ENDURANCE

To be honest, Hailey was just playing charade with Troye with the sole purpose of getting rid of him by doing it himself. But… why did she have to feel shock toward the news from June? Why did she have to be surprised upon knowing that Troye bought that drink in a several kilometers away?

“I always believe that this world is as wide as human’s mind, but I guess not at all! Look how we just ran into each other earlier, and now’s together in the same wall!” June still couldn’t believe the coincidence that happened. He still had been talking about it until now.

“Aren’t you getting sick of yourself, June? Because I am.” Nonchalantly, Hailey told June. “You have been talking about the same thing for an hour straight, my goodness!” she yelled.

June halted and twitched his eyes. He was caught off-guard with it. Though, he has used himself to hearing shouts from the CEO, he just didn’t see it coming. Meanwhile, Troye just responded at all the blabbers of June by smiling and nodding at him.

“Anyway, the headquarters will be having a meeting later at 5pm.” Hailey calmed down. “Their presence makes me sick, so you are going to attend on my behalf.” She leaned on the car’s backrest as she casted a glance at June who’s making a face at her right now.

“Nothing’s new. Madam. You always pass to me your responsibilities after all. I should have become the CEO, right Troye?” June casted a sideward glance to Troye who was surprised at the mention of his name.

Troye lifted his gazes to the rearview mirror, and saw his boss looking at him with her one brow raised. He just swiftly rolled his eyes and chuckled at him. Is he allowed to roast his boss? Nothing such is included in the contract, right?

“Anyway, June, you can just drop us off to the nearest mall—no, you yourself should drop off when we’ve arrived at the mall rather. You can go back to the company using commute.” She smiled devilishly at her secretary whose piling madness is vivid on his face.

“Hah! You never failed to make me mad at you, madam.”

“The pleasure is mine, Mr. June.” Hailey smiled sweetly at the raging secretary.

Troye furrowed at the casual conversation that these two have, especially how the two of them roast each other. This doesn’t seem like a relationship of the boss and secretary, he thought. He wanted to butt in at first, but he noticed that they do seem to get used to bickering, so he held back.

As said, June did drop them off to the nearest mall which happened to be the biggest one in this city.

“I hope you enjoy yourselves. And Mr. Gomez, don’t be too kind to her, she doesn’t deserve such. Bye~” And June flew away, leaving Troye and Hailey.

A few seconds passed and Hailey started to walk toward the entrance of the establishment. “Get used to how we treat each other. I can read your expressions earlier.” Hailey snickered, pertaining to his expression inside the car earlier.

Troye didn’t say anything and just followed her from behind.

“Since you’re already here, I will take advantage of you. There will be a party on next Saturday, and I want you to be the one to bring all the stuffs that I’m going to buy. Got it? Of course, you do, you’re not some sort of young lad after all.” Hailey walked fiercely as if there’s a red carpet on the floor meant for her, as the heels of her sandals creates a noise.

Some people they had passed seemed to recognize her because of their gazes following her, but she gave no damn thing about it and just walked continuously as if she owned the entire building. There was even a moment where she raised her eyebrow at one random person, rolled her eyes, and even looked at them with a look of disgust on her face.

He didn’t want to do it, but Troye was forced to apologize to those people on her behalf.

They have arrived at the formal dresses and gown later on. Hailey started to pick up those gowns that suits to her taste and threw it up to the man behind her without even looking at him. Troye was caught off guard because of the sudden gown abruptly approaching toward him, fortunately, he got good reflexes and managed to catch them on time.

“Hey, you.” Hailey called out one staff while facing one dress, the latter was flustered.

“M-Me?” the female staff stammered.

“Who else?” Hailey raised her head and gave the staff a death glare.

“Y-Yes, ma’am.” The staff quickly ran toward her.

“This one seems too big for a small body like mine, I want the small sized one.” Hailey stated with a hint of command on her voice.

“But there’s no—”

Hailey cut her words short. “You… should have it.”

The female staff got agitated as those menacing voice echoed in her ears. So, she had no choice but to comply.

“I presume you have a good eye, Mr. Gomez, so which do you think of these would suits me best?” Hailey turned around to look at her bodyguard, only to see the half body of a man as the upper part had the pile of gowns that she had been throwing to him.

Hailey snickered at the sight.

“Should I add more?” she whispered.

“Where on earth is your brain, Mr. Gomez? There are baskets here to put the stuffs on instead of carrying them all.”

As much as how Troye wanted to talk back to her, he remained his pose and held back all the words he wanted to say and bury it down in his tongue. He chose this job with awareness, so he had to endure.

He didn’t know there were baskets, though. Fortunately, a kind staff got him two where he could put those gowns. Hailey rolled her eyes at the sight.

“Where in the world did that staff go? It’s been five minutes!” Hailey asked out of nowhere, fuming mad.

“She already said that there are no small size available, ma’am.” Troye replied as he heaved a sigh. Though, the staff’s words were cut short, Troye could still picture out what she was trying to say. “She must be looking for one to another place.” He added.

“Then, what?! Are we supposed to wait for her here and waste my precious time?!” she really is in ablaze.

“We can ask for the manager to just deliver it to your house, ma’am.” Troye suggested, but Hailey just shut it down.

“Never mind! I’m paying these stuffs I’ve chosen.” She walked away, intentionally making her heels creating a sound. As a bodyguard, Troye is inclined to follow her wherever she goes.

As Troye get closer to the blazing Hailey, he heard an exclamation from her meant for the cashier. “What?!”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but the machine is currently unavailable that’s why we don’t accept cards for the meantime.” The cashier apologized gently.

“Are you kidding me? God!” Hailey threw her head back until she saw her bodyguard who just got here. “Do you have a spare cash? Don’t worry, I’ll pay you right away—”

“Not enough, ma'am.” I’m broke.

“Oh, God! This is driving me crazy. How about your manager? Get me your manager. Make it fast!” Hailey is getting the other people’s attentions because of her raised voice and unpleasant behavior, there were even some folks who are taking some photos and videos of them, but she didn’t give a damn thing about them.

But as how she doesn’t care about those people, it’s opposite to Troye who couldn’t stand with such audience. Politely, he cleared the space by apologizing to them. However, he couldn’t do anything with the videos and photos that has been taken.

“If you won’t delete the clips and photos, I’m going to sue you all. I’ll remember your fucking faces.” Hailey threatened them, which made those people hide their phones and walked away.

“What’s the fuss in here—” the newly arrived person cut her words short upon recognizing the person who was the root of the ‘fuss’.

“Oh God, it’s Hailey Dixon!” she hissed.