Just One Kiss

Chapter 1

From the ding of the elevator reaching the twenty third floor of JE and Co Publishing, China's life begun to move at its regular thousand mile a minute pace.

"Good morning Miss Ali." Duke, China's assistant, greeted her warmly, handing her a cup of tea and the stack of papers grasped in his other hand.

"Good morning pumpkin." she smiled endearingly at him as she took a sip of the warm cardamom tea. The clicking of her stiletto heels echoed in the hallways as she headed towards her office with Duke in tow.

"What's the agenda today?"

"We have a photo shoot in town that we need to approve, a meeting to go over the budget of Linette's trip to the Namib desert, and we have the afternoon strategy with the boss." he finished as they reached her office door.

"How long do we have?" she whispered in a lower tone for the rest of the bustling office to ignore.

"Ten minutes max." he whispered back.

Nodding, she opened the door to her office, Duke following behind her and locking the door. She sat behind her large oakwood desk as he sat in the opposite leather guest chair, getting comfortable and opening her stack of papers. From the slightly tinted glass, it would seem that the two were deep in a strategy meeting, but rather, it was their regular Thursday morning gossip session.

"Okay, spill." China beamed as she switched her computer on.

"So word around the office is that the boss secured a multi million dollar deal for the new project." Duke began, sipping his own cup of coffee that he had left on China's desk, awaiting their long overdue conversation.

"Which project?"

"Your project." China's heart dropped, but she shook the feeling down and kept digging.

"Any word on who the donor is?"

"None, all the higher ups are quite tight lipped about it. This one is hard to crack."

"I guess we'll have to find out on our own." China smirked to herself as she opens up her email. "I just need five minutes to clear my messages as we're good to go for the day."

"Got anything for me? " China would ask Duke this daily; she can never work on a project without him.

"None so far, but let's see where the day takes us" he smiled, getting up from his chair with his coffee in hand.

The day seemed to breeze by as the two completed their photo shoots and approved the cover for the next month's issue of the fashion column. The meeting flew by with the budgets being completed in almost record timing, thanks to China's impressive negotiation skills.

That skill is big part of what secured her position as the Senior Manager of the largest publishing house in Africa; that, and an impressive talent for writing the most compelling stories and articles that her boss, the founder of the company, was said to have ever seen.

Before long, China was knocking at the door of the main conference room, letting herself into the cool air conditioning as the rest of the office hurried to the elevators to head home. Already sat at the table was the boss herself, Juliana Ecklestone. Alongside her was her assistant Marjorie, the head of communications, and the head of finance. China greeted them all warmly as she took her place at the head of the table, facing the screen that showed a video call ready to be joined.

"Alright then, I think we've reached quorum" Juliana said, breaking the side conversations as Duke sat silently next to China, opening his notebook.

"Let's get straight to the point" she began, her thick Durban accent commanding the attention of all in the room.