"Thank you for that lovely compliment. Now that we have resolved your issue, you have to help me with mine," he said and started discussing the intricate details of the upcoming meet.

Jia Li walked out of Eric's cabin feeling a little a.s.sured. During the past month, Ying Hui had blocked every attempt of hers to aid him with any sort of work. He was determined to keep her at bay. But listening to Eric just now gave her a slightly better perspective about his behaviour. She decided to give it a little more time. Apart from this dissatisfaction, she had no other complaints with her life currently.

The company didn't have too many employees due to the specialist nature of its work. Most of the personnel force comprised of either engineers or scientists or mathematicians. There was probably more IQ gathered under one roof here than at a regular university!

Thankfully, most of them were friendly enough to accommodate her. Jia Li had started to find her limited horizon expanding everyday due to this exposure. Since she was a.s.sistant to the CEO, she was asked to attend all meetings happening at the lab or the office on boss's behalf. Hui hardly attended any of them, hence she ended up being a part of all of them. She took meticulous notes which she mailed to the boss after sifting through them, post the meeting. She tried to keep the mail short and concise at the outside chance that Ying Hui would happen to look at them.

Since last week, the access to his office mail had been shared with her via a brusque note from him.

"Kindly go through the mails received and only forward me the ones which are relevant," that was the first and only direct communication which she had received from him till date.

She had gladly taken on that role. But in order to understand some of the context in those mails, she often sought out people from various departments in the company to help her out. This also gave her a better understanding of the kind of work which was being done by Earthly Matters.

Ying Hui put down Eric's call. He had called to update Hui about Ms. Lin's meeting with him. Eric had urged him to open up a little and give her a fair chance at work. Hui laughed ruefully to himself about the situation.

What Jia Li and Eric hadn't realised till now was the fact that this was Hui's way of initiating her into the company. Ying Hui believed in hands-on learning. He had received Jia Li's first mail containing the notes from one of the meetings, couple of weeks ago. Out of curiosity, he had opened the mail and had been impressed with her interpretation of everyone's inputs. The points had been laid out succinctly and concisely. He had recognised her potential, the way he would of a new element. He had decided that the best way to hone her skills was by throwing her at the deep end. He had instructed the heads of different departments to ensure that Ms. Lin attended all business meetings. Last week, he had upped the ante by tasking her with managing his mail account. No one was aware of this in the company else they would have been shocked by such a development. Everyone was aware of Hui's paranoia regarding privacy issues.

Though he had currently tasked her with handling only one of his IDs, but that itself was a huge deal. Thankfully, she wasn't a blabber mouth and hadn't discussed the same with any of her colleagues. As a result, she hadn't realised the enormity of the trust which he had placed in her within such a short span of time.

He had heard Eric's ranting but didn't bother correcting his impression about the situation. He wanted to see if Ms. Lin would persevere and realise the truth herself. In the meanwhile, if he was being misunderstood, so be it. This wasn't a new thing and he didn't really care much about what people thought about him.

Two days later, Jia Li was contemplating what to wear for the client meet when her phone rang.

"h.e.l.lo Karim, I have been meaning to call you for the past few days but it kept slipping my mind," she picked up the phone and apologised.

He brushed that aside and informed her about the birth of his baby girl.

"She looks like an angel, absolutely adorable. You have to come down to Tunis soon and bless the baby," he told her, excitement and pride evident in his voice.

Jia Li a.s.sured him that she would visit them soon and disconnected the call after a couple of minutes.