Love Hating Him

EMMA

"No, you didn't. You're joking, right?" I all but spat at my father's words. That could NOT be true.

"Come on, sweetie! It's not that bad, Ironn's marketing agency is a good one and..." My father tried to say softly.

"And nothing, Dad. You had no right to go behind my back and stab me like that." I countered him while trying to control my anger.

"Sweetie, don't be so dramatic, I didn't stab you! It's just a favor. Come on." He tried to reason with me again.

"You know what, dad, I don't have the time or patience for this right now. We'll talk over dinner on the weekend." As quickly as I said that I hang up.

Okay, maybe hanging up on my dad was dramatic and childlike, but I was so pissed right now that I didn't care. How dare he go behind my back and book that damn agency for a possible contract?A contract to my baby project. A contract that could result into a future fusion or something like that. We were looking for a good marketing team to join us, but we were also considering just buying a smaller agency and have it all already working well. Still, I knew dad was a good investor and he had helped a lot in the past, but it was my company and my decision in the end. He had no saying in it. That's what we had agreed on when he became a silent partner. With another groan of frustration I got up from my chair and started packing up my things to go to the meeting.

My office wasn't super fancy and full of expensive things like others in the building, well apart from my digital table and some art materials. I was not that kind of boss and even though this company was mine, I was not exactly the acting CEO of it. At least not completely, since I shared some of my responsibilities with Ash, my best friend and the last partner of my business. Ash and I met in college and instantly connected, becoming fast friends e never letting go. We were two nerds with big dreams and after a few years of struggle we made it. Well, we were making it, I guess.

With my arms full of sketches, papers and my tablet on one hand I headed to the floor bellow to the worst meeting I could possibly have today, I was sure of it. As soon as I left my office, Milly was by my side carrying a cup of steamy coffee and reading me my schedule for the day. I liked her, she was young but was a good assistant, I took a chance on her and it was paying off so far. I have to admit I was already tired from just listening to all the meetings and things I had to do today and it wasn't even 8:30 in the morning yet. By the time we reached the conference room, Milly was out of breath but finally finished with my schedule.

"Mills, I hope that coffee is for me, because after all that you just said I am already exhausted." I chuckled a little and an easy smile crept over Milly lips.

"Yes, Ems, it's for you, just the way you like it, with a touch of caramel." She giggled while helping me spread my things on the table and handed me the cup of sacred sugary coffee.

"Thanks! You are a life saver." I said while jokingly bowing to her, which just made her giggle more as she left the room.

I was preparing everything I had to show, in case it was needed, when a knock on the door brought me back to reality. Who would knock on an open door? I looked up and saw his smiling face. Deep chocolate brown eyes, pointy nose and a square jaw line that would make any girl drool. His pinkish plump lips were curved in a dazzling smile directed at me. Dirty blonde hair styled flawlessly completed Ash's look. He was so handsome that sometimes I couldn't believe we were just friends and nothing more.

It's not like I had a crush on him or anything, it's just that he was sort of my type of guy and yet I felt nothing but friendship towards him. Aside from his good looks, he was very funny and a great guy also, a killer combination in the dating game. I knew people around here thought we were a thing but 'tried to hide it', since we were always together and he could not stop flirting when he was in a good mood - which was almost everyday.

"How can you be so stunning so early in the morning, beautiful?" His velvety voice making me smile back at him.

He was in a good mood.

"The same way you can be just as sexy the whole damn day, sugar." I replied to him standing up to give him a hug.

Before I could do that, though, I stopped on my tracks when my eyes landed on the man right behind him. The bastard was snickering at our little exchange. Caleb Ironn himself, standing by my conference room door with his arrogant expression plastered on his face. The devil had the most electric blue eyes I have ever seen, full red kissable lips and a nose that could make anyone - man or woman - envious of its perfection. His handsome face was framed by his dark brown hair, just adding up to him. He was gorgeous, I'll give you that. But I knew better than that, every ounce of beauty he had in his body, he had three times more of pure evil, arrogance and jerkness to him. Maybe more than that.

To say I hated the guy was an understatement.

"Emma-gemma, sleeping around the office already? Typical." He said while shrugging his shoulders and passing by me to sit in a chair.

Oh, this meeting would be hell for sure.

"I think you are mistaking me for yourself, asshole. You are the man whore here." I spat back at him and made my way to my seat.

Ash looked at us baffled, I guess daddy hadn't really explained things to him before he asked to book the devil a meeting. If I had had an early heads up from my dad, I would have explained things to Ashton better, but I get why my dad did things the way he did. If he told me before this morning, even half an hour before, I would have cancelled everything right away. I gave Ash a pointed look, daring him to say something. But he was narrowing his eyes to Caleb instead.

"Do you two know each other already?" He asked suspiciously.

"Sure, I was Emma's first." Caleb bragged and puffed out his chest.

"KISS! First kiss, Ironn." I all but shouted at his smug face. I knew my cheeks were red as a tomato, since I could feel the heat emanating from them. God, I hated the guy. He had the ability to get under my skin faster than anybody else. By this point in life, even if he just greeted me good morning I would want to punch his face. "Our moms are high school friends and we know each other since we were babies, unfortunately." I added, trying to get Ash's mind out of the gutter.

"Oh, he's the Prick!" Ashton laughed and sat by my side.

It was my time to snicker at this, I really loved Ash so much more now. I could see Caleb's expression changing from amused to a scoff before he could compose himself. We didn't have to wait too long for the rest of his team to arrive and start preparing for their presentation.

I hated to admit, but his team was good at what they were doing. They had done their research well enough to know what we usually went for and liked. They were even complimenting my designs here and there. Let's be honest here, who doesn't like to be praised by their good work? So that made me really happy and with the help of the delicious coffee, my mood seemed to improve more and more. By the time the Prick started talking about their strategies and what we would need to do I was not fuming anymore and felt proud of myself for being capable of considering his words as a serious proposal. Well, that until he said I had to change my final art concept of the main character of my baby project.

We were a growing company. We had the software development part of it, that Ash took care of. And we also had our art, design and digital animation departments. Which was my area. We usually did jobs to others. Ash had some softwares for big companies, which helped us grow a lot. And I had lots of contracts for illustrations, web designs and such. But we were developing our first solo game. We had already worked with bigger companies, helping them. But since it was a hobby for Ash and some of his programmers; combined with the fact that I just loved to draw almost anything, so it made sense for us.

"I'm sorry, what do you mean by change her appearance?" I asked, trying so damn hard to not assume what I knew he would say.

"Just that. She needs to show more skin, be more sexy." He said nonchalantly.

"It's not a sex game, Ironn. She is perfectly fine like that." I countered, annoyed.

"Look, I'm not saying it's bad work, you sketch fine, but she needs sex appeal if you want to sell the game better."

Sketch FINE? Oh, fuck him. I stood up and glared at him. I was about to say something when Ash's words hit me.

"Yeah, maybe that isn't so bad, honey. Caleb has a point about being easier to sell things if it appeals to all the public."

"Oh, and by all the public you mean men." I said shocked that he was taking the devil's side over mine. He honeyed me!

"Well, sort of. But..."

"Not only men, Emma. Girls would like to imagine themselves as the main character and why not give them something sexy to cosplay later on?"

Ok, now I had heard enough of this bullshit. I could not believe that my dad thought that this would be a good idea, at all. Thankfully I was saved by the bell, sort of. My phone rang, letting me know I had another meeting in five minutes so I had to move on. Gathering my tablet I glared at Caleb once more.

"I don't have time for this bullshit." I said and left the room.

I knew Ash would end the meeting and do the right thing and shut down Ironn's proposal for good. I would not change my main character design based on a sexist opinion of what would sell better. The game itself was amazing and would sell just fine without having to appeal to sex.

Maybe all that idea of buying a small marketing agency was a bad idea. We should just do some interviews and create our own team. Ash and I could handle it. We would have to. No way I would tolerate Ironn on my damn company.

The rest of the morning went by smoothly. I had other four meetings, but they had no drama in them, so I was fine. Milly was an angel sent from heaven for keeping my levels of caffeine high enough to keep me awake and paying attention to what was being said. I was back at my office going through some papers the legal team needed me to take a look at when I heard footsteps approach my door. Without taking my eyes of the contract I was reading, I waved my hand at Milly and said "It's okay, Mills, you can go to lunch without me, I know I've made you wait long enough. Sorry, but I'm swamped here right now."

"Overachiever. I guess things don't get better for everyone after high school."

My eyes flew to meet blue evil ones. What the hell was Caleb still doing here? His meeting with us ended hours ago and even though I tried to give him a fair chance to impress me with his marketing skills, I was not. My brief confusion turned to a full scowl when Caleb made his way to sit in front of me, taking the time to take his jacket off and make himself comfortable. He had nerves, I had to admit. He was acting like it was his office and he was the boss. Before I could yell at him the get the hell out of my chair and my life for good, he placed a bag on my table.

A greasy fucking bag on my table. ON MY DIGITAL TABLE! The dickhead. I stood up fast and got the bag away from my screen and glared at him.

"What do you think you are doing, you idiot! That's a very expensive table and you almost ruined it with grease." I hissed the words at his face, my chest heaving with rage. His hands went up in surrender.

"Wow, there. Sorry, I didn't know about that. I was just trying to be nice and bring you some food. Your favorite burger, by the way." Caleb explained and pointed to the bag.

That made me pause. He did look sorry for what had just happened and his words about trying to be nice seemed sincere too. I huffed and circled my desk, going to take a seat at the couch in the corner of the office. The smell of the food had hit my nose and I noticed how starving I was, so there was no point in wasting perfectly good food. Caleb seemed to take my silence as an invitation to join me, because that's what he did and sat by my side at the couch. Again, I glared at him.

"Don't give me that look, Emma. There's enough food for the two of us and more in there." he said, amused. I guess he remembered that I don't share my food when I'm this hungry. Or, hangry, like he used to tease me when we were ten.

"I'll share this once, just because you bought it."

Moe's diner had the best burger in town and I was about to sink my teeth in its juicy goodness. With my first bite I was already in heaven, and a smile crept on my full lips while a little moan escaped me. Fuck having a salad for lunch, this was so much better. I finished my burger with fries fastest than what I would like to admit. I was starving and since my lunch companion wasn't the best, I ate without saying a word to him.

"You were really hungry, huh." Caleb stated while wiping his mouth with a napkin.

"Yes, I was. Thanks for lunch, I really appreciated it." I said softy. Before I could stop myself I leaned in and wiped a little sauce off from Caleb's bottom lip with my thumb and sucked it clean.

My eyes met his electric blue orbs and I could see his pupils dilate and the blue go a few shades darker. Was it desire that I saw in them? I cleared my throat a bit embarrassed about what I just did.

As much as I hated him, we have known each other since we were babies and I’ve tried to keep away, but our families were too close to be able to avoid one another every time we had a family event or something. So in the end, we were used to each other and we were sort of comfortable around one another. Well, comfortable enough to teased, call names and occasionally be a decent person.

His eyes moved away from my lips when I cleared my throat and that seemed to do it for him, bringing him back to earth. He was the one cleaning his own throat now and with a deep breath he stood up and started cleaning away the remaints of our meal. I took the hint and stood up to do the same, so we could do it faster. As much as I loved burgers and all, all that grease near my delicate things was starting to freak me out. There was a very good reason why I didn't eat at my office, because truth be told, I could be messy sometimes and that would be bad in here.

Finishing up I walked Caleb to the door and waited for him to leave, but he turned to me one more time. I expected him to say something that would make me mad, but he decided against it and left.

The day dragged on with another round of endless meetings and coffees. By the time I was ready to leave the office, it was already getting dark outside. Another day working late. I was gathering my things and trying to organize some stuff I would need for tomorrow when I heard a knock on my open - again, why knock? - door. I looked up and immediately got pissed off.

"What the hell are you still doing here?"

Caleb just shrugged his shoulders and smiled a lazy smile at me.

"I'm here to pick you up."