Chapter 5 Aiden

I try not to make my irritation obvious but it is tough. My pulled face makes it clear that I would rather be anywhere else but in this damn conference room that is being used for the last stage of the interviews. I need an executive assistant and whilst the firm has handled all the preliminaries, trimmed down the barrage of applicants to the top three most qualified and I just have to sit here and try to connect with who feels like the best fit, I still feel like it is a waste of time.

"We will have the first candidate come in now, Sir." Sydney, my secretary says to me. She nods to the other executives in the room with a polite smile but she glares at me, it is a reprieve to stop looking like I am seated at a cemetery. I only shrug. Sydney was my father's secretary, and now she is mine. She has been in the company since its beginning. Yet she still manages to get her job done and look well put together in her typical sharp skirt suits.

"This depends on your connection with the candidates, Mr. Smith. So, wipe that look off your face. We don't want to scare away potential candidates before they even have the chance to work with you. Here is the first candidate's file." She pushes the file at me across the table and she turns for the door. I look down blindly at it, just as I hear the door click open.

I smell her before I see her. I whip my head up sharply, memory flooding into me at the familiar scent. She comes to focus like a dream, behind Sydney who is showing her to a chair, her eyes are looking down, but then she looks up just as I glance down to look at the name on the file. Maeve Tonkins.

I hear her sharp inhale as she stands frozen in front of me. I knew it was a fake name after all. I don't know if I should feel proud for guessing right or disappointed that she lied. Maybe a mix of both.

I look up to take in her face. I could never forget those bright blue eyes. It has been a week since our one night stand but watching her in front of me, in my conference room of all places, my company of which I am acting CEO, beautiful as a vision, the time that has gone by between us feels nonexistent. There is an air of continuity in my brain as I watch her, equally dumbfounded but doing a better job at hiding it compared to the bright red blush spreading across her face.

"Miss Dai- sorry, Miss Tonkins. Pardon my manners, do have your seat." I clear my throat. I imitated the name slip up on purpose. To stir a reaction. I know she recognises me but she is so frozen with inaction that I fear she might opt to either run out of the room or pretend not to know me.

"Thank you, Mr. Smith." She says, she nods at the two other executives seated on either side of me with a polite smile.

"Do you two know each other?" Sydney chips in, sharp as a tack, she already saw through our initial reaction at seeing eachother so unexpectedly.

"Yes." I reply, I can't help the smirk on my face.

"No." Daisy, or Maeve cuts in at the same time, staunching the smirk off my face.

I give her a sharp look and she averts her eyes. Sydney raises her brows at us, which I ignore, fixing my gaze on Daisy whose name is actually Maeve. Both equally fitting. Maeve sounds exotic, it suits her beauty. I am not exactly mad at the fake name, I suspected it that night afterall but it just feels unfair somehow that she gave me a fake name and I gave her my real one. It makes me feel like all the special connection I felt to her was one sided. That kind of stings.

And then the way she left the car. Her friend banging on the door. It all felt staged. Planned. I didn't even get a chance to ask for her number. I don't know when we both agreed that it would be a one night stand thing but I was ready to revoke that. Lay all my card down not caring how it looked considering that we didn't know eachother.

"Well, okay. Miss Tonkins, you are welcome to the final stage of the interviews. And congratulations for making it this far. You are only one of three applicants. We do apologize for the long process, but as I am sure you already know, Titan's Construct is not the kind of company it is today by employing unqualified employees. Our onboarding processes tend to be rigorous and full-bodied to weed out the applicants who don't fit our standards. Be rest assured, having scaled all the hurdles to get here, I am pleased to inform you that you can relax and let us take it from here. We have the CEO with us in this stage, he will be assessing you to determine if you're the perfect fit since he is the one you will be working closely with." Sydney looks at me expectantly, I stare back at her, confused. I didn't listen to her monologue, I was too busy staring at Daisy's face. Maeve's face. It is really her.

She doesn't meet my eyes but it is unmistakably her. I have gone to the club where we met, thrice since that Friday night. In search of her. She was on my mind every single day. I still taste her on my fucking tongue. Even now. If I focus hard enough, I can almost feel the lush softness of her lips. Her velvety kisses. I feel a familiar twitch in my pants at the thought.

Fuck, I have to screw my head on tight. I can't be having these kinds of thoughts in an important meeting like this.

"Mr. Smith. You can proceed with the brief assessment of Miss Tonkins now." Sydney nudges me with her sharp dark eyes from across the table.

"Okay." I say, I clear my throat like I know the first thing to ask in an interview like this. Sydney told me I just had to sit in and watch, now she is throwing me a curve ball.

"Miss Tonkins, is it Maeve or Daisy?" I blurt out of fucking nowhere.