On Monday morning, I entered the office with a confident smile.

I didn't avoid the private elevator like the plague I had been for a week before the office closed down. I was pleasantly surprised to see Elian and the CFO of our company, Kevin Williams.

"Good morning, Mr. Storm," I greeted professionally, then gave Kevin a less formal smile and said, "Hello, Kevin."

Elian arched an eyebrow at the use of the first name. He knew I didn't call anyone by their first name, except Anya. But it was part of Lance and my plan.

When I talked to Lance on Thursday night, he gave this brilliant idea that I just had to flirt with someone else to make Elian realize what he was missing out on.

He could talk all about me moving on, but if I actually did and started dating someone else, Elian would die—that's what Lance said, at least.

In simple terms, I was going to take advantage of Elian's jealousy to make him want me back.

Mission Jealousy was on.

I stood closer to Kevin than Elian and started chatting, "How do you feel coming back to the office after so long, Kevin? I had such a hard time getting up this morning."

"Same. My roommate threw water on my face because he was so annoyed with my alarm ringing for so long," Kevin said.

Kevin and I had never been close, cordial at most. But Lance told me Kevin was a friend of his, so he was trustworthy. Kevin even had a girlfriend, which would make him less prone to actually hitting on me.

He and I had already talked over the phone last night and planned everything. He was fully on board. He would only flirt with me when Elian was present.

"That must have been terrible," I said sympathetically, and Elian rolled his eyes.

"I wish I had a girlfriend to wake me up in the morning. Someone like you, you know?" Kevin said with a flirtatious smile, leaning only a little closer to me.

Elian coughed loudly.

"Aww, that would be nice for me too. You can cook, right?" Kevin nodded. "You could cook for me every morning; it would be very convenient."

Elian coughed again.

"Mr. Storm, would you like a mask? You're coughing too much," I said innocently. "You know, how many viruses are out there these days. We all should be careful, no?" I took the clean mask I always keep in my bag and held it out.

Elian took it begrudgingly and put it on. "Thank you, Ms. Fleur," he said through a clenched jaw.

I turned back to chat with Kevin, but we had already reached our floor. We were both on the same floor, so we both got off, not before I said, "See you later, Mr. Storm."

Elian seemed like he wanted to say something, but he decided against it.

I laughed a little when the elevator doors closed and turned to Kevin. "Thanks for the help, Mr. Williams."

"No problem. It's always nice to help out co-workers and make our boss sweat a little," Kevin agreed with a chuckle of his own.

"True."

I couldn't wait to see more of Elian's cute jealous expression.

There was an executives' meeting in the late morning in which Elian, Kevin, and I were all present.

I sat beside Kevin, of course.

There was no way Elian could remove him from my side and sit there myself because the CEO always sat at the head of the conference table. But I forgot he was the CEO for a reason.

"Mr. Williams, can you come and sit here, please? I would like to talk to you about the financial condition now," Elian requested, a little more polite than usual.

"But Sir, I can come to your cabin later on for that—" Elian cut Kevin off smoothly.

"I said now, Mr. Williams." Elian's tight-lipped smile was borderline threatening.

"Yes, Sir." Kevin got up and sat directly across from me, which was adjacent to Elian. "So Sir, you wanted to talk about—"

"Start the meeting now," Elian declared, leaving Kevin baffled.

I hardly suppressed my laughter.

Elian is so petty.

Throughout the hour-long meeting, Kevin and I exchanged sneaky smiles—which weren't so sneaky in Elian's eyes as he kept glaring at the two of us secretly. He was almost tempted to knock over the bottle of water near Kevin.

He seriously was so bad at hiding his jealousy—it was outright hilarious.

When the meeting was over, Kevin stood up and walked over to me. "Hey, why don't we have lunch together in the cafeteria today?"

"Sounds great—" I started to say, but I was interrupted by Elian.

"Actually, it doesn't. Ms. Fleur, I have some business with you, stay back a little."

"But Mr. Storm, it's lunchtime," I tried to argue in vain.

"Yes, I'm aware, Ms. Fleur. But it's urgent. So could you stay back?" Though Elian was outwardly smiling, I could see the don't-you-dare-say-no look behind it.

"Okay, Mr. Storm. Kevin, I will eat with you tomorrow, okay?" I told Kevin with a smile.

"Sure. Work comes first, right?"

We both did a fist-bump as I said, "Right."

After the conference room was completely empty, Elian backed me up against the table, making me sit on it slightly, and growled lowly, "Okay, explain now. What the fuck was that?"

"What was what, Mr. Storm?" I asked, smiling at him like a Barbie doll.

"Don't play dumb, Alena." He caged me between his arms by placing them on my either side of the table. "I have eyes and ears. I saw you flirting with Mr. Williams."

"Yes, and so?"

"Why the fuck were you doing that little charade?" he asked, trying to keep his voice level.

"It wasn't a charade, Mr. Storm. I'm doing what you asked me to. I'm trying to move on," I explained in a serious tone.

Elian gave me a disbelieving look and uttered, "No way."

"Yes way," I responded.

He placed his hand on my waist and pulled me closer, his chest flushing with me. His lips were only inches away from mine. My breath was caught in my throat due to our closeness.

I felt like he was almost going to kiss me, but I couldn't let that happen yet, so I said, "Mr. Storm, you are forgetting that you were the one who didn't want us to get back together, so you can't hold me back from seeing other men. Unless... you don't want me to be happy."

He bit his lower lip and pulled back from me instantly. "You are right, Ms. Fleur. That was wrong of me just now. You have every right to see other men, and I'm no one to stand in your way," he uttered, the words seeming to burn his tongue and throat.

I stopped my lips from twitching upwards and fixed my pencil skirt as I got down from the conference table.

"Mr. Storm, did you actually have any business with me or was it just a lie to have a moment with me?" I asked.

"Actually, yes." He cleared his throat and said, "I did need to talk to you. Remember you asked Jace to hack into all of your team members' laptops and see who copied the military assignment data?"

I nodded. "Did you find out who it is?"

He shook his head. "None of them copied it."

I let out a huge sigh of relief. "I knew it. None of them could be the mole."

"However, there's one person whose laptop wasn't checked," Elian said, looking at me cautiously.

"Whose?" I asked with interest.

"Yours, Ms. Fleur."