Chapter 84: Double heart emoji
Ivy blinked and slowly pulled the phone away from her ear, staring at it in disbelief.
But when the crying continued without pause, she cautiously brought it back again.
"Why are you crying, Mister Assistant?" Ivy asked coldly, clearly unimpressed.
Her relationship with Taylor had never exactly been warm. In fact, the two of them barely tolerated each other most of the time. Which was exactly why hearing a grown man openly sobbing into the phone left her genuinely confused.
What could have possibly gone wrong for him to seek comfort from her of all people?
On the other end, Taylor finally calmed down a little before sniffing loudly.
"It’s all your fault!" he whispered dramatically. "What exactly did you do to the boss for him to drag all of us back to the office and force us into overtime?!"
Taylor nearly wailed again, but the moment his eyes landed on Xander through the glass walls of the conference room, he instantly lowered his voice.
Inside the room, Xander was currently destroying the entire executive team with nothing but sharp words and terrifying silence.
The atmosphere was so tense that even the air-conditioning seemed too scared to make noise.
One manager was sweating so badly that his tie looked soaked.
Another looked seconds away from updating his resume.
Meanwhile, Xander sat at the head of the table with a blank expression, flipping through documents like a grim reaper reviewing souls before judgment.
Taylor shivered.
"Boss has been in a terrible mood since he came back," he muttered miserably. "He rejected five proposals, scared the finance department into silence, and made the marketing team redo an entire presentation because one font looked ’emotionally irritating.’"
Ivy: "..."
Taylor sniffed again. "Do you know how terrifying it is when a man says ’emotionally irritating’ with a straight face?"
Ivy pressed a hand against her forehead.
"So you called me just to complain?"
"Yes!" Taylor sounded completely shameless now. "Please fix whatever fight you two had. At this rate, the entire company is going to collapse before sunset."
Taylor had never been this terrified of Xander before.
Today was supposed to be his holiday. He had originally planned to spend a peaceful evening at the Old Emerson Residence, eating expensive desserts and doing absolutely nothing productive.
Instead— Xander had suddenly summoned the entire executive team back to the office like the apocalypse had arrived.
And if that wasn’t enough, the man was currently handing out verbal death sentences inside the conference room.
One poor employee had nearly cried because Xander stared at his presentation for three seconds too long.
Another manager was currently typing so fast that his fingers looked ready to file for resignation.
Meanwhile, Taylor had become the biggest victim of all.
"Do you know what he said to me earlier?" Taylor whispered dramatically into the phone. "He asked me why the quarterly report looked ’lazy.’ HOW CAN A REPORT LOOK LAZY, MISS IVY?! IT’S A PDF!"
Ivy: "..."
"And the finance team?" Taylor continued miserably. "They haven’t blinked in twenty minutes. One guy started praying during the meeting."
Before Ivy could respond, Taylor suddenly gasped. "Oh no—he’s looking this way."
Taylor’s heart nearly leapt out of his chest, but he quickly looked away and whispered urgently into the phone,
"You better help us out before Boss gives us all heart attacks."
With that, he immediately ended the call.
Meanwhile, Ivy remained sitting on the bed, staring blankly at her phone as she tried to process the entire conversation.
She genuinely had no idea why Taylor was blaming her in the first place.
"Aren’t businessmen supposed to work all the time?" Ivy muttered with a scoff. "Then what’s wrong with him working on weekends?"
Clearly, she believed she had done absolutely nothing wrong.
But as she recalled how genuinely terrified Taylor had sounded over the phone, she found herself hesitating.
"Ahhh... should I help him or just let him suffer?" she debated out loud.
A part of her wanted to leave Taylor alone to deal with his terrifying boss himself.
But another part of her almost felt bad for him.
"...But why should I help him?" Ivy suddenly snapped to herself. "Wasn’t he the one who claimed I was possessed?"
The memory of Taylor screaming that she was haunted while she nearly strangled him instantly resurfaced in her mind.
"Hmph."
Still unconvinced, Ivy sat there scrolling absentmindedly through her phone when suddenly a new message popped up.
[Mommy, it’s me, Leo. Save this number(Heart Emoji)]
Ivy blinked. The moment she read the text, her mood visibly brightened.
Without realizing it, she adjusted herself more comfortably on the bed before quickly typing back.
[I will....] Her fingers paused over the keyboard as she debated which emoji to send. Just as she finally found the perfect one—
Another notification appeared.
[I want to meet you. — France]
Ivy’s expression instantly darkened. After that last phone call, France had gone completely silent, only to suddenly message her now asking to meet.
"Hah. As if I’d do that," she scoffed.
She was already about to block him when more messages flooded in one after another.
[And don’t you dare tell Mom about this.]
[If you do, it won’t end well.]
France continued spamming messages while Ivy grew increasingly irritated.
"Argh, why is this man so annoying?" she groaned.
Just as she prepared to block him, another message from Leo suddenly appeared.
[Mommy, are you there? Why did you stop replying? (Sad emoji)]
Ivy instantly opened Leo’s chat again.
Her expression softened almost immediately as she quickly typed back a response before returning to France’s messages and blocking his number without hesitation.
A smug smile appeared on her lips, but it disappeared instantly
"Oh." She blinked. "I forgot to send the emoji."
Quickly reopening Leo’s chat, Ivy finally sent the heart emoji she had been debating over earlier.
(Double heart emoji) -send
Only after that did she finally relax as the smile returned to her face. But soon, her gaze drifted back toward the box and the half-burned photograph resting inside it.
The amusement in her expression slowly disappeared.
Silence once again settled over the room as she carefully closed the box and locked it away inside the cupboard.
***
Meanwhile, back inside the conference room, Taylor sat stiffly in his seat, nervously glancing between the employees and his boss.
Why hasn’t she done anything yet? He wondered desperately.
Surely after hearing his suffering, Ivy should have called Xander by now.
Ha... that woman, Taylor cried internally. Is she taking revenge on me?
Despite the emotional breakdown happening inside his mind, he maintained a perfectly professional expression on the outside.
At the head of the table, Xander continued reviewing document after document before coldly rejecting yet another proposal.
Everyone in the company already knew their boss was terrifying.
But today? Today he had ascended to another level entirely.
He wasn’t just rejecting proposals anymore, he was crushing people’s confidence, careers, and probably blood pressure along with them.
One employee had already started searching "how to resign politely" under the table.
Another looked like he hadn’t blinked since the meeting started.
At that moment, a nervous employee stood near the projector screen, trembling as he continued presenting.
"Sir... if we proceed with this marketing strategy, we estimate a twenty percent increase in—"
SLAM!
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