Protagonist! Please Stay Away from Me 2!-Chapter 30: CEO?

I smiled widely as I looked into Alex’s eyes, letting the grin stretch my lips until it felt like a mask carved from ice. "What promotion? Alex, are you now a bigshot? If yes, why don’t you help me too? I mean, I am living a poor lifestyle, right?" My smile was totally fake as I looked at him, eyes locked on those predatory depths, probing for cracks in his golden facade. The words dripped with mock desperation, bait to lure out Bureau threads hidden in his "success."

Alex leaned back, savouring the moment like a protagonist from my novels, gloating over a conquered villainess. "I am going to become the CEO of the company," he announced, voice smooth as the congealing fettuccine on my plate.

What the fuck?

How?

Isn’t it too spontaneous?

"What position were you before?" I pressed, fork stabbing pasta harder than needed, sauce splattering like blood.

"I was a normal employee," he said casually, shrugging as if CEO leaps were every day. "Mid-level consultant. Handled data flows, disruptions. Then they saw potential—promoted me straight to the top."

Mother dearest clapped, eyes gleaming unnaturally. "Our boy’s a natural leader! Sharon, he’ll sort your struggles." Father nodded silently, vigilance sharpening.

So, this is the power of this world’s protagonist. Everything works in his favour. This world doesn’t allow its protagonist to suffer from any pain. If he did, then the benefits would be much higher compared to the normal benefits.

"CEO? Wow," I gushed, widening my eyes in feigned awe, gagging inwardly on garlic breath. "Help your poor sis? Writing gigs barely pay for mugs." I have more than enough money to sustain me for years. But lying doesn’t hurt, does it?

Alex’s foot nudged mine again, "love" turning sleazy. "Stick around, Sharon. I’ll hook you up. For me, family is always first, especially you." His grin promised more than jobs—harem delusion intact.

Honestly, he is much different than before. Maybe this is his real self, hiding in everyone’s plain sight.

I laughed, brittle. "You are too generous, big bro. Although, how did you achieve success this first? I mean, you should have some tricks under your sleeve, right?"

Alex’s eyes flashed with some unreadable emotions that shifted rapidly behind his carefully maintained protagonist mask. It was as if he remembered something critically important in that exact moment, but he forced it down ruthlessly to regain control over himself, causing his jaw to tighten by just a fraction, which was enough for my trained writer’s eye to notice and catalogue immediately.

Hmm... interesting. My mind raced at full speed, analysing that subtle flicker as a potential sign of some anomaly that he had experienced before. Or some suppressed knowledge that only he knew.

"Everyone has some secrets that they cannot reveal to others," he said smoothly with a voice that carried the tone of a velvet blade effectively deflecting my probing question. "The same goes for me, as you might expect."

"Where do you work exactly?" I pressed forward with an expression of feigned innocence on my face, leaning closer while completely forgetting about the pasta as its cold sauce pooled on my plate like congealing lies.

"I work at Aether Dynamics."

I had never heard this company’s name before in my life. It produced no hits in any of my writing research dives across various platforms, no whispers appeared in online author forums I frequented, and nothing tied it directly to The Bureau’s direct supervision. This seemed like a completely new player on the scene, or possibly a cleverly disguised Bureau front cloaked in legitimate corporate sheen. It served as a perfect puzzle piece for my infiltration plan, and now the CEO "brother" had just handed me a vital thread to pull without realizing it.

The mother figure chimed in brightly, appearing entirely oblivious to the undercurrents, and said, "Aether Dynamics is revolutionizing data security in groundbreaking ways, Sharon! Alex leads it all now with great success." The father gave a curt nod in agreement, but his eyes drilled into me with intense focus, which felt like either a subtle warning or a calculated assessment of my intentions.

"This sounds highly prestigious and impressive," I murmured while keeping my smile unwavering and steady, even as my internal gears ground together in furious calculation. His brief flash of emotion indicated he might be recognizing me as the coming source of disruption he needed to handle, like Kelshin in my novel—a protagonist’s way of handling the women around him. The foot nudge under the table had turned more insistent now, and his "love" veered dangerously into possessive territory without any doubt.

"Why don’t you help your poor sister get a foot in the door there?" I teased lightly, baiting him to reveal even more information.

"You will get your chance soon enough, Sharon. Family always comes with certain perks," he replied as his grin widened noticeably, keeping all his secrets locked down tight behind that charming exterior.

The dinner’s farce dragged on slowly after that moment, with tiramisu served that tasted as sweet as pure deception and endless toasts raised to Aether’s so-called "bright future." I endured every second of it patiently, mapping out my next steps in my mind.

After the dinner finally ended, Alex and I went downstairs together to the driveway, where he ruffled my hair with a familiarity that felt invasive and wrong, then leaned in to kiss my cheek with lips lingering far too long. "See you soon, Sharon," he said, his voice carrying that possessive purr before he turned and left in his sleek car, taillights fading into the night.

My face paled instantly as revulsion crashed over me like a tidal wave. I literally vomited right there on the pristine lawn, the bitter flood of fettuccine, garlic bread, and tiramisu surging up my throat in a violent heave. Doubled over, hands on knees, I retched until my stomach emptied, the acrid taste burning my mouth while tears stung my eyes. It wasn’t just the overcooked food; it was him.

I wiped my mouth with a trembling hand, spitting the last remnants onto the grass, the suburban facade blurring through nausea. Straightening shakily, I stumbled to my car, key fob slipping in sweaty fingers. Engine roared to life, radio static hissing like rifts waiting to birth.