many things on her plate, she thought I could help her to let you sign the papers."

It was still a haze to her, Owen could probably tell by the crinkles that formed atop her forehead. His eyes turned into amused slits, straightening his seat when Paige's unfriendly demeanor was thrown his way.

"Can you just cut to the chase?" Paige couldn't help but sound impatient than how she'd like it to be. "Don't make this thing longer than it already is. I've already waited for almost an hour for you, of all people. I shouldn't even be breathing the same air as you and you know that."

Owen's shoulders slumped as he sighed. It had been almost a year since but Paige kept making the berth wider rather than closing the gaps. They were civil enough but she'd wanted to remind him that he'd lost, almost completely, the girl who'd treated him like a brother.

She'd never wanted him to choose between her and his friends, but when he'd made it pretty clear to her that she was out and beyond his priorities, she'd presupposed that half of the amicability was pretty much thrown out of the door. Which, at least, she thought was the reason gassing up to the flame.

Or maybe because she was on the edge of falling so, so in love with him.

Owen parted his mouth as if to say something, but it seemed like he kept his thoughts at bay because he then simply nodded as if he acknowledged her hackles. Paige knew though that he could probably smell animosity even from a mile off.

"Mhmm," he hummed coolly, as how arrogant his image was inside her head, and opened the folder for her. "No worries. I'll make it quick and easy for you. By the end of this month, you will start the observation at the amusement park as you will eventually take over the management in the near future."

Paige huffed the stray hairs down the side of her face. "I knew it," her tone glum, one eyebrow shooting up her forehead when she caught Owen staring at the very action of her hair. "Why can't she just hire people to do it for her? I'm sure there's at least one person out there who needs the job more than I do."