Chapitre 19: You can keep the job

"How can I stop you from resigning?" Mason asked.

"Make me president." She requested.

It was a shocker, she wanted to be president, was she joking? From the looks of it, she wasn't joking and was damn serious.

"How about you be my assistant?" He offered.

"I still stand on being president. She shook her head.

"Then be vice president." Mason offered next.

"Hey!" Diego exclaimed on hearing his position on giveaway.

Tessy thought for a while. Vice president wasn't such a bad idea either. She turned over to Diego who didn't so much have a say. She wanted things to be fair, so she said,

"I'll be vice president, if he agrees." She pointed at Diego.

"Absolutely not!" Diego immediately disagreed.

"I'll pay you your regular salary if you drop your position for her." Mason offered and it got Diego thinking. Such a tempting offer.

"As much as that offer tempts me, I still stand by my principles. She has to beat me in what I'm good at if she wants to take my job." He said.

"What are you good at?" Tessy asked.

"Hacking."

"Fine! Let's start!" Tessy sat on the chair and crossed her legs. She didn't flinch at the idea of competing with Diego in hacking. Was she so good?

"Ahem! You'll have to break my firewall and I'll break yours. But let me warn you, my firewall is pretty tough." He warned.

"And so is mine." She said,

They got two laptops and had thirty minutes to break into each other's firewall. The first to break in and send a message to Mason, wins. And so they began. It was tough but wasn't so tough that Tessy couldn't handle it.

Back at Tessy's house, they got an alert that someone was trying to break through Tessy's firewall so they started fighting back making it a lot more difficult for Diego.

After twenty seven minutes, Tessy was done and sent a skull emoji to Mason. He laughed at it.

"I guess she beat you." Mason said.

"I don't understand. Every time I tried, it was like someone was fighting back from elsewhere." Diego said. "I guess you got the job."

"No." Tessy shook her head.

"What do you mean no?" Mason asked.

"You can keep the job. You're cut out for it. That firewall was tough but nothing that I can't handle. You weren't able to break through mine because of the guys back home. They must be the reason you couldn't break through, so it wasn't a fair game." She said and then she got a call.

"Mistress, someone tried to break through your firewall but we averted the crisis." The man on the line said.

"Okay. Good job." With that she cut the call. "Just as I said, they fought back."

"If you knew they'd fight back then why did you go ahead with it?" Diego asked, a bit confused.

"I guess it's due to boredom." She said and turned to Mason. "Your company's lame and boring."

"Oh, and you have a better one in mind?" He asked expectant.

"Not really. I'll resign anyway." She folded her arms.

"Do you believe that I'll blacklist you from this company and ruin your name?" Mason threatened but Tessy was unfazed.

"Go ahead. I'll just enter a new field like law or the entertainment industry. I'm pretty good looking, I'm sure I'll make it work somehow. They make big cash anyway." She said, nonchalantly.

They stared at her, dumbstruck. Where did she get that confidence from?

"Are you so great?" Mason asked but she simply shook her head.

"No, I'm just me." She said,

All this while they never saw her smile. Not even after she won. It was like, smiling didn't have anything to do with her at all.

"Don't resign. I'll do whatever you want except give you the president's position." He pleaded sincerely. "Just be my assistant. You'll get paid really well."

Tessy gave it a thought.

"Hm, what am I going to do as your assistant anyway?" She asked.

"Well, you're at my beck and call. You'll follow me to the functions, banquets, cocktail parties, business trips and all of that." He said.

"Being your assistant sounds fun. At least I'll get to use up the knowledge that's stored in my brain. There's a lot of them." She said but didn't mean to sound funny, but he smiled anyway.

"So will you do it?" He asked expectantly.

"Hmm, on one condition."

"What is it?" He asked ever ready to fulfill it.

"You, let me clear my curiosity from four years ago." She said going closer to him and he stood up, walked out of his desk and stood before her. She wasn't short but he was taller than her. She took off the spectacles and looked straight into his eyes.

"Four years ago, eh? What is it?" He grinned.

"Just so you know, this will be a one time thing." She made it clear.

"What is?" He asked and she held onto his tie dragging his face down to hers.

"This!" She tucked her lips to his. What a shocker it was. He never expected her to do that but now that she did, who was he to refuse? He kissed back.