After class, Brooklyn was still recouping from the recent frightening moment. She confessed, "I was frightened out of my wits just now. Lucky you handled it coolly."
"What's so scary about him?" Cordelia was puzzled.
"Have you heard about his past stern behavior? He fired the whole PR Department. You're with him every day, so you might not feel it. But what about before? You were terrified of him too." Brooklyn said.
Cordelia wasn't in the company when he fired people, so she didn't know about it. But she used to be quite afraid of him. Every time there was a team building activity, she would feel extremely nervous as soon as his phone rang.
"You have to continue helping me tomorrow." Brooklyn said.
"Help you with what?" Cordelia stopped abruptly, sensing that Brooklyn had some other plans after hearing her words.
"You need to dress down, and make yourself look poor. Like you come from a less fortunate family." Brooklyn said with anticipation.
"Alright, so you want to show Edwin's parents that you don't despise poor friends. I get it. You're afraid I'll steal your thunder." Cordelia said.
After work.
Cordelia got into Ronan's car.
"I'll go to Brooklyn's house tomorrow afternoon with her. Edwin is staying at her sister's house too. In other words, she's going to meet her future mother-in-law. She asked me to accompany her, and I agreed. I want to ask for leave." Cordelia said seriously.
"Go ahead." Ronan's voice was gentle.
He knew what Cordelia had said in the training class today was a temporary coping strategy, probably to soothe him in case he was angry. But regardless, it sounded good.
Silence fell between them again.
Cordelia suddenly remembered that he had once fired the entire PR Department, so she brought up the topic, "I heard that you fired the whole PR Department before. Why?"
"I didn't like them." Ronan said.
Cordelia hummed in response, somewhat puzzled by his actions. It was so hard to find a job nowadays, and he just fired everyone because he didn't like them. Was that reasonable?
"Any other reasons?" Cordelia asked again.
"They were overpraising me in the media articles." Ronan said.
Cordelia suddenly felt very awkward, she turned her head to look at Ronan, "Don’t you like being praised?"
Ronan glanced at her and continued driving, "It depends on who's praising me."
After waiting for a while, she saw that he had no reaction. Cordelia leaned back and fell asleep in the back seat.
But Ronan knew clearly that what she said was even more flattery.
On Saturday, Cordelia purposely picked out her most plain clothes to wear. She didn't usually wear makeup, she just washed her face and applied moisturizer. She carried her canvas bag and wore her large-framed glasses from her school days.
She stood in front of Ronan, adjusting her glasses, "Do I look plain?"
Ronan was reading on the sofa. At her question, he put down his book and looked her up and down.
"Not plain, but cute." He replied. He meant it. She had a small face to begin with, and the black-framed glasses made her face look even smaller.
"Huh?" Cordelia was a bit at a loss. She went back upstairs and found even more plain clothes. She changed from her ordinary sportswear into her school uniform. Carrying a big backpack, she appeared before Ronan again.
"Do I look plain now?" She asked Ronan again.
Ronan was already frowning, "Not plain! Does your friend want you to highlight her beauty? No way!"
"It has nothing to do with her!" Cordelia retorted.
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