03 His eyes'are gleaming with malice

Gemma's POV.

The whole situation is now clear.

Luke Shaw is the newly appointed general manager of the car dealership. Yesterday, he appeared at the sex culture festival and happened to bump into me while I was sneaking out for fun.

After looking through the employee records, he recognized me; then, at midnight, he sent an email cutting my bonus in half.

That halved bonus is the price I pay for sexually harassing him.

So, after that tall figure disappears, I recover from the shock and begin to console myself: this is fair.

Then I think, our grudge should end here, as long as I keep a bit of distance from him in the near future.

After all, if he really wants to get back at me, he can easily fire me.

I optimistically return to my workstation, make calls to customers, and pitch car products.

As the day is about to end, Luke notifies everyone to attend a meeting. There are 16 positions at the dealership, from the showroom manager and salespeople to quality inspectors in the workshop, totaling over 50 employees.

The meeting room is packed, and I stay in a corner by the window, burying my face on the desk, playing dead.

As I expect, Luke simply introduces himself and urges us to work hard and serve the customers well, and similar things. Objectively speaking, the man's language is concise and straightforward, unlike the previous general manager, who can drag a sentence out for an hour.

When the man begins to say "Today's meeting is over," I breathe a sigh of relief and pick up my notebook and pen.

The summer weather is unpredictable; it is clear in the morning, but now it's starting to rain lightly.

What should I eat for dinner? Maybe I'll order takeout at home and watch a movie while eating.

As I am deciding whether to watch a comedy or an action movie, the man's words make me stop in my tracks.

"Sales staff, stay here for a skills test."

He walks in my direction.

I admit I was a bit hasty in packing up, but I didn't mean to make him angry enough to conjure up a test out of nowhere, right?

Moreover, I have taken the skills test. All employees will receive training after joining the company. Only after passing the test can they officially take up their posts. At that time, my score was 98/100, ranking first.

Now the window is half-open, and the wind and raindrops are hitting half of my body.

"Being a formal employee doesn't mean you can always stay familiar with the business. People need to have a sense of crisis," Luke pauses, his gaze sweeping over the name badge with my name on it. "What do you think, Miss Gemma?"

Now everyone's eyes are on me.

I clench my fists, look at him for a few seconds, and then force a smile, "I think you're right, Mr. Luke."

Luke returns to the podium and takes out a stack of papers. As the meeting room gradually empties, leaving only the sales staff, Luke distributes the papers to us.

I pick up my pen and look at the first question.

It is a multiple-choice question: "The minimum ground clearance, approach angle, departure angle, wheel radius, and the smallest turning radius refer to the car's ( )"

There are four options below the question.

"A. Maneuverability B. Stability C. Agility D. Mobility."

As I read the question, Luke stands beside me, staring at me.

I don't know what he means, so I look up at him.

He is expressionless, lets out a snort through his nose, and then returns to the podium.

What? Does he think I'm an idiot who knows nothing?

I angrily write down an "A" on the paper.

The test lasts one hour. The first part consists of 30 objective multiple-choice questions, followed by a subjective question requiring a description of a complete sales process.

There's a lot that can be said about this. On a macro level, there are nine steps from customer development to after-sales follow-up; on a detailed level, how to avoid annoying customers when calling them, and how to deal with customers' rejections—all of this falls under customer development.

By the time I finish the multiple-choice questions, half an hour has passed.

I start writing an essay on the test paper, discussing the sales process.

When I reach the part about how to provide a better experience for customers during test drives, my pen suddenly runs out of ink.

I shake the pen, but it still has no ink.

I look up and see that Luke has already left the room.

I ask the colleague on my left if she has an extra pen, but she shakes her head, saying she only has one.

I ask another person, and he also has only one.

The meeting room door opens, and Luke walks in. "Miss Gemma, you seem quite active." He stands in front of me.

I calmly raise the pen, "It's out of ink."

Luke looks at me for a few seconds.

I look back at him. When he walks in, he is wearing a pair of gold-rimmed glasses, and the lenses adds a faint glow to his eyes.

"Could you please find me a pen? Thank you," I continue.

A gust of wind blows in, and I shiver unexpectedly.

"Wait a moment," Luke replies, then leaves the meeting room.

A few minutes later, he returns and places the pen on my desk.

"Thank you," I say as I continue writing.

This little interruption isn't much, but it does break my concentration. It takes me a few minutes to regain my train of thought before I resume writing furiously.

During this time, Luke stands in front of me the entire time.

The quiet atmosphere is suddenly broken by the sound of a ringtone.

"Miss Gemma," Luke says suddenly.

I look up at him.

"Time's up," he says, turning off the alarm on his phone. "You need to hand in your paper now."

I'm speechless.

I'm just at the last step—after-sales follow-up, where I need to remind the client about our future services and continue to develop their needs.

I have only one more sentence to write, but Luke reaches out and pulls the paper from my hands.

The pen drags a long line across the paper as it's pulled away.

I look up at him, but his glasses are reflecting light, so I can't see his eyes.

But I don't need to see them to know that they're gleaming with malice.

There are other people in the meeting room, so why did he collect my paper first?

He's doing this on purpose.

After leaving the meeting room, I immediately call Charlotte.

"Where are you?"

"Do you have time?"

"Let's go out for a drink."

Charlotte says she's at home and that it's raining today.

I raise an eyebrow. "I ran into that man from the sex culture festival again. Don't you want to hear the gossip?"

She immediately changes her tone, "Where should we meet?!"

I hang up the phone, and as I walk to the parking lot, all I can think about is Luke Shaw.

He's definitely the coldest, most heartless boss I've ever met. I feel like every time I look at him, my body temperature drops a bit because he's like a walking block of ice.

What was I thinking yesterday? How could I have thought he was hot?

And he only seems dignified on the outside. Otherwise, why would he go to a place like the sex culture festival?

The target audience for a black-and-white striped zebra masturbation cup must be perverts like him.

He has zero charisma, and no woman in her right mind would ever give him a second glance.

I sit in the car and buckle my seatbelt. As I grip the steering wheel and look up, I suddenly freeze.

Luke is standing right in front of the windshield, and a beautiful woman is standing opposite him.

They're talking.

I instinctively roll down the window a bit.

The rain has stopped now, and their voices are just loud enough to reach my ears.

"How was your day?" the woman starts.

"Fine. What are you doing here?" Luke replies.

"I was passing by and thought I'd stop by to see you."

I roll the window down a little more.

"After we met yesterday, you didn't contact me again," the woman steps a bit closer.

"I've been working," Luke frowns slightly.

"Really? You didn't even have time to send a text? Or is it that you just don't have any feelings for me?" the woman pauses, her voice sounding a bit hurt.

Wow.

My eyes widen as the gossip flame in my heart starts to burn brightly.

"To be honest, our blind date was arranged by my mother. I personally—" Luke starts to say.

"You don't like me," the woman cuts him off, pausing before continuing in a slightly aggrieved tone, "Is it because I asked to meet you at the sex culture festival?"

Luke goes silent.

"I asked you to go there to test your level of lust. My ex-boyfriend was too lustful and cheated on me while I was on a business trip, which is why we broke up."

So—that's it.

I suddenly realize that when Charlotte and I saw Luke at the sex culture festival yesterday, sitting there looking bored, he was actually just waiting for his blind date?

"I'm sorry about what happened to you," Luke says after a pause. "But I'm not interested in a relationship right now. I apologize for wasting your time."

The woman starts saying something else, but the rain starts up again, and I can't hear her anymore.

I sit in the car, watching through the raindrops on the window as the woman opens her umbrella and walks away.

My phone rings.

"I'm out," Charlotte says over the phone. "It's raining, and I'm still going out to drink with you, Gemma. There's no other woman in the world who loves you as much as I do."

When people feel truly exasperated, they tend to laugh.

So I laugh and say, "Stop with the sentiment, okay? Just admit it—you just want to hear the gossip."

"Where did you see him?" Charlotte asks.

"At the dealership."

"Was he there to buy a car?"

"No. I'll tell you when we meet up." I pause. "But that guy seems pretty popular. You don't know this, but I just saw a beautiful woman come to see him, and he..."

Suddenly, someone knocks on my car window.

I turn my head and see Luke's icy face staring back at me.

Startled, I drop my phone onto the car mat.

"Hello? Hello?" Charlotte's voice continues on the line.

Luke bends down slightly, resting one hand on my side mirror, and stares at me with those cold eyes.

"Enjoying the show?" He glances at my phone, then back at me.

I give an awkward smile.

"Boss, I didn't see anything."

I pick up my phone and press the hang-up button. "I was just making a call in my car. Really, I didn't see anything."

Luke keeps staring at me with that cold gaze.

"Boss, it's raining. You'd better get back to your car. See you tomorrow."

Then I quickly drive away.