Part B: Chapter 30

“Aidan? Pst, hello?”

I felt a jabbing pain in my stomach and I snapped back to reality. I glared at Carter who couldn’t look bothered about what he had just done. I had been lost in thought, trying to figure out whether what I saw was real or just my mind playing games with me. It just had to happen while I was inside, what the fuck was actually wrong with me?

“What the fuck do you want?” I barked, closing the folder that was in front of me.

“Now, now, that’s no way to speak to your CTO especially when I have something important to discuss with you,” he replied in a sing-song voice.

I groaned, I was finally back in the office after so much pestering from my assistant, whose name I had forgotten. But apparently I had so much work to do and Carter couldn’t do it, as if he wasn’t getting paid enough.

“What now?”

Carter spun on the chair he had made himself comfortable on in my office with a mug of coffee he had asked what's-her-name to bring for him. “The board would like an update on the fairs of the company and the current standings,” he said, twirling a pen in his left hand.

“When is the meeting?” I sighed, I hadn’t gotten any sleep last night and the last thing I needed was to have the board on my arse about the company as if I was running it to the ground when I had saved it from bankruptcy in Gerald’s hands. Those arseholes didn’t give me enough credit.

“Today, like in a few minutes,” he replied and pushed the chair away from my desk.

“What the fuck?” I growled loud enough that everything in the office shook. “What do you mean in a few minutes?”

Carter bit his bottom lip in thought then sighed, “I tried to tell you multiple times on your way here but you never listened to a word I said. They called to schedule a meeting with you but you weren’t in the office so Ivana called me and asked me to pass the message.”

Ivana, that was her name, she was competent enough to do all the work that she was assigned and I was glad that I had taken a chance and hired her despite Gerald and Shelly’s objections.

“I can try and stall them long enough or cancel the meeting but sometime soon you are going to have to meet up with them,” Carter said sombrely. “They may be a pain in the arse every single chance they get but if you get on their bad side then they might just end up removing you as CEO and Goddess knows how much that would suck for the company stocks.”

Crap, he had a point. Work had been my life when I couldn’t handle things and sex wasn’t helping. I practically built this company up from the rubble that Gerald had turned it into.

“Fine, let’s get this over with.” I stood up, picking up the folder that contained all the information about the company. “One more minute in there and I might end up biting someone’s head off.”

Carter laughed behind me as he followed me out of the office. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to record it so I can show Jemila just how much of a ladies man you truly are,” he guffawed.

I ignored him as I walked past Ivana’s desk. “Ivana, I would like my schedule for the rest of the afternoon cleared and I don’t want any more unexpected visitors, that includes Gerald or Shelly,” I said as I walked past, then turned back.

“Anything else sir?” she asked. “Would you like me to order your lunch or would you prefer I made a reservation for you?”

“Reservation would be lovely Ivana,” Carter said, his voice lowered an octave. I mentally rolled my eyes at his shameless flirting with my assistant as if he had nothing better to say. “Maybe you and I can grab something while Aidan works here?”

I scoffed and pulled him by the back of his jacket. “Forget everything he just said,” I said to her as I dragged us away from her desk and to the elevator and only let him go once the doors had closed. “Stop flirting with her, she’s here for a job and I don’t want what happened with the last one to repeat itself.”

Carter smoothed down his jacket and rolled his eyes at me. “That one was a little crazy if you ask me and she had to go,” he replied casually. “When she wasn’t obsessing over you then it was me and frankly I don’t want the woman I’m having sex with to call out another man’s name, albeit it be that of my best friend.”

I laughed hard, feeling my stomach clench. This was the first time he was telling me about this and now that I knew, I was never going to make him leave it down.
“Laugh all you want, I won’t be the one having my arse handed to me by the board.”

That made me stop laughing instantly and I scowled for the rest of the ride to the board room which was one floor above mine. When the elevator doors dinged open, I took a breath in and walked out, preparing myself mentally for how I was not going to bite someone’s head off.

“Aidan, you’re late,” Gerald said as I entered the board room and I already knew I wasn’t going to like this meeting.

*****
“That was brutal man,” Carter said, a forkful of salads making its way to his mouth.

We were at Le Fonte for lunch after the gruesome board meeting which nearly saw me have someone’s head as my lunch but I had to keep myself in check.

“Tell me about it, I don’t know how I didn’t break Gerald windpipe. That should count for something.” I pushed my food around on the plate, my appetite non-existent. All I wanted was to be back at my quarters with Jemila in my arms and maybe a repeat of what happened, without the weird vision.

“Everyone could sense the tension, it was so thick I could have cut it with a knife but you know me, I just watch and get entertained.”

I picked up my glass of water and took a sip, staying away from alcohol until my mind was back in the right place then placed it back onto the table. “One of these days I will let you handle them, practice running for when Gerald decides I’m doing a crap job and you should replace me.”

Carter scoffed, picked up his glass of lemon water, shocker, and then took a sip. “That will never happen, no one can replace you or do anything remotely as good as you do,” he said, “if they did then that would mean that Carmichael enterprises will stop existing. Besides, look at how well you handled yourself in there, I could only wish to have that confidence to command a room full of stuck up rich forks.”

“It doesn’t hurt to try.”

Carter scoffed yet again, placed his fork back onto the plate and leaned forward. “How is Jemila holding up with everything?”

I sighed, “she doesn’t want to talk about it and I’m worried about her. I can feel her suffering but hiding it.”

“Give her time to process it, it’s not every day you find out your parents were murdered and still don’t know their names.”

“I guess you have a point.”