Love Slave to My Devil CEO Boss R18

325 Buried Past

My poor little heart couldn’t help but skip a beat and I had to turn away a little to hide my blush. Ace let out a soft laugh which made me feel even more shy and self-aware than before.

“I didn’t think that you two would search for inspiration in the company’s old archive but I have to say that the ideas you two came up with wasn’t at all bad. Seems like it was worth the effort of digging through all those old files,” Ace commented.

I smiled a little at him before Ace turned to focus his eyes back on the road ahead. The traffic was unusually light for rush hours during a weekday. While watching the attractive view of Ace’s side profile, I wondered if he knew that all his old works were actually quite carefully stored in the company’s archives. More accurately, I figured that Ace probably wasn’t at all aware because he did mention that he threw everything out. While I had no idea why he did that to his precious work documents, I was as equally curious about who had saved his work and stored them in such an orderly fashion in the archive.

“Did you know that a bunch of your past works are kept in the archive?” I asked after deciding that it probably wouldn’t hurt to bring it up.

“My work? Really?” Ace asked with clear surprise after a moment of silence.

The car conveniently got stuck at a red light and that gave Ace the opportunity to turn his attention to me. His soft brown eyes searched my face as if he could find the reason why his work ended up there. I wished I had the answers to that as well.

“Yes, really. You didn’t know?” I asked in return.

“No…” Ace replied with a blank look.

“Well, I have to say that it’s great that all your work hasn’t been lost. To me, they’re sort of like a treasure that should be discovered and rediscovered over and over again,” I said before beaming a smile.

.....

It was hard and I couldn’t help but enter into my fangirl mode. Ace laughed awkwardly and I picked up right away that this topic seemed to be making him uncomfortable; however, I didn’t quite understand why. I opened my mouth to ask him about it but then closed it again when I realized that now wasn’t quite the time.

“It’s all in the past. Not everything down there is going to be useful to you, so I don’t recommend that you go down there often. A lot of things that are outdated shouldn’t be used anymore,” Ace said with a clear hint of warning in his tone.

“I’ll keep that in mind. It’s a little hard to resist taking a peek at your old work papers,” I admitted truthfully.

“A guess a peek is fine…” Ace muttered.

What if…I took more than a peek at it?

That was what I wanted to ask but I managed to hold my tongue and ended up commending myself for doing so. I thought Ace would be a little bit more interested or exciting at learning that his old works were still safe and stored in the company’s archive; instead, he didn’t seem at all impressed. I guess being the creator and owner of the work, he probably favored his old works a lot less than the newer ones just like some artists who are more proud of their new work because of all the learning and polishing that they’ve done to their skills.

“Ace…” I called his name softly.

“What is it? We’re almost home,” Ace replied with his eyes on the road.

“Oh, it’s…nothing…” I replied hesitantly.

I wanted to ask him why he threw his old works away but then realized that he would probably tell me something along the lines of how the past isn’t as important as paying attention to the present or preparing for the future. Maybe that was how things really were for Ace. I held in a sigh before letting it out as silently as possible.

“Why does it look like it’s going to rain?” Ace said as he opened the door and got out.

I did the same thing and looked up at the sky above when I stepped out of the car. It was probably because I was too focused on Ace during our drive that I didn’t have the capacity to notice just how dark the sky had gotten above us. Evening was approaching but the sky was filled with dark and gloomy rain clouds.

“Looks like it’s going to pour…” I murmured in agreement.

“Let’s head inside,” Ace said as he offered me his hand.

“Ok…” I said softly as I slipped my hand into his.

By the time that the elevator opened up on his floor and we headed into the living room, the rain had already started to pour. It was fortunate that we got back to his place before the rain started because getting stuck in traffic wasn’t my idea of fun even if I had Ace as my company. The traffic always immediately worsened whenever it rained.

“It’s really coming down…” I said as I walked toward the large glass window.

The beautiful city view that usually stretched beyond my eyes could see was marred by the rain falling down and I couldn’t quite make out the city anymore. It started raining harder than before and it seemed like a full-fledged storm had started. The sound of the rain beating down echoed in the room and I started to feel uneasy inside. I didn’t have fond memories associated to the rain while I had many dark ones.

“Rina…” Ace called my name softly.

I looked over my shoulder just in time to feel his arms slowly pulling me back against his warm and tall frame. His arms around my waist as he held me to him made me feel secure and safe. Ace probably didn’t think much of it, but his embrace made me feel like he was sheltering me from the storm and all the dark times from my younger years that it reminded me of.

–To be continued…