A.N: Thank you for the review. I am sorry for the grammar mistakes. I am not a native English speaker and I did make quite lot of them, I will pay more attention on it

This is my first fic, I love reviews, please feel free to comment.

Warning: very long chapter ahead

Disclamation: I owned nothing

Ch.2

Earl Grey and Lasagna

"Well, isn't here my favourite boss?"

Hearing the familiar mockery, Rosalie turned around to see her shared secretary with Edmund, Elaine.

Giving her an eye roll, Rosalie exasperatedly replied, "You should not have any favourite. Watch out, Edmund may hear it."

The 52- years- old secretary pouted her excessively-glossed lips and said "He does not care if he is my favourite boss. He only cares about whether YOU think he is a good boss." With that, she winked at Rosalie in an exaggerated manner.

Carefully not to make any reply, Rosalie tried to shrug it off casually. The fact he cared how she thought of him at work was just another proof that their relationship was purely professional.

Rosalie walked to the office opposite to hers, took a deep breath and knocked.

"Come in," a deep velvet voice sounded.

Rosalie stepped in. Edmund Pevensie sat behind his oaken desk, legs crossed. The top two buttons of his shirt were unfastened with sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His tie hung on his neck in the most casual manner. Each time when Rosalie was fixated by his pair of deep, mesmerizing dark eyes, she needed to snap herself out of the trance they set her in.

Elaine, on the other hand, sensed immense coldness and sharpness from his staring. Despise the flippant attitude she dared to displace in front of Rosalie, she transformed herself into a professional secretary when facing Edmund. Smoothly ran through their schedule of today, Elaine fled the room just as a deer with a hunter on its back.

Rosalie let the silence sank after Elaine had left. Working with the harsh boss for three years by now, she had developed the ability to read his emotion, the current under the still surface. Right now, she could almost imagined the gears and gadgets of his brain moving and working in lightning speed to calculate, to evaluate whether or not to deliver his final decision of their argument. Rosalie knew he needed her to play low first. From the light crease of his black browse, from the way his muscles tensed under his shirt, she knew he did not favour how things turned out. Her playing low would certainly put him in better mood.

"I am sorry I stormed off yesterday. It was immature and unconstructive." Rosalie broke the silence and waited to see his next move.

Finally, Edmund dropped the pen he had been twirling on his hand and sighed, "You are right. I will only cut the budget to 28%, but…"

Rosalie continued, "and I will make it clear to the contractor that no more accident is allowed to delay the progress and burden the cost."

At that, Edmund visibly relaxed and his tone softened, "I am sorry for calling you sentimental yesterday."

Rosalie raised her eye browse. "Sentimentality is a virtue." This was her version of saying "I forgive you."

Edmund's lips cured up slightly. The tension between them was now fully dissipated. Edmund sighed and said, "Come on, we have stuff to do. The group was here. Are you ready?"

Rosalie smiled and followed him out of his office.

Somewhere deep within her knew the question was pointless. She was prepared to confront anything just to stay by his side.

There were downsides of being the Assistant Project Manager for Rosalie. For example, some people just read her title too fast to misinterpret her as "assistant TO the Project Manager", especially for those misogynists such as the Calormenes sitting across the table. Rosalie felt a headache started to grow when she was asked to refill their coffe cups. Usually, the mistaken manager would love to give them a taste of her wrath. Today was not the day. Calormen Power and Narnia were in delicate situation. Peter and Edmund needed to maintain a peaceful relationship and to settle for a subtle competition between them, instead of a vicious one. Not to mention the fool was Rabadash, son of the Calormen CEO and the heir of the tycoon's throne. Rosalie took a deep breath and searched for any methods to deny him and clarify her position with all the courtesy she could muster. Much to her surprise, a cold and sharp voice terminated the embarrassing silence

"A cup of cappuccino for me please and only two pumps of syrup." Edmund spoke without raising his eyes form the documents on his hands.

Rosalie could not help but stared at him open mouthed. As if sensing her growing anger, Edmund gave her a reassuring glance and continued, "Miss Westwood here will probably want a cup of Earl Grey, no cream. There is a Starbucks downstairs. Please be quick, gentlemen, our time is precious." Edmund spoke as he dropped the documents and looked around the table. His voice delivered a certain degree of authority and edges which stunned Rabadash and the others to speechless.

After a long pause, one of the Calormenes finally started, "Let's go on…" The meeting speedily recovered.

Though Rosalie could not suppress the small smile dangling on her lips, at the back of her mind, there was a thought kept poking her, didn't Ed believe in her ability to handle the situation?

Not long after their meeting, Elaine announced Peter's arrival when they were discussing their work to be done.

Peter Pevensie was surely in good mood when he stepped into the room with his tousled golden hair and sparkling blue eyes. "Thanks Elaine, you are such an angel. Did you change your lipsticks, you surely look sexier than yesterday," Peter tricked the experienced secretary into blushing and laughing with his flowery words and flippant wink.

Rosalie and Edmund immediately sighed and shared each other's eye rolls. If there was anything Peter was famous for other than being a young, successful entrepreneur, it must be his flirtatious charisma that seemed to have swoon ladies from all age groups…and even men.

"Hey Pete, congrats of being voted the magazines as one of the most wanted man in the city," Rosalie could not help but mocked at her big boss and also to irritate Edmund. She knew crystal clear how Edmund thought of his brother's infamous character.

"Stop it, his head is big enough already. I don't want it to explode in my office; the cleaning bit can be frustrating." Edmund scowled at her.

"Now now now, I do believe it's not the right attitude in speaking with your big brother but because I have a favour to ask, I would kindly let it go," Peter put his hand on his chest in mock hurt.

Edmund stared at him in alert, "What exactly would you like to ask?"

Peter sheepishly scratched his head as he spoke, "you know, tonight is the Enterprises 'Night…"

"No!" Edmund yelled before Peter could even finish. "I would not be the sole representative so you can mess with girls elsewhere tonight!"

"Who said I won't be going? It's just that I want to borrow Rosalie." Peter quickly explained as to calm his enraged brother.

Rosalie, who was previously enjoying the bickering between them and thinking how cocky or annoyed Edmund could become when Peter or Susan were present was now snapped out of her trance.

"Don't draw me in there. What have you in stored for me?" It was Rosalie's turn to be suspicious now.

"Oh nothing. It's just my original partner suddenly doesn't want to go because of some…ar…commitment issues between us and I was thinking if you would like to come instead." Peter dropped the bomb casually.

"Nar, Pete, I am not going to clean up your mess. Besides, I have a date tonight." Rosalie wasn't really paying attention to what she was saying, not to mention the sudden drop of temperature in the room.

"A date?" Peter asked in amusement as he could see the stormy expression of his brother getting darker and darker as seconds go by. His face hardened at Rosalie's words.

Rosalie was now flipping the documents on her hands absent-mindedly, unaware what she had triggered. "Yeah, he is a single dad living next door. I helped him to look after his son last weekend when I was free. He asked me to come and have dinner with him tonight as a thank you."

"He has a kid?!" Edmund's voice was as harsh as whiplash.

"Yep, he makes such delicious lasagna. I can smell it each time he cooked." Rosalie was indulged in her good dream of lasagna but she did suddenly feel cold. Should she turn down the air conditioner? And why did Peter doubled over and bit his lips? His shoulder was shaking, was he ill? And Edmund looked cross. Not just cross but furious with his stony face and eyes burned with such intensity that could bore holes in her soul.

Edmund stared at her long enough that even the hair at the back of her neck stood up. Suddenly, he turned to Peter and said, "Perhaps it's a good idea for Rosalie to come tonight, she can work on her business network."

"I don't think my business network needed any effort and…"the spoke brunette had not even finished her argument before Peter chimed in, "Lovely, Rosalie, you don't need to worry about make ups and dresses. I will tell Susan, you just need to drop by at her office. See you tonight, m'lady." He smiled with his white teeth showing, as satisfied as a dog barking its teeth after eating a juicy bone.

"This is outrageous!" the deputy exclaimed. However, Peter retreated faster than Jadis in front of Aslan. So she turned to the prime criminal and released her wrath.

"You did it on purpose!" She pointed at him to reinforce her accusation. The accused dark haired was now in no sense cross. In fact, he leaned back in his chair, legs crossed with a cocky smile gracing his lips.

"Why you have made such conclusion?" he raised his left browse, knowing for certain it would only annoy his colleague to the extreme since she was not capable for such gesture.

Rosalie narrowed her eyes, "you are not happy I persuaded you to cut 28% only of the budget so you pushed me to the ball tonight as punishment!"

"Rosa, for your record, if you want any punishment, I have a much more creative way in mind."

The sentence certainly came out wrong. The two of them were immediately put in an embarrassing silence. Rosalie kept her eyes on her pointy high heel shoes. Now she was definitely sure there was some problem of the air conditioner because the room was God- damned hot all of the sudden!

She finally squeezed up the courage to look at Edmund. His cockiness was gone. With mixed emotion (partly amused and partly disappointed), she noticed he was biting his lips and holding his forehead, a gesture of him regretting what he had said. Rosalie sighed and found her exit, "I think I...ar…better get prepared."

Before she turned to leave, she asked, "Though, Edmund, why did you take care of Rabadash for me today? I could fight my own battle!"

Edmund visibly softened and looked at her with rare tenderness, "maybe I just don't want my right-hand girl to fight for a battle so undeserving."

Rosalie waited in her office for the sweetness to sink in before setting off to find Susan. Sadly, "my right-hand girl" just could not be simplified as "my girl".

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