Alexander
My uncle came striding down the hallway from his office to where I waited in the lobby, smiling wide and extending his arms out. He was wearing a crisp, expensive gray suit with a bold, plum purple tie and matching pocket square.
“Nephew,” he said, pulling me in for a hug.
“Uncle Conrad. It’s been a while.” I returned his gruff embrace, then stepped back and flashed him a grin.
“Isn’t it always? We’re busy men. Here, walk with me.” Conrad was always in a hurry, and I had only called him an hour ago to request an appointment with the notoriously hotheaded CEO.
Not as if he could refuse a meeting with me. I did, in fact, own fifty-one percent of the company that my uncle ran.
I followed Conrad back down the brightly-lit hall and into his office, a huge corner suite with windows stretching across all the exterior walls. He grabbed a pack of cigarettes from his desk and motioned me along as he slipped through a barely visible door that opened onto a little private rooftop deck.
“So,” he said, selecting a long, thin cigarette from the pack and placing it gingerly between his weathered lips. “What can I do for you, Alexander?”
I cupped my hands around his mouth to block the wind as he lit the cigarette with an ornate gold lighter. “I have a favor to ask of you,” I said.
He took a step toward the railing at the edge of the rooftop and blew a dense stack of gray smoke out into the open air, then stood still a moment, watching it disperse into the wind.
“What’s this favor?” he asked, turning his gaze down at the city below. We were downtown, on the top floor of the highest high-rise in the city.
Our company had recently been ranked the top investment firm in all the werewolf world. Conrad had devoted his life to the business, building it from the ground up alongside my mother, starting back when they were in their twenties. She was the visionary behind it, the one who wrote the original business plan and owned the controller’s share of the company she operated alongside her brother.
And when she died, my mother left her shares to me, leaving me as the ruling owner of the business. But Conrad and I were the only ones who knew this. And that was how it had to be.
Scarlet’s war against me in indiscriminate – she had been coming at me from every angle she could find ever since the day she bedded my father and decided to do all she could to make her own son the future king. I didn’t need her to know about all my assets, everything I had to lose. And Conrad was the public face of the company, anyway.
“I need you to hire Fiona,” I said, walking to Conrad’s side. “She’s qualified. And she just left a high-ranking position at her father’s company.”
Conrad did not react. He took another drag of his cigarette before responding. “Left her father’s company, huh?” He turned his body to face me and leaned his hip against the railing.
I nodded. “He asked her to conspire with him against me. In response, she cut ties with him completely, resigning her post and signing over her company shares to him.”
Conrad’s eyebrows went up and he let out a low whistle. “And she told you about all that?”
“I want you to hire her,” I continued, breezing past this question. Conrad would notice this, but he would not press me about it. “To head up the expansion project.”
“The expansion project?”
“Yes. It’s time.”
Back inside his office, Conrad was pacing. “The expansion project, Alexander. Now?”
“We’ve been waiting for the right person to head it up, and I’ve found her.” I took a seat in an armchair near my uncle’s desk.
Conrad chuckled. “Son, consider what you are proposing. We have been waiting to launch this project for years. It’s going to either make or break us. And you want to hire your fiancée to take the lead on it?”
“She is not just my fiancée.” I gave Conrad a stern look, reminding him to watch his tone.
He finished his pacing and approached, finally sitting down behind his desk. “But she is still his daughter.” He shook his head side to side slowly. “You already take a risk by entrusting her in your own home. But this? This company is your mother’s legacy.”
“I trust her,” I said firmly. The words just came out. I hardly even knew that I believed them until they were out there, hanging in the air between my uncle and myself, the real and honest truth.
I did trust her. And I knew she could do this job.
The timing was right. Not only did pregnant fiancée need a job to keep her active and well. But as a businessman, it was also my responsibility to take advantage of opportunities when they appeared. I needed to swoop Fiona’s talents up before another firm had a chance to do so.
“And you’re sure she’s up for this project?”
“I’m sure of it.”
Conrad wiped his mouth and looked out the window at the blue sky, contemplating. “And do you have a plan for the inevitable roadblocks your stepmother will throw in our way once she finds out about it? She won’t be happy to find herself squaring off against Fiona, of all people. It might motivate her to fight us even harder.”
I shrugged, maintaining an air of collected confidence. Conrad needed to understand I knew what I was doing. He could not refuse me either way when it came down to it – I was ultimately the one in charge here. But I liked to keep our relationship a peaceful one, and that meant showing my uncle enough respect to talk him through my decision.
“We have always known Scarlet will oppose the expansion,” I said. “But she is the one who went into competition with you and Mother in the first place. It was her choice to wage war against our family. It’s time for her to suffer the consequences.”
Conrad nodded, rocking slightly in his desk chair and chewing on a toothpick. “We cannot underestimate her, though. Scarlet is powerful.”
“I’m telling you, Uncle. This is our path forward. Fiona is the right person for this job. And she is strong enough to stand against Scarlet. And I will be there to back her when it comes to that.”
Conrad leaned back and crossed one leg over the other. He threw his mangled toothpick into a bin under his desk and met my eyes at last.
“We’re ready to finally set this plan in motion and make my mother’s company into what it was always meant to be. Scarlet dug her own grave when she opened her rival business, all those years ago. We just haven’t had the right opportunity to bury her in it yet. Fiona is that opportunity.”
Conrad placed his hands flat on the surface of his big mahogany desk, nodding resolvedly.
“I’ll have HR call her to schedule an interview,” he said. “And I’ll start drafting the offer letter now.”
