"Women like you,
drown oceans."
Ace's glare had the force to knock the air right out of Scarlett.
The generally confident, powerful girl stood in his study, backed up against a bookshelf, glancing back at him with worried eyes.
Brad was smirking with delight like Christmas had come early.
Scarlett swallowed. When the words left her mouth, they were barely audible. "I just wanted a book...."
"Ms. Ambrose," Ace's voice was deadly, "Please leave my study."
Scarlett hastened out of there and Ace shut the door to the study, leaving Brad inside. He advanced on Scarlett, making her back down. "What part of 'stay in your room' do you not understand? Why can't you just do what you're told?"
"I just wanted a book," Scarlett's voice was shaky as she took a few steps back in the direction of the staircase, "I swear, I just wanted something to read and I thought you'd be in –"
Ace held up a hand. "Go to your room and don't come out until I come get you. Do you think you can manage to do that?"
Scarlett nodded.
Ace flicked his hand to dismiss her and watched as she rushed upstairs before going back into the study. When he closed the door behind him, Brad was smirking at him, conspiratorially.
"Keep your friends close, keep your gorgeous PA closer, huh?"
Ace stared down Brad, making his countenance falter.
"You're here to speak to me about business, which is the only reason I let you in my house. If you want to deviate from the topic, you can get the hell out," Ace pushed open the door and stood aside.
Brad raised his arms in surrender. "Just give me draft of the terms of agreement and I'll be on my way."
Ace walked over to his desk. "And you'll make no more impromptu house calls. I've a good mind to move."
Brad, completely unfazed by the disdain with which many people treated him, just smiled.
Upstairs, Scarlett had stumbled into her new room and shut the door. She slid to the ground against the door and pulled her legs into herself, cradling them, feeling like a small child. She tried to shake the feeling of dread that had overcome her in the last few minutes.
When her heartbeat had finally slowed, she got up and paced across the room, wondering what would happen to her. She paced, biting the insides of her cheeks for almost a half hour when she heard a knock on her door.
Her breath caught in her throat.
She watched and waited as the knob turned and the door opened.
Ace stood there, one hand behind his back, gazing at her. The death in his eyes was gone, but they weren't light, like they usually were. The bright green colour was clouded over.
"My office," his voice was firm and low, like he was trying to make a point, as he took a step into the room, "At work and at home, are out of bounds to anyone without my permission. Understood?"
Scarlett nodded.
The room stilled as Ace considered her silent response. Revealing the hand behind his back, he placed two books on to the table in her room, gave her a once over and left, closing the door behind him.
Scarlett rushed over to the table and picked the books up, suddenly smiling. She read the titles and the inscription on the inside, which had his name and a date. She raised one of the books to her nose and flipped the pages inhaling the homely smell of books. Suddenly, all was right in the world again.
Happily, she sat on the ground, leaning against the bed and began reading the book about social psychology. Scarlett had delved deep into marveling at the way the mind works when another knock came and the door opened, slowly.
Ace looked around and located her on the floor. He cocked his head to a side and looked at her. "Dinner's ready, Ambrose," he said, softly, the hardness of before, dissipated.
Scarlett got to her feet and smiled. "You made me dinner?"
There wasn't a smile on Ace's face, but the corners of his mouth turned up at her smile. "If by 'made' you mean 'heated up what Belinda cooked', sure."
Scarlett placed her new book on to the table. "I knew you weren't that skilled," she said, walking past Ace and out of the room, leaving him to follow her with his eyes as he closed the door to her room. He didn't expect her countenance to go back to normal so quickly, especially not after the look of dread she'd had on her face earlier, but here she was, happy and quippy as usual. He followed her.
Downstairs, Ace had set the table for dinner, complete with crockery, cutlery and a steaming casserole dish of baked pasta with a side of fresh hand-tossed salad.
Ace pulled a chair out and seated Scarlett before sitting down, himself. She followed him with her eyes.
"You're being oddly nice," she commented, "It's suspicious."
"You're right. You're not nice to me, I shouldn't be nice to you." There was a glimmer of a smile on his face as he watched her.
"That's not true. I'm very nice to you. I do everything you ask."
"That's because I pay you to."
Scarlett shrugged. "I could be mean to you while doing it."
Ace nodded. "You are. No one's as mean to me as you are."
Scarlett looked at him with mock disdain. "No wonder you're such a spoilt brat then."
Ace stared at Scarlett, his eyes hooded by his dark eyebrows. There was no smile on his face, but he was in good humour. "Is that what you think of me? That I'm a spoilt brat?"
Scarlett rolled her eyes in thought. "Maybe not before, but you're definitely one now."
Ace shook his head slowly and sighed. "Would you like some wine?"
Scarlett smiled, mischievously, raising her eyebrows at Ace. "Are you trying to put the moves on me?"
He puffed out a breath. "No alcohol for you." He gestured for her to hand her plate over and placed a serving of salad and pasta on to it before passing it back to her. "Tell me Ambrose, would you have any reservations in taking a work trip?"
"To where?" Scarlett picked up her fork.
"It's a general question, for my information," he said.
Scarlett gave him a one shoulder shrug. "Sure, I mean, that's what you pay me for."
"No one who would object to it? Parents? Siblings?" he asked.
She looked at him, warily. "I have no siblings; no parents. I have no one."
Ace was quiet as he considered this. He cleared his throat. "Good. Nothing tying you down."
Scarlett had never heard this in response to her lack of family, so she was quiet. Never had she connected the lack of kin to freedom that people with family didn't have.
"Do you have any trips on the horizon?"
"I might."
Scarlett sighed. "You know, you're such an open book. I literally know everything about you," she said, sarcasm dripping from every word.
Ace nodded, leaning in. "If I tell you all my secrets, you'll have nothing to work for."
Scarlett smirked and leaned in, as well, taking care to bite her lip as she gazed at his. "You just want me around."
Ace leaned back into his own chair. "Nothing," he waved his fork, "Could be further from the truth."
"How come you don't have any oil paintings of yourself in your office or in your house?" Scarlett asked, looking around.
Ace snorted. "I'm not that self-involved."
"All businessmen do."
He raised an eyebrow. "You have a lot of experience with businessmen?"
"I've seen the movies," she replied, smoothly, not wanting him to know the truth, "And I've worked for people before I worked for you."
"You can't have been a PA your whole life," he said.
"I've been a lot of things," Scarlett raised her eyebrows as she forked a cherry tomato into her mouth.
"And have you always been such a defiant, brazen employee?" Ace asked.
Scarlett shook her head and smiled her smile. "Just for you."
Ace chuckled and shook his head, lapsing into silence.
Scarlett leaned back in her chair. "Do you have any tattoos?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?"
She nodded. "I would. That's why I asked."
Ace looked at her the way he normally did; no smile on his face, but there was placid intrigue riddled into his features. His eyes gleamed bright green. "I guess that's for me to know..."
Scarlett made a face at him that told him that he was boring. "I'll just wait out here and ask one of the girls who traipses out of your room," she said, and then leaned in with a smirk, "Or better yet, I'll just find out for myself."
Ace gazed at her. "I think you should go to your room after dinner."
Scarlett sighed and leaned back. "If you're bringing a girl, just give me a heads up. You know, put a sock on the door or something. And could I get some petty cash for some noise cancelling headphones?"
Now, Ace was amused. "So, you do believe that I have some sexual prowess."
Scarlett scoffed, exaggeratedly. "No. I just think those girls are probably dying to suck up to you." She turned her voice into a mocking tone. "Oh, you're the best I've ever had! No one does it like you!" She spoke in her normal voice. "It's probably what you hear from them all the time."
Ace smiled, amused. "Maybe you should listen in next time."
Scarlett made a dry heaving noise, as Ace got up.
The pair cleaned up the dinner, silently and much to Ace's surprise, after the washing up was done, Scarlett ambled upstairs, just like she'd been told to do.
Scarlett grabbed her book from the desk and sat on the floor reading. Her door was open and Ace neither returned to his room, nor made a sound.
She stared at his closed bedroom door, deciding against trying to explore it that night, in fear of getting caught.
Time passed as the inhabitants of the house went about their business in silence. The time on the clock read that it was a little past ten when Scarlett looked at it.
The tinkling sound of music coming from downstairs shook her from her trance of reading. It was soft, mellow jazz music; the kind that Grace played in her house sometimes, saying that it reminded her of the music her parents would listen to; the kind of music her husband loved.
Slowly, she put her book down and got to her feet. The music pulled her out of her room and on to the landing. Quietly, Scarlett took cautious steps down the stairs, careful not to hint at her arrival to Ace. She followed the curve of the staircase and looked through the gaps in the banister at the TV room below her.
Ace was still dressed in the light bluish grey shirt he had had on since she got back, opened at the collar, sleeves pushed up to the elbows. The shirt clung to his broad frame, to his muscles in the most gentlemanlike manner. His feet were bare and he was seated, completely relaxed on the cloud couch, reading through a document in his hand. The stereo in the corner of the room was playing the soft jazz that had drawn Scarlett out.
Scarlett sat down on the step of the staircase and watched him. Ace's long fingers flipped pages idly, as his eyes skimmed the material. He was the picture of ease; not like the epitome of focus and determination that he was at work. He was relaxed as he read the document in his hand.
Scarlett gazed at the man that was her target, analyzing everything that he did, from the slightest nod of his head as he read the words, to the way his fingers sometimes flowed in time with the music, to the way he moved his head at a particularly entrancing part of the music. She gripped the bar of the banister closest to her, seeing that work on a weekend didn't seem to bother Ace Hardwood in the least.
There was something about the way he was different when he was alone to when he was surrounded by the people who worked for him; something about the way he –
"You know, Ambrose, if you're going to stare at me so much, you might as well draw an oil painting of me."
Oh, she got caught.
Did you like Ace being nice?
What will happen now?
Any predictions?