Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
KAI
Amelie was at the cusp, right on the precipice of letting me in, but needed a final push. An act heinous enough to break her heart, leaving me to step in and put it back together. I might have found just the thing.
It turned out that I didn’t know Amelie and Stefan as well as I thought. I had missed two key details about them.
First, there was Amelie’s heritage. She rarely discussed Lebanon, so her love for her homeland was never on my radar.
Second was Stefan’s adolescent crush on a rock star past her prime. Had I known, I would have orchestrated a chance encounter between them years ago. Ruby and I ran in the same circles and had known each other for eons. The perfect weapon had been in my arsenal all along.
Now that I had all the information, it was about pushing everyone in the right direction.
Ruby had emailed Stefan a proposal for her upcoming singing competition, which he promptly forwarded to me.
I had instilled enough self-doubt that he feared making any business decision without my approval.
She listed eight regions around the world to scout for talent, one for each issue over the next eight publications.
I always knew Dubai would be Ruby’s first stop. It was the mecca for endless glamour and a celebrity hub. After Amelie expressed how much she missed Lebanon, I had to add one more city to Ruby and Stefan’s itinerary. After all, the destination was only four hours away from Dubai.
Kai: I received your proposal. Why wasn’t Beirut on your list?
Ruby: Should it have been?
Kai: You’re going to the Middle East but are overlooking the party capital of the region. Beirut’s crawling with singers at every bar and club. It should’ve been on your radar without me having to say so.
It took her several minutes to respond. She was confused by my spontaneous micromanagement but didn’t dare to contradict me.
Ruby: You’re right. I’ve been there twice. I can get one of my contacts to line up some auditions.
Kai: Good. Have your assistant sort out the travel details ASAP. We’ll debut this installment in the upcoming issue.
Ruby: Oh. I didn’t expect the project to move so quickly.
Kai: Would you rather that I cancel it?
Ruby: No, of course not. It’s just that we’ll have to leave within a week to publish by next month.
Kai: Is that a problem?
Ruby: We haven’t selected a crew, and I need to confirm with the other judges. We also need to promote the auditions.
Kai: That’s something you should have figured out before sending out a proposal. Either your first installment is in the next issue or we’ll move on to something better.
There was a small pause before she messaged me back.
Ruby: Don’t worry. I’ll make it work.
Ruby gave in, just like I knew she would.
While Stefan was starstruck and thought she was God’s gift, I saw her for what she was—an insecure, washed-up rock star whose best days were behind her.
She recently hosted an auction, selling off her private jet, her vacation home, and her extravagant jewelry collection.
Celebrities who sold off private jets didn’t do it for the streamlining. She was hemorrhaging.
Her dwindling career couldn’t handle the fallout from offending me, especially since I was handing her an olive branch.
Ruby: I’ve been chatting with Stefan about the shoot in Dubai and Istanbul. He didn’t mention Beirut.
That was because he didn’t know about it.
Kai: There’s no reason to front-load the schedule. Iron out the details with him only after your contact confirms the auditions.
Ruby: If that’s what you think is best.
Of course I did. I couldn’t risk Stefan inviting Amelie to join them, which he might do if he found out about Lebanon. This detour had to be sprung on him at the last minute.
Just for good measure, I sent her a follow-up text.
Kai: I want the brief to be clean and focused. Don’t tell anyone about Lebanon until I give you the green light.
Ruby: And if they ask why I didn’t mention it earlier…
Kai: I’m sure you can come up with a good reason for it.
A longer pause this time.
Ruby: Understood.
Good. Ruby was sharp enough to know when she was being given a partial truth and pragmatic enough not to push on it. The magazine was the most exposure she had secured in two years, and she understood that opportunities like this only came from men like me.
Ruby needed a comeback act and someone with pockets deep enough to bankroll it.
She thought she’d hit the jackpot when I offered to invest in her singing competition and tried to cozy up to me.
A well-timed nudge was all it took to redirect her toward Stefan as a sugar daddy prospect.
After she found out he was the new president of Obsidian, she jumped at the chance to sink her claws into him.
Ruby: By the way, I really liked Stefan. Thank you for the introduction.
Ruby: Has he said anything about me?
I smiled.
There was an art to arranging things so that they appeared unarranged.
You never moved pieces directly. That was for amateurs and men who wanted to be caught.
You moved the conditions around the pieces instead, and then you waited for the pieces to move themselves.
People always did, given the right conditions.
They were predictable in their freedom. Ruby was already starting to view Stefan as the key to reclaiming her success.
All I had to do was sit back and let Amelie witness it for herself.
Kai: He thinks you’re great.
Ruby: He does? What about Amelie? I don’t completely understand the deal between you three.
No one understood the deal, not that any of them would be brave enough to make lewd comments about my wife. I owned this town and could drive anyone out of it if I wanted.
Ruby: Is Stefan in an open relationship?
Kai: Would it stop you from pursuing him if he wasn’t?
Ruby: Not as long as he was open to something with me, LOL.
Kai: Amelie’s legally married to me. I’m sure you’ll be able to convince Stefan that there are other options besides her.
Something I’d never been able to grasp for myself.
Ruby: Haha, I guess it’s a good thing we’re going away together.
It was a good thing indeed. Ruby and Stefan would spend time together, traveling to foreign destinations and staying at romantic hotels. I’d make sure their setting was a fucking fairy tale so Stefan would see nothing but Ruby.
I texted him next.
Kai: Ruby’s proposal looks good. Fly to Dubai this weekend and get the ball rolling.
Stefan: This weekend?
Kai: This installment will debut in the upcoming issue.
Stefan: But we need more time to prepare.
Kai: Blue Meridian Travel Group wants us to launch the contest now. Otherwise, they’ll pull their contract, and you can’t afford to lose them. They’re buying six full pages.
I owned Blue Meridian Travel Group. Had Stefan done his due diligence, he would have known that I owned all the companies sponsoring this project.
Stefan: Oh, shit. Okay. Let me run it by Amelie.
Kai: Why would you do that?
Stefan: She has to request time off from work if we’re leaving this weekend. I don’t know if she wants to bring the kids, so we need to figure that out as well.
My fingers tightened around the phone.
Kai: You can’t bring your family on a business trip, Stefan.
A pause.
Stefan: Travel photographers do it all the time.
Kai: But you’re no longer just a photographer. I shouldn’t have to explain optics to the president of my magazine. If you bring someone who’s not on the payroll, everyone will expect the same treatment.
Stefan: Come on, Kai. No one will care if my wife joins me.
I wanted to strangle him through the phone. She was my wife.
Kai: Actually, they will. Not everyone at the magazine thinks you deserve this job.
Your age and inexperience work against you.
Bringing your family on a business trip will only make them question your commitment to the team, and in turn, they’ll question my judgment for putting you in charge.
This project needs to succeed at all costs.
You need to prove that I didn’t make a mistake by hiring you.
Three bubbles appeared. Disappeared.
Stefan: I get that, and I appreciate you taking a chance on me. But I have barely seen Amelie.
Stefan was trying to keep the frustration out of his tone, but it bled through the phone.
Sooner or later, he’d catch on that being the president of Obsidian was busy work meant to keep him occupied and away from Amelie.
After all, he was smart enough to receive a scholarship to a prestigious private school.
Received a full ride to college as well.
I couldn’t fool someone like him for long.
Luckily, Stefan looked up to me to further his ambitions. I merely needed to remind him of what was at stake.
Kai: You wanted to become the Prince of Darster. Did you not think that would require sacrifices? I didn’t get to where I am by having dinner with my family every Sunday.
Stefan: That’s because you’re busy having dinner with mine.
I laughed at my screen. I respected Stefan slightly for the jab, which wasn’t saying much. He was quicker than I’d given him credit for.
Yes, Stefan had potential. But the thing about men with potential was that they didn’t like being stagnant. It was the reason he hated his old life and why I was able to entice him with a new one. All I had to do was distract him again by sprinkling in business-savvy advice.
Kai: You’re looking at this all wrong. I scaled back to work things out with Amelie.
I have this luxury because I’ve spent years building my reputation.
This is your time. Establish yourself as a capable leader, come back with a strong issue, and show Amelie what you’ve been building.
By then, I’ll be back to work full-time.
That would be a better time to reset things between you two.
More bubbles. Stefan wanted to argue, but he also saw everything I had achieved and wanted it for himself.
Stefan: She won’t be happy about this, either, and I hate making her unhappy.
Kai: Give her space until she gets acclimated.
We agreed that Amelie needs to warm up to me so we can be a family.
That can only happen if we spend time together.
If anything, you should be taking advantage of this window.
When else can you travel by yourself and establish yourself as an industry leader?
Stefan: Maybe you’re right. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to go off on you.
Kai: I understand. Finding a work-life balance is hard. Tell you what? Take my jet to Dubai. It’s good to enjoy the small rewards to remind us why we make these sacrifices.
Stefan: Your private jet?
Kai: It’s not doing me any good sitting in a hangar.
Stefan: Wow. That’s really generous. Thank you, Kai.
Kai: My pleasure. Ruby’s assistant will work with yours to figure out the rest of the arrangements.
Stefan: We won’t let you down.
Kai: Make sure you don’t.
He read the message and accepted it, which was what I had counted on.
Stefan had a gift for accepting arrangements that suited him without examining them too closely.
It was the willful blindness of a man who wanted nice things and had found someone willing to hand them over.
It was the byproduct of a man who lived as he thought others wanted him to.
Nice house, cushy bank balance, traveling the world in a private jet.
He didn’t question these things too closely because he didn’t want to.
One might think that I was laying the foundation of his demise, but that wasn’t the case.
I merely gave him the materials. He was the one building, brick by damning brick.