The CEO's Worst Decision

chapter 2: Mr Grumpy

Cassian’s expression remained unchanged. He might as well have been carved from the same cold glass as the building outside.

“Explain,” he said.

One word. Flat. Precise.

Mia blinked. Most people would have bristled at being called stupid by a stranger in their own office. Cassian Vale simply requested evidence.

She flipped back through the pages, talking as she went.

“Page four. Projected annual return is listed at fourteen percent. But if you look at the cost breakdown on page seven, the infrastructure alone eats eight of that before you’ve even accounted for political risk or currency fluctuation. Page nine assumes the local government will approve the land-use permits in under six months. That’s optimistic to the point of fantasy. And here—” she turned the folder around and slid it toward him, tapping a column of figures “—someone rounded up the secondary revenue streams by nearly twelve percent without adjusting the corresponding expense lines. Either they’re bad at math, or they wanted the proposal to look stronger than it is.”

Cassian’s gaze dropped to the numbers. He did not reach for the folder. He simply looked.

The silence stretched.

Mia lasted four seconds.

“I could be wrong,” she offered, because the quiet was starting to itch. “Maybe there’s a brilliant strategic reason for inflating the numbers that I’m too junior to understand. Or maybe the person who prepared this has a personal vendetta against clean data. Or maybe they just really, really hate you specifically. Hard to say. You’re not exactly radiating warmth right now, so the list of possible motives is long.”

Cassian’s eyes lifted again. Gray-green and unreadable.

“You talk a great deal.”

“Occupational hazard. And personal one. Mostly personal.” She folded her hands in her lap to keep from gesturing. “Silence makes me nervous. Nervous makes me talk. It’s a tragic cycle. I’ve accepted it.”

He did not smile. He did not frown. He simply watched her the way someone might watch a spreadsheet that had started producing unexpected results.

“Continue,” he said, leaning back on his chair. posture emaculatly calm.

Mia exhaled and kept going. She walked him through every inconsistency she had found, every assumption that didn’t hold, every place the logic frayed. She spoke too fast in places. Corrected herself twice. Asked rhetorical questions he made no attempt to answer. At one point she muttered, “Honestly, if this crossed my desk I’d set it on fire and then bill someone for the matches,” before remembering where she was and clearing her throat.

Cassian never interrupted.

When she finally finished, the office felt very quiet.

He closed the folder with one precise motion.

“How long have you been reviewing investment proposals?”

“Professionally? About two years. Unprofessionally? Since I started noticing that most of the ones that look impressive fall apart if you dig past the summary page.”

“And you felt comfortable calling this one stupid in front of the man who would be signing it.”

“I felt comfortable telling the truth,” Mia said. Then, because she couldn’t help herself, she added, “Also, you told me to tell you what I thought. I thought it was stupid. I’m very obedient when people give clear instructions.”

Something flickered at the corner of his mouth. It was gone before it could become an expression.

Cassian leaned forward slightly. The movement was small, but it somehow made the desk between them feel narrower.

“Most candidates spend the first five minutes trying to impress me,” he said. His voice remained low, even, cold. “They flatter the company’s vision. They quote our last quarterly report. They pretend not to notice when the numbers are wrong because they assume I already know and they’re afraid of looking confrontational.”

Mia opened her mouth.

He continued before she could speak.

“You walked in, insulted a proposal prepared by one of my senior analysts, and then kept talking.”

“In my defense, the proposal started it.”

Cassian’s gaze remained steady on her face. For a moment he said nothing. The air conditioning hummed softly. Somewhere far below, the city kept moving.

Then he asked, “Why do you want this position?”

Mia considered lying. Something polished and professional about growth opportunities and alignment with company values.

She discarded the idea immediately.

“Because I’m good at it,” she said. “And because I need a job that pays enough for me to keep my apartment and stop calculating whether I can afford both groceries and the electric bill in the same week. Also, your building looks like it judges people, and I respect that kind of commitment to aesthetic intimidation.”

Cassian’s ears, she noticed distantly, had gone the faintest shade of pink at the tips.

He did not acknowledge it.Instead he asked, voice still perfectly even, “Do you always speak to potential employers this way?”

“Only the ones who hand me broken proposals and ask for my opinion.”

Another stretch of silence. Cassian studied her as though running some private calculation. Mia resisted the urge to fill it. She lasted almost seven seconds before failing.

“You’re very quiet,” she observed. “Is this the part where you tell me the interview is over and security will escort me out? Because I can save them the trouble. I remember the way to the elevator. I made a mental map. It involved a lot of glass and existential dread.”

Cassian’s eyes narrowed a fraction.

“Miss Bennett.”

“Yes?”

“Stop talking.”

Mia closed her mouth.

He regarded her for another long moment. Then he reached for a different folder—thinner, unmarked—and placed it on top of the first.

“There will be a second assessment,” he said. “Tomorrow. Same time. If you are late, do not bother coming up.”

Mia’s heart gave a single hard kick against her ribs.

“Does that mean—”

“It means,” Cassian interrupted, already turning back to his computer, “that you are not dismissed. Yet. Leave the first folder. Take the second. Review it overnight. And Miss Bennett?”

She paused halfway out of the chair.

Cassian did not look at her when he spoke again.

“Try not to announce your opinions about the architecture to the entire lobby on your way out. It is distracting.”

Mia grinned, bright and unrepentant.

“No promises.”

She was almost to the door when his voice stopped her once more—quiet, cold, and just sharp enough to cut.

“And do not,” he said, “get any ideas.”

Mia glanced back.

Cassian was still facing his screen. The tips of his ears were unmistakably red.

She decided, for once, not to comment on it.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Mr. Vale.”

She stepped out into the hallway, closed the door gently behind her, and only then let the slightly hysterical laugh escape under her breath.

Tomorrow.

She had a second interview with the Iron Vale.

And somehow, against every reasonable expectation, she was looking forward to it.

Mia kicked the apartment door shut with her heel, dropped her bag like it had personally offended her, and made a direct line for the kitchen.

The oversized bag of salt-and-vinegar chips was already waiting on the counter, emergency supplies. She tore it open with her teeth, shoved a handful into her mouth, and dialed Lizzie before she had even finished chewing.

Elizabeth “Lizzie” Moreau answered on the second ring, voice already loud.

“Tell me everything. Did he hire you? Did he fire you on the spot? Did you accidentally propose marriage out of pure nerves? I need details. Chronological. Emotional. Possibly illustrated.”

Mia collapsed onto the couch in her childish blue pajamas, the ones with little cartoon clouds that she refused to apologize for and propped the chip bag against her chest like a life raft.

“Lizzie. Lizzie. He is the coldest human being I have ever met. I think his blood is refrigerated. I think he schedules his own heartbeats. I called a multi-million-dollar proposal stupid to his face and he just looked at me. No blinking. No emotion. Just pure, distilled judgment.”

Lizzie gasped like she was being paid for it. “Oh my god. A walking ice sculpture. What does he look like? Tall? Brooding? The kind of face that makes you want to commit crimes just so he’ll scold you?”

“Tall. Annoyingly handsome in a ‘I haven’t smiled since the early 2000s’ way. Dark hair. Eyes like he can see your tax returns. And he barely spoke. I filled every silence like a professional anxiety clown and he just… sat there. Taking notes in his head. Judging my entire bloodline.”

“Mr. Grumpy,” Lizzie declared immediately. “That’s his name now. Official. Trademark pending.”

Mia snorted chips. “Mr. Grumpy. Perfect. I’m using that forever.”

They talked for two hours.

Mia reenacted the entire interview with increasingly dramatic voice changes. Lizzie interrupted every thirty seconds with gasps, theories, and unsolicited advice . “If he ever loosens his tie even one millimeter, that’s basically a marriage proposal in emotionally unavailable language”.

At some point Lizzie launched into office gossip from her own firm—someone in accounting had gotten pregnant by a married senior associate—and Mia nearly choked.

“No way.”

“Way. And she told everyone at the Christmas party while holding a glass of champagne like it was a microphone.”

“Lizzie. No.”

“Yes. It was chaos. Beautiful, unhinged chaos.”

They gossiped until the chip bag was empty and the sky outside had gone dark. By the time Mia finally hung up, her voice was hoarse and her cheeks hurt from laughing.

Mr. Grumpy, she thought, staring at the ceiling. Tomorrow’s second assessment was going to be interesting.

The next morning Mia stood in front of her mirror and made a decision.

She wore a soft cream blouse with delicate pearl buttons, tailored black trousers that made her legs look longer than they were, and low heels that said “competent” instead of “trying too hard.” Her dark hair was left in loose waves. Subtle red lipstick. Glasses polished. Professional. Polished. Not overly dramatic.

She had no idea she was already hired.

When she walked into Cassian’s office at exactly 9:00 a.m., the second folder from the day before tucked under her arm, he was already at his desk. Same immaculate suit. Same unreadable expression. Same atmosphere of permanent winter.

Mia sat without being asked and immediately started talking.

“I reviewed everything. Twice. The Southeast Asia numbers still don’t make sense unless someone is deliberately cooking them, and the risk assessment on the renewable energy partnership is almost aggressively optimistic. Also, is the coffee in this building any good? Because I passed three people in the hallway who looked like they’d sold their souls for caffeine and I need to know if I should lower my expectations now. Do you take coffee? Of course you take coffee. You look like a man who drinks coffee so black it develops a personality. Do you ever take sugar? Wait—don’t answer that. You probably consider sugar a moral failing.”

Cassian did not look up from the document in front of him.

Mia kept going.

“Also, your receptionist still hasn’t smiled at me. Is that a company policy? Like, is warmth against the dress code? Because I waved and she looked at me like I’d tracked mud onto the marble. Which, for the record, I did not. I checked.”

Still nothing.

She tilted her head. “You’re doing the silence thing again. I’m going to assume that means I’m either brilliant or about to be escorted out by security. Possibly both. Can you at least blink twice if I’m not fired yet?”

Cassian finally raised his head.

Gray-green eyes met hers with the temperature of a frozen lake.

“You’re hired,” he said. “Your first day starts in three minutes.”

Mia stared.

“…I’m sorry. What?”

“You heard me.”

“No, I need you to repeat that because my brain just blue-screened. Hired? As in hired-hired? Starting today? In three minutes?”

“Yes.”

She gestured at herself, baffled. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? I would have dressed more immaculately. I would have worn the blazer. I would have— I don’t know—ironed my soul or something.”

Cassian’s gaze flicked over her outfit once, clinical and brief.

“I knew if I told you in advance,” he said, voice perfectly even, “you would have dressed overly dramatic for your first day. You have the aura of someone who would.”

Mia’s mouth fell open.

“That is— okay. Rude. Accurate, but rude. You can’t just say things like that. Who raised you? Wolves? Extremely efficient wolves?”

Cassian did not dignify that with a response.

Mia threw her hands up. “Unbelievable. Mr. Grumpy over here just—”

She froze.

Both hands flew up to cover her mouth.

Her eyes went wide.

Cassian’s expression did not change. But something in the air shifted—sharp, attentive, dangerous.

He had heard her.

Of course he had heard her.

The silence that followed was long enough for Mia to contemplate moving to another country under a new name.

Cassian glanced at the clock on his desk.

“It is now three minutes,” he said calmly. “Go get me coffee. Black. No sugar.”

Mia lowered her hands slowly.

“…Yes, sir.”

She stood on legs that felt slightly unreliable, turned, and walked out of the office with as much dignity as a person who had just called their new billionaire boss Mr. Grumpy to his face could manage.

The hallway outside was quiet.

Too quiet.

As she made her way toward the executive kitchen, she passed two junior analysts who immediately stopped talking and straightened like soldiers. A woman from legal took one look at the direction Mia had come from and physically stepped out of her path. Someone whispered, “That’s Vale’s new assistant,” the way people once might have whispered about plague carriers.

By the time Mia reached the coffee machine, the truth had settled over her like a second skin.

Everyone at Valecrest International was terrified of Cassian Vale.

And she had just called him Mr. Grumpy.

Out loud.

Where he could hear her.

She poured the coffee with extreme care—black, no sugar, no room for error—and whispered to the cup like it might offer protection.

“We are so completely screwed.”