Enraptured

Chapter 3

I felt like my words were biting me in the ass at the moment.

That little lady, Ms. Caddel, worked so efficiently and diligently that I now had a brand new stack of paperwork to go through at the end of the day despite the fact that I had come in this morning with a completely empty to-do list.

We visited 7 potential sites for building the new headquarters, met up with 4 different architectural firms, and spoke with 5 different construction firms for quotas within the last 12 hours. With all the driving between different sites and negotiations with the heads of each firm, we ended up skipping lunch and barely even had a chance to sit down.

Her options were so well researched that I had no qualms and had no trouble narrowing down on a single location for my new building, along with an architectural and construction firm to lead the project for me, even though it had only been the very first day on the project.

To add on, she managed to go through the entire day without exchanging a single word with me or anyone else, only giving nods and shakes here and there. Even when she was negotiating the price with the firms, all she had to do was hand them different copies of a contract and wait to see if they agreed to it or not. And if they disagreed, she would simply hand them a slightly altered contract and repeat the process again and again until they reached a consensus.

I was quite surprised by this negotiation method, but the firms we met with seemed to have no issues with it. Apparently, they had all worked with Ms. Caddel at some point in their lifetime and were used to her lack of speech.

It made me wonder if she was actually mute and not just a quiet person.

Either way, I was quite amused by how a petite little lady could lead a roomful of hot-headed CEOs without a single word and was also very pleased with the result of her work within one day's time. But at the same time, it also meant that I had a new pile of contracts to look over at the end of the day to finalize the terms with the firms we selected.

I sighed as I looked at the 479 new messages in my email inbox despite already being filtered for junk mail and then at the clock above my doorway that read 8:13 PM. I guess I won't be leaving early today, either.

Putting on my computer glasses, I quickly got cracking down on approving the different contracts. I needed to finish these today because only more work would appear tomorrow. I couldn't have these things piling up on my desk. It would only create a slowdown in the overall efficiency of my company.

I soon lost track of time as I fell into my single-tracked, heavy work mode. An hour or so passed by uninterrupted until I heard a light knock on my door.

Without looking up from my screen, I instructed, "Come in."

The door cracked open, allowing some of the fluorescent lights from the corridor to shine inside as said intruder entered my office.

I paused to look up from my laptop and found Ms. Caddel standing silently next to my door. Noting the clock that showed 9:07 PM on the wall above her doorway, my eyes widened in surprise.

"Are you not going home yet?"

She hesitated and shuffled in her spot without a response.

"Were you waiting for me to finish?"

This time she nodded timidly.

Guilt instantly weighed down on my chest.

All of my employees knew that they didn't need to wait for me to finish to go home because I often worked late. I wasn't so cruel that I'd force them to work longer than necessary, but she must've been waiting for me to give the okay to go home and ended up staying here until this ungodly hour.