Love and Beasts

Chapter 4

After finishing her visit in the hospital, the girl headed towards her car and after entering it, she turned on the engine. While driving out of the parking space, she was thinking back to her grandma. "I must admit her sense of humor never ceases to amaze me." Iza said while looking at her watch on her wrist.

7.45 am. "Alright, I have enough time to get there" she thought to herself, while looking as her surroundings changed.

After 10 minutes ride she finally left her car in an underground parking lot and took the elevator to the office workers' floor.

...

When she was adjusting all her things on her desk, her colleague called out to her "Iza! It's good to see you!" Iza smiled and said "Rebecca! It's good to see you too after the weekend!" The girls hugged each other and then started talking about work, love life and anything since they were starting from 8 am.

Suddenly, many female workers started to run to the wall made of glass, which secluded the office-work area from business meeting rooms area. Iza looked at them and asked Rebecca "What the heck is going on? Why are they acting like a bunch of dogs that just saw a nice piece of meat being hanged by a butcher behind the glass window?"

Rebecca sighed. "I don't know. Maybe another young and handsome businessman to make some deal with our boss? I don't care as long as I get a raise since I've already got Lucian who is my only love interest." "And your husband." "Exactly. If you want, drool over the new guy, I got enough work to finish before 3 pm." "Nah, I'd rather join you than waste time on someone, who won't even pay a tiny bit of his attention to me."

...

"Iza please, let me help you out with those folders. There are so many to take and you don't have to carry them all by yourself up there." Rebecca tried to convince her friend, but Iza was stubborn just like her grandma.

"Don't worry about it! I'll only carry it to the meeting room since there are not so many. After that, I will return straight for the canteen to finally eat some lunch with you. Okay?" "Ugh fine. But I warned you." "Yes, yes. Now off I go."

...

"Aaaand... Done!" Iza exclaimed, as she finally reached her destination and put the folders on the table. She had to admit, that those few folders weren't like feathers. "Good job" said someone from behind her.

Surprised, Iza turned around to see a young man, in his early twenties, about 185 cm tall, quite muscular. His face was quite handsome, his hair dark brown and curly and his brown eyes fixated on Iza, who was only 170 cm tall. That made the girl feel inferior and slightly intimidated towards the man.

"Can I help you, sir?" Iza said, straightening herself up and putting her hands, left one on right one, right on her lower abdomen.

"Your name." "Pardon?" "May I know your name?" "Izabela. Izabela Steinberg." "So Bell-" "It's Iza." "Excuse me?" "If you are willing to call me by a shorter form of my name, then it's Iza since everybody calls me this." "Alright, I understand. Oh, where are my manners." the man said, slightly adjusting his black suit, which wasn't too loose on his arms and torso.

"My name is Ivan. Ivan Chernit." The man held up a hand, which girl gladly squeezed. From the man's accent Iza suggested, that he might be a foreigner. "Hello mr. Chernit-" "Ivan" "Excuse me?" The man smirked seeing, that girl was slightly taken aback. "You can drop the formalities with me and call me by my name." "But I possibly couldn't-" "Don't worry about it. Afterall, I'm the one that suggested it so in case someone caught you calling me this way, the blame is on me."

"Oh, alright then." Iza said and then smiled towards the man, while saying "Hope we will get to know each other well in the near future, Ivan."  The man was shocked to see the girl smile so genuinely. Shortly after, he turned his head to right so the girl wouldn't be able to notice his red from blush face. "Y-yes, I hope so too." He quickly said.

"Soo... Would you like to-" He started, but got cut off by the girl's sudden outburst. "Crap I forgot!" Iza suddenly said, scaring the man slightly. "I'm sorry Ivan but I must be going because my lunchbreak will end soon and I promised my friend to join her since I still haven't eaten anything apart from breakfast!" Iza quickly ran through the doorway and while doing this, she said "See you next time Ivan!"

When the girl was gone, the man thought to himself 'Finally found someone interesting, she is truly pretty. And what a fantastic scent. When I will know her more, then I might make her my mate~.'

...

"Girl, what took you so long? I get it that there were a few of those big folders, but in both directions it always took you around 10 minutes! What were you doing there for a half an hour?" Rebecca said, while Iza could finally eat something and stop the rumbling coming out loud from her stomach." Well, I brought the folders to the meeting room and put them on a desk, like I was told. I was about to go back to you, when suddenly this guy appeared from behind me and we started a conversation."

"What guy? Can you describe him?" Rebecca said with curiosity. "Well he seemed in his early twenties. He was around 180 cm tall or even taller, he was quite muscular and he had brown eyes and hair. Also his hair was curly. Do you happen to know him? 'cause I couldn't recognize him as someone from our team." "Something rings a bell but I'm not sure. Did he happen to tell you his name?" "Oh, yes! His name is Ivan Chernit." "..." "Rebecca?"

Iza grew worried, since her friend suddenly became quiet, which wasn't normal for her. Suddenly, Rebecca yanked the girl's shoulders and with shocked expression looked at Iza. "You've gotta be kidding me! So he's the reason behind those hungry looks in our female coworkers' eyes!"

"What's the big deal about him?" "Girl, do you not watch TV? It's Ivan Chernit! The new young CEO of Chernit Building Corp. Don't tell me that this Russian came to America out of his own free will to close some deals with us! We will finally get another raise! Hurray!"

Iza was shocked. She had that feeling that she heard the name somewhere. But she would never imagine that the guy she casually talked with would be such a big fish compared to her, a commoner.

"What else did you talk about?" Rebecca asked, excitement in her voice. "Well, nothing much. Just a small talk. Also tell me: is he single or does he have someone?" "No, he still hasn't announced the one that would be his wife. Why, are you by any chance interested in him~?" Rebecca said, with a smug on her face.

But Iza laughed at her and said "Becks, don't be silly. I'd rather not try it, or else press will be watching my everystep and I will no longer have such freedom as 'privacy'. Also, I'm sure that those man-hungry female coworkers of ours will curse me with some plague or something! And I don't even know the guy. What if he will be one of those pretenders I have recently been seeing?"

" Hmm, you have a point here. But I'm sure you will finally meet that significant other who won't cheat on you. Then it will be my turn to become a godmother~." "I think you and my grandma are freaking mind sisters or somethin'. " "Huh why?" " 'cause you both want me to become a mother of six!" "No, that's not true! I want you to have eight kids!" "Are you crazy?! I'm not going to be a baby factory!" After this word exchange both of the women started to laugh out loud.