Chapter 228: A Typical Woman
Chapter 228: A Typical Woman
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The meeting room door opened. Standing at the doorway, Mrs. Runkle looked toward Charlson Runkle, who walked out behind Eric. Only after receiving a slight nod from Runkle did she reveal a delighted smile.
“Mr. Williams, you’re a very outstanding person. I hope we’ll have opportunities to work together in the future.”
Now that matters had already been settled, Brian Kuzman no longer treated Eric as a negotiation opponent. With a calm expression tinged with slight respect, he extended his hand toward Eric.
“I think we will,” Eric replied with a smile as he shook the man’s hand.
This agent’s self-control truly was admirable. If someone else had been sabotaged by Charlson Runkle like this, they probably would have stormed out already.
However, Brian Kuzman did not linger long. After speaking a few indifferent words to the Runkle couple, he found an excuse and left.
Eric felt that although Stu could bring this agent enormous income, Brian Kuzman would definitely abandon the position of Stu’s agent afterward. Any capable agent would find it difficult to tolerate working with a client who was both almost completely uncooperative and very incompetent.
Checking the time, Eric saw that after more than half an hour of negotiations, it had just passed noon.
“Charlie, want to grab lunch together?”
After thinking for a moment, Eric asked the Runkle couple, who were whispering to each other nearby.
Charlson Runkle looked up and saw that Eric had once again put on a friendly expression, vaguely carrying traces of that high school boy next door from back then.
But no matter what, Charlson Runkle could never again look at Eric as that former teenager. He estimated it would be a very long time before he could forget the aggressive pressure Eric had displayed in the small conference room earlier.
“No, thanks, Eric. We still have things to do,” Charlson refused.
“No, I want to go!”
Hearing his father refuse, the little guy immediately protested in dissatisfaction. He even tried rushing toward Eric, but Mrs. Runkle tightly held him back and shot the boy several warning glances.
Eric knew the divide caused by conflicting interests between the two sides was already impossible to repair, so he stopped inviting them. After comforting the little guy a few times, he left with Elizabeth and the others.
Inside a restaurant near Century City, Allen and the driver very consciously sat at another table, leaving only Eric and Elizabeth seated across from each other.
After ordering, Elizabeth impatiently asked, “Eric, you finished negotiating that quickly?”
“How long did you think it would take?” Eric asked in return.
Elizabeth thought for a moment before saying, “I remember Rain Man with Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman negotiated for more than half a year last year, and it almost fell apart in the end. And Running Out of Time too. If you’d negotiated with CAA’s agents, it probably would’ve taken a long time. But I negotiated directly with Charlson Runkle.”
The woman nodded as if she half understood, then asked, “So how much salary is that little brat getting this time?”
“Eight million plus three percent of the North American box office gross.”
“So high? That little pervert really got off cheap,” Elizabeth said resentfully.
Eric figured the woman had probably been bullied by the little guy again while he was negotiating with the Runkles.
“It’s not high, and Stu is worth the price. If we’d negotiated with a CAA that fully controlled the initiative, the final price definitely would’ve been even higher. Unfortunately, that couple is neither smart nor trusting of others, so in the end they were the ones who suffered.”
“You really have no humanity at all. Weren’t they originally your neighbors?” Hearing the last sentence, the woman immediately changed sides again.
Although Eric liked clever little Stu very much, he no longer had any favorable impression of the Runkle couple. But he could not be bothered claiming credit for himself. As the waiter served the food, he lowered his head and silently ate.
“Are you this busy every day?”
By the time Elizabeth asked this question, it was already past six in the evening.
After running around all day, Eric had returned to his office once again. He still needed to review several documents regarding the merger between New Line and Firefly.
At this time, there were already very few people left in Firefly’s office building. Yet Elizabeth had not gone home after work like everyone else. Instead, she remained bored in Eric’s office, touching and looking around everywhere.
“Not usually. It’s just that there’s especially a lot going on lately,” Eric replied without raising his head.
“Oh.”
Elizabeth responded and opened the display cabinet of the filing shelf, casually pulling out a document to flip through.
It was not until seven o’clock, after Eric finished sorting through the documents before him, that he realized Elizabeth was still curled up on the sofa in the office.
“Everyone else already went home. Why are you still here?”
Seeing that Eric seemed finished with his work, the woman quickly stood up and returned the book in her hands to the bookshelf.
“There’s nothing to do when I go back anyway. Besides, if you do something, you should see it through to the end.”
Eric originally wanted to tease her a little, but seeing that the woman had followed him around obediently all day, he swallowed the words that had reached his lips.
But the woman clearly did not appreciate it.
“You were definitely about to mock me just now, weren’t you?”
“No,” Eric denied. “Let’s go.”
After saying that, Eric walked out first.
The woman hurried after him and stubbornly continued, “You definitely wanted to mock me. Something like ‘idle rich young lady,’ right?”
“Fine, I did think that,” Eric replied helplessly as he greeted the company security guards and walked toward the stairs.
The woman revealed an expression that said just as I thought.
“I worked an entire day and didn’t even ask you for overtime pay, yet that’s how you think of me. Hurry up and apologize.”
“Sorry.”
Eric could not be bothered arguing with her.
The woman curled her lips. “No sincerity at all. At the very least, you should treat me to dinner or something. I stayed with you this late.”
Eric happened to need somewhere to solve dinner himself, so he nodded.
“Fine.”
Elizabeth immediately became suspicious. “You agreed that easily? You’re not plotting something against me, are you?”
“You really are a typical woman,” Eric said in complete resignation.
Although she knew that if she pressed further, Eric definitely would not say anything flattering, Elizabeth still could not help asking, “What exactly do you mean by that?”
“Keep your distance and they resent you; get too close and they become disrespectful.”
Eric spoke a line of Chinese he had not used in a long time.
Elizabeth froze for a moment before quickly reacting, completely forgetting the earlier topic.
“That’s Chinese. Don’t think I can’t tell. There are a lot of Chinese exchange students at our school.”
After saying that, the woman immediately blurted out a terribly accented sentence:
“Tian wang gai di hu, bao ta zhen he yao. How was that? More standard than yours, right?”
Eric rolled his eyes. It truly was “standard.” Pulling off an entire sentence entirely in the first tone was no easy feat. He had to think it over several times before realizing what the woman was trying to say.
“Do you know what that means?” Eric casually asked as they walked out of the office building.
“They said it’s some kind of secret code. Like ‘Open Sesame.’ I can even write it too. You definitely can’t, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re amazing.”
Eric perfunctorily responded. Arriving at the parking lot, he looked around and asked, “Where’s your car?”
“I didn’t drive today,” the woman spread her hands.
Eric could only pull open his own car door. “Then get in.”
After dinner, it was already past eight when they exited the restaurant.
Seeing the woman still following behind him, Eric asked, “How are you getting back? Want to call your family driver to pick you up?”
Looking at Eric with an expression of disbelief, the woman said, “How can you be this ungentlemanly? In this kind of situation, shouldn’t you personally drive me home?”
“Please, Princess. Your house is in Malibu. A round trip would take two hours. Don’t torture people like this.”
“Then forget it. I’ll just take a taxi back.”
The woman looked completely unconcerned as she shoved both hands into her jeans pockets and paced a few steps along the curb.
Looking at the traffic flowing through the nighttime streets, she spoke in a faint tone, “But there have been several taxi murder cases in Los Angeles recently. I heard the victims were all young women. But don’t worry. If something happens to me, my father definitely won’t blame you.”
“Get in the car!”
Eric gritted his teeth as he forced out the sentence.
The woman burst into laughter and, like an agile cat, quickly pulled open the passenger door and slipped inside.
Seeing Eric climb in afterward with a depressed expression while she fastened her seatbelt, the woman laughed twice.
“Alright, I tricked you. I’ve been staying at Julia’s place these days. Although it’s not on the way, it won’t waste much of your time.”
Eric snorted and stepped on the gas.
Not long after the car started moving, the woman suddenly pointed ahead.
“There’s a movie theater up ahead. Let’s watch a movie before going back. It’s still early, and I haven’t watched a movie in ages.”
Eric pulled the car over by the roadside. He neither removed the keys nor got out, instead leaning against the steering wheel and turning his head to ask:
“Liz, what exactly do you want?”
Seeing the impatience on Eric’s face, the woman’s lips moved slightly. She waved her hand and said, “Forget it. I just casually suggested it on impulse. People like you always think too much. If you don’t want to watch it, then forget it. Just drive me back.”
Eric slapped the steering wheel.
“Fine. It’s just a movie.”
Not only would he watch the movie, he also wanted to see exactly what kind of tricks this little woman planned to pull tonight.
“Now that’s what a gentleman looks like.”
The woman quickly unfastened her seatbelt and got out of the car.
Eric drove into the parking lot. After getting out, he entered the nearby theater together with Elizabeth.
“My treat. What do you want to watch?”
Inside the ticket hall, the woman generously pulled out her small wallet.
Eric glanced over the promotional posters displayed around the theater and pointed at one of them.
“That one.”
“When Harry Met Sally?”
The woman leaned closer to look at the poster’s tagline.
“Looks pretty interesting. Let’s watch that one.”