Marrying My Contract Bride

Alicia

"Nothing, I just always found you beautiful. Hehehe," Mark replied, making Claudia laugh.

"Your gaze is too serious if you just want to say I'm beautiful. You surprised me," said Claudia, who was still laughing, followed by Mark.

Mark undid his intention to discuss marriage, because he was not too sure if Claudia also wanted it.

Those feet stepped slowly but surely, entering the high building with her laptop bag in her right hand. She smiled occasionally as she passed some of her company colleagues. She was Alicia, an employee who served as the personal assistant to the CEO of one of Canada's largest technology companies, New Space. Alicia joined the company almost three years ago. Before becoming Mark Pearce's personal assistant, Alicia first became the assistant of the founder of New Space, who is none other than Mark's father, Aaron Pearce. Alicia and Mark are actually not far apart in age. Both were born in the same year, but Mark was born three months earlier than Alicia. After completing her education for a bachelor's degree, Alicia was immediately accepted to work at New Space. However, assistant was not her first position, but Alicia had to be a regular employee for a few months. Her career slowly climbed until she was finally trusted to be an assistant to Aaron Pearce. Being an assistant was not a position that Alicia got easily. Alicia had to convince clients and win some projects, and only then was she trusted to become an assistant to the founder of New Space. Then, after Mark started to work for the company, Alicia was reassigned to become Mark's personal assistant. It was not without reason why Alicia was given the assignment, because Aaron thought Mark needed someone who knew the company well, who could also be relied on in any condition. Especially for convincing clients and preparing presentation materials. Alicia is considered to have advantages in terms of presentation and impressive presentation materials. Therefore, it was not uncommon for Mark and Aaron to hand over big clients to Alicia. Alicia herself is the daughter of Harry and Athena. Alicia's parents own a successful bakery. Actually, Alicia wanted to help her parents with running the business, but her father asked Alicia to find a company that could accept her to work. He wanted his daughter to gain experience and contact. Just like Mark, Alicia was also the only child in her family.

"Good morning, Sir," Alicia greeted Aaron when he happened to enter the elevator which had Alicia in it.

"Good morning, Alicia," Aaron replied, smiling.

Even though Mark was already the leader of this company, Aaron still monitored the company. Although not every day, Aaron visits the company quite often. Not infrequently Mark also needed direction from his papa. The truth is that Aaron decided to retire and immediately give his position to Mark so that business opponents felt they had room to bring down New Space because of the change of leaders. And assess if Mark is still not too sensitive to all the threats that competitors provide. Whereas behind Aaron's resignation from his position, he actually wanted to protect New Space without anyone noticing it. And when the attack was launched, that was Aaron's chance to send a bigger virus to the attacker. Aaron will even make the attacker's security system inaccessible. Aaron's intention is to lure the opponent to come, and he will also visit their system. Like a few days ago, when he found many viruses attacking New Space's security system. Aaron quickly took care of the intrusion. Disruptions like this were actually nothing new for Aaron. Aaron had also trained Mark to deal with all forms of interference.

Delivered on their system like this. New Space's select employees are also trained in system security. Of course, the purpose of the competitors sending the virus was to disrupt New Space's system and try to break into New Space's security system to find out important company data, even steal it.

"How about the meeting that will be held today? This is a big client, no mistakes," Aaron said.

"Yes sir, yesterday I prepared the material. And yesterday I also discussed it with Mr. Mark and Sam," Alicia replied.

Aaron will indeed be very firm and serious when it comes to work. Especially since the client was a big client, Aaron didn't want to fail to get cooperation. But actually Aaron no longer needs to worry about failing to get a client, because the big name New Space has become the identity of New Space itself. Where New Space is one of the largest technology companies in Canada, it is even quite well known worldwide. So, with this image, it is enough to make clients want to work with New Space. Aaron himself is a very smart businessman, so many entrepreneurs are reluctant to him. But the more successful someone is, the more people will want to bring him down. That's why Aaron always remains careful when working with others. Aaron always double-checks every project that his company will and is working on. Aaron is very careful about sabotage. Yes, that's Aaron, a smart businessman who is very careful about the business world itself. But behind his success as a businessman, Aaron, who still looks dashing, has long had cancer which is getting worse every day. All treatment efforts have been made, but it is only to slow down the growth of cancer cells that continue to spread. Until now, Aaron's cancer has entered the final stage. Aaron really wanted to be cured, but what the hell? All the recommended treatments had been done, but the cure never came. Aaron could only accept and leave everything to God. But one thing that really bothered Aaron's mind was that, before he left, Aaron really wanted to see his son get married. His only son, who would one day become the heir to New Space, is Mark Pearce. Since Mark already had a girlfriend, Aaron wouldn't be too worried, because that meant Mark would just get married right away, without having to look for a bride.

Talking about business rivals, New Space has been attacked several times, such as this morning. This morning, New Space was so busy that Mark had to go back and forth to the IT room to check the company's security system. New Space's security system was almost hacked by an unknown person. Fortunately, the threat was immediately recognized by the New Space IT team, so that it could be resolved immediately. But now the shipment of viruses still appeared, and it turned out that hacking efforts were still being made, making Mark also have to intervene.

"Damn, why are they so hard to track," Sam said, trying to find out which company had carried out this attack.

"They must have disguised their identity, Sam. This isn't an attack we're used to. Usually they will only disrupt the system by sending a virus, but this time they want to get into our system to hack it," Mark said.

"Then what should we do, Mark?" asked Sam.

"Shut down all New Space systems," said Mark.

"Are you sure?" Asked Sam, and Mark nodded.

"By us shutting down the systems, at least they will pause for a while for this hacking attempt," Mark said, and Sam nodded in understanding.

"Notify all employees in advance if the system will be shut down for a while," Alicia said, and one of the IT staff rushed to make an announcement through the microphone in the room. The IT room was indeed the center of corporate control and corporate information.

"Shut it down," Mark said after the announcement was made. At that instant, all systems in New Space shut down.

"So now what should we do?" Sam asked.

"Why did this happen, Ian?" Instead of answering Sam's question, Mark asked Ian, the head of New Space's IT team.

"I'm sorry Sir, it's probably due to a lot of malware interference, causing the system to be almost successfully hacked," Ian replied.

"Our system was almost hacked Ian, luckily it wasn't. What if it had been successfully hacked? Important data and company secrets could be accessed by people we don't even know. The company's reputation will also be bad, client trust will be lost. You know how serious this is, right?" Mark said, reprimanding Ian and the IT team harshly this time. Because the attack this time had indeed gone too far. If it was a little late, the New Space system would be successfully hacked by irresponsible people.

"Not only for Ian, but all the IT team. Pay more attention to every detail of the system. You are fully responsible for the security of the New Space system. Especially you, Ian, since you're the IT team leader. If there is any problem, you are the first one to take responsibility," Mark said with a serious face.

"Immediately resolve the disturbances thoroughly. Do not activate the system if I haven't asked," Mark said firmly.

"Yes Sir," Ian said, and Mark immediately left the IT room, followed by Sam and Alicia.

Mark looked so angry because of this unplayful attack. His face hardened, making Sam and Alicia shrink. The three of them were already in Mark's room, but the three of them were just silent. Sam and Alicia looked at each other, as if asking each other what to do. Not long after, Mark's cell phone rang and made Mark rub his face roughly before finally picking up the call.

"Hello," Mark said.

"What happened to the company system, Mark?" Asked Aaron. Yes, the one calling was Mark's father.

"It was almost hacked by someone, Dad," Mark replied.

"How come? Our system has layers of security," Aaron said.

"They keep sending malware. But because our security system is layered, they haven't been able to really get in," Mark said.

"Then what do you do now? Need Daddy at the office?" Aaron asked, and Mark shook his head.

"No need Dad, Mark has asked the IT team to immediately resolve the disturbances, before the system is activated again," said Mark.

"It's good that you immediately shut down the system, it's the fastest way that is most likely to be done," Aaron said.

"Yes Dad, it was Daddy himself who told Mark, if the situation is really critical, turning off the system is the only way," said Mark.

"Right, let Daddy know if something happens," Aaron said.

"Yes Dad," Mark replied, and the call ended.

"Mark, what should we do now?" Asked Sam, after seeing Mark finish his call.