Love Slave to My Devil CEO Boss R18

"What happened?" I asked Jeremy in a whisper.

Out of all the people in the room, I felt like Jeremy seemed most ready to talk to me and to update me on what was going on. Jeremy turned to me before heaving a sigh.

"The numbers came in regarding the donations and let's just say that they're not great…" Jeremy disclosed with a distressed look on his face.

"But I thought…" I murmured before trailing off.

"The other stats are fine. Views and all that. The initial scoring isn't bad either but donations are very flat…" Jeremy said before urging me to take a seat next to him.

I did just that and then he turned his laptop screen my way to show me the report that was opened on the screen. My eyes quickly scanned the report before stopping at the chart that showed the donation amount. Just as Jeremy had just told me, the chart was pretty much flat and that was a big problem.

"Do we know why?" I asked as I felt my brows knit together in a deep frown.

"Not yet. Julianna and everyone is trying to figure it out but…" Jeremy replied before ending with a sigh.

I didn't even dare look in Ace's direction because I didn't want to see any signs of stress on his face. There were countless possibilities as to why the donation figures may not pick up. The worst part was that it may or may not be directly related to the commercial. We could have the best commercial possible but the donations may still not pour in. There were just too many external factors that influenced the amount of donations such as macroeconomic factors and other factors that directly and indirect affected people's disposable income. In that sense, it just felt so useless for us to try to fix this problem. We could spend so much time diagnosing it and fixing it but still come up against a wall with no clear results at all.

"This is not good…" I mumbled more to myself than to Jeremy.

"You're right. This is indeed not good…" Jeremy replied sadly in agreement.

"There's still time, though. Is there a chance that donations will start pouring in later on?" I asked while still daring to hope.

"That's not usually how it works. Usually, the highest amount of donations would pour in on the first or next few days from the launch. Basically, the logic is that people who would donate would donate since the beginning. If they don't donate then they probably won't donate anything all the way until the end of the campaign," Jeremy explained.

I stared at the flat graph on the screen while thinking that what he said made a lot of sense. Those who saw the commercial and wanted to make contributions to the campaign would have done it already. Seeing the commercial a second or third time probably won't change or sway their decision much if at all.

"What do you think Ace will do?" I asked in wonder.

"I have no clue to be honest. He's aware of the issue already but he hasn't said anything yet. Julianna on the hand is going crazy with her team over there in that corner…" Jeremy said while pointing his index figure to a corner of the war room.

My eyes followed his finger to see a crowd huddled together in a corner of the room. People were discussing something in hushed tones. Now and then, I would hear some words from Julianna and the stress in her voice was clearly evident.

"Is there something that we can do to help out?" I asked hopefully.

"I suggest we sit still for a bit and let them figure out their first move to fix this. They're probably stressed out enough with how the figures are. If they need our help, they'll ask for sure…" Jeremy suggested before reaching out his hand and patting me softly on my shoulder.

"I guess there's not much that we designers can do…" I mumbled self-depreciatingly.

"Don't sound so sad and put some more trust in your team members. They'll figure something out…" Jeremy said with confidence.

I wanted to believe that everything would turn out well as well. Just like Jeremy, I wanted to put my trust in Julianna and the other team members. Most of all, I wanted to place my trust in Ace. I glanced over at Ace to see him standing up from his seat. I blinked in surprise when it looked like he was about to leave the room.

"I'm going out for a walk…" Ace declared as if to answer everyone's unasked question.

I stared at Ace along with everyone else in the room. For a moment, everyone's attention was on Ace and that was why he had to explain further what he had in mind. I could be wrong but Ace didn't seem that disturbed by the grim news as the other people in the room.

"I'm not getting any good ideas from just sitting here so I'm going to step out for a while. Don't worry, I'll be back shortly," he informed everyone reassuringly.

"Enjoy your walk…" Julianna said before she snapped her fingers at her other team members for them to return to focus on the work at hand.

The door opened and closed after Ace left the room. I was left feeling confused while sitting next to Jeremy. I closed my eyes and let out another sigh while thinking that I had completely lost count of the number of times that I'd sighed that day.

"Do we happen to know how our competitors are doing?" I asked.

After all, this was a competition and that meant that we also had to care about the performance of our competitors. Our numbers may not be what we had hoped for but it may be enough if our competitors are doing worst.

"No idea. No reports or anything has come in yet. Julianna's team member is trying to do some kind of assessment but the numbers are not in yet either," Jeremy replied.

--To be continued…