Aşk Yasak

Chapter 3

They stayed like that for what seemed like forever, but Eda finally pulled away first and Serkan reluctantly let go of her hand. He motioned towards the other end of the table asking Eda to take a seat.

"Sorry, am I too late?" They had just taken their seats when Selin walked in.

"No. in fact we were just starting. Eda Hanim, this is our PR manager, Selin. And Selin, this Eda Hanim, CEO of Yildiz & Co." Serkan introduced. The taunting tone of Serkan's did not go unnoticed by Eda, but she forced a smile and acknowledged the woman who had just joined. Eda could just feel this meeting was going to be long.

"Alright Eda hanim. First of all, I'm glad you finally found the time to join us." Serkan was calling her out again.

"Of course. I wish I had known that you wouldn't be professional enough to deal with my representatives, otherwise I would have made sure to be here at the first meeting." Eda gave him her innocent smile and Serkan was left speechless. Nobody had talked to him like that before and the rest of the members on the table were just as shocked. Engin had to clear his throat to accommodate for the awkward silence that had spread over the room.

"But anyway, I'm here now. So I think we can begin." She continued. She didn't want to create any more tension than what was already present, but she also didn't want to give Serkan Bolat the satisfaction of having any sort of upper hand.

Serkan looked at Engin and nodded at him, telling him to begin the meeting. They had decided that Engin would start the presentation and Serkan would take over half way.

"BIOEXPO is one of the biggest events of the year in the architecture sector. Just the event itself attracts people from all walks of life and building a living space in 12,000 sq ft is no joke." Engin looked at Serkan, giving him the space to take over.

"Thank you Engin. I will take it from here. BIOEXPO displays smart living solutions which would make it easy to have a luxury lifestyle with low cost. And that is where ArtLife comes in. We will be delivering smart solutions for living with zero compromise on quality."

Eda had kept quiet and was listening to Serkan without looking at him which irked him to no end. When he was done, Eda finally looked up at him.

"Thank you for your presentation. I would like to point out something though. Unfortunately, until now all your ideas for BIOEXPO have to do with ArtLife and the 'smart solutions' and I don't think there was even a mention of collaboration with us. Don't get me wrong, but you do understand that ArtLife won the tender equally with Yildiz & Co., right?" Eda continued. "I noticed that you had no aspect of ecological solutions in your presentation, which, I must tell you, is also a very important part of the project. But don't worry, since I'm here, I'll handle the ecological concepts which you failed to mention."

Serkan felt like a hard whip had hit his back and his ego was crushed. With that, he asked Pyril to continue with the rest of the meeting and until the end, Serkan's eyes kept glancing at Eda as if trying to figure out her game.

"First things first, we need a location to work together. Sitting in different buildings will obviously not work out." Pyril started.

"I think until the project ends, you can move your employees to ArtLife, there's enough space in the common area for them all and a couple of rooms too upstairs." Serkan suggested.

"Well, that's very generous of you. But I don't know if that will be very comfortable. The atmosphere here isn't exactly....the most welcoming." Eda tried to put it nicely. It didn't take her long to notice the tense situation in the common area. She was hit by it like a wave when she had first walked in. "Why don't you and your employees transfer to Yildiz & Co. for some time?"