Her Prince in Disguise – Laith’s Story
“Sweet Jesus!” Andi whispered, staring down at the contents of the strange box that had been delivered to her desk this morning. She tilted it to the left, then to the right, still not sure she understood what was going on, other than that the strange, carefully-created and extraordinarily detailed diorama depicted a very… very …sexually explicit scene.
And yeah…getting a freaky, creepy box with a miniature scene inside was weird enough. However, the issue that increased the terror in Andi’s heart was the fact that the female – which was tied to some sort of enormous “X” – looked oddly like herself! The doll in the scene was naked, with her wrists and ankles tied to the upper and lower parts of the “X” while another doll, supposedly a male character, due to the lack of breasts, wielded a whip that twirled overhead. Repulsed at the images, Andi assumed that the whip was about to snake out and slice the female doll’s skin.
The scene was horrific, and yet, she couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away from it as she tried to understand exactly what was going on and, possibly more importantly, why anyone would want that kind of pain to be inflicted on their flesh.
Yes, she knew that some people were excited by pain. She’d heard stories about sadists and masochists, people who loved providing pain and those who found pleasure from receiving pain. However, she definitely wasn’t one of those people. The thought of pain didn’t turn her on. In fact, pain terrified her!
“Ms. McCormick?” a male voice interrupted her thoughts.
Andi quickly slapped the cover back on the box, her head flipping up to find Harold Devin stepping into her office. For a moment, she couldn’t say anything, too embarrassed to have her boss’s boss trying to peer into the shoebox sized package that she was unsuccessfully trying to hide with both hands.
In a strained voice, she asked, “How can I help you, Mr. Devin?”
Andi straightened her shoulders and slid the weird box off to the side, hoping that her movements didn’t appear as jerky as they felt.
Harold Devin, the chief financial officer for Sunstar…uh…Raife Industries now that Sunstar Corp had been bought up, looked flustered as he paused beside her desk. There was an odd, unflattering red tinge to his fleshy cheeks and sweat droplets were forming on his upper lip.
The man shook a hand in her direction, waving at her to follow him out the door. “No time to discuss anything,” Harold snapped, smoothing a nervous hand over his tie. “Marty was in a car accident this morning. He was supposed to present this quarter’s financial information our new owner.” Marty ran a hand over his upper lip, swiping the sweat away but more appeared almost immediately. “You’re going to need to sit in on the monthly review meeting and answer any questions on variances and…what not.”
The man wanted her to answer quarterly financial questions? Stunned, Andi stared at the CFO for a long moment, astonished that he would ask this of her. The quarterly financial meeting was a huge deal. All of the executives had been frantically working over the past several days to prepare for this meeting. Rumors were flying all over the company about the new owners who had bought up Sunstar several months ago. The rumors consisted of the insane, such as that the guy was last seen with some movie star, to the more mundane “He’s a badass!” comments. But everyone was frantic to impress this new guy.
Andi had been researching the financial variances for the past week, writing up a detailed summary of every possible change in sales, costs, revenue, profit and any market changes so that her supervisor, Marty, could adequately answer questions for this meeting.
Now Harold, Marty’s supervisor, was asking her to fill in for her boss? Andi’s heart soared! No longer was she going to be in the background! This was her chance to show the executives that she knew her stuff. It was her chance to prove that she could handle the promotion she’d been working towards over the past nine months.
So when Harold glared at her, Andi didn’t hesitate. This was her chance to shine! She loved numbers and, in point of fact, Andi had sent the talking points to Marty last night for this meeting.
“Of course, Mr. Devin. I’d be happy to answer any questions,” she replied and grabbed her notes as well as the spreadsheet with all of the details from her research. “Where’s the meeting?”
“This way,” Marty grumbled, then turned, bustling down the hallway. Andi followed him, going over in her mind all of the questions her boss had been asking her over the past few days. Andi wasn’t nervous. Well, not visibly. She flipped through her notes, hoping that she looked cool and confident so that she would be taken seriously.
They arrived in the executive conference room just as everyone was selecting a donut or pastry, getting coffee and chatting with each other. Andi looked around, understanding that all the other attendees knew each other and were…not friendly…but courteous. After they’d selected a breakfast treat and coffee, each of them moved to the table. Andi noticed that there was a surge towards the head of the table, almost as if each person wanted to be closer t the head of the table. Andi knew that this was all psychological posturing, but she wanted nothing to do with it.
She glanced at the breakfast offerings, then turned away, looking at the others. She had to hide her smile as each of them maneuvered for the best seat around the table. Andi headed for a seat near the wall, assuming that she wouldn’t need to be at the table. But Harold made an odd grunting sound while he balanced a cheese Danish on top of his mug of coffee, then gestured for her to sit down in the leather chair next to him.
Moments later, the air inside the large conference room suddenly started to tingle. The comments from the others shifted from muttering to whispers, then absolute silence.
Confused, Andi pulled out the leather chair and set her notes down on the conference room table while she went over the details in her mind again. When the hush broke through her concentration, Andi looked up, trying to understand the sudden shift in the air. As a financial analyst to the company’s financial director, she’d only done the research. She’d never been invited to one of these high level meetings.
A moment later, Andi was glad she’d already sat down when the most terrifying man she’d ever seen in her life stepped into the conference room and sat down at the head of the table.
Not only was he terrifying, he was possibly the most shockingly handsome man! The hard cheekbones and thin nose should have made him appear cruel, but the dark, intense eyes and square jawline gave the tall, terrifying man a look that screamed “movie star”! The harsh, overhead lights shimmered on the man’s nearly black hair and she had the impression of penetrating, dark eyes. For a brief moment, she simply stared at the man, her thoughts a jumble of emotions that she didn’t quite understand.
However, Andi didn’t have time to ruminate about the man’s appearance. Everyone around the table had barely settled down when the man nodded a sharp greeting to the group, then started snapping out questions to the Warehouse Director. He wasn’t rude, just incredibly direct, giving the impression that he didn’t have the patience for insipid responses. If the director couldn’t answer a question milliseconds after he asked it, the man moved on, snapping that the director should get back to him with the information by the end of the day.
The rapid fire interrogation finally moved on to the marketing director. Everyone seemed to draw a relieved breath when she tossed out several new ideas that Andi thought were fascinating. The woman was brilliant and the man at the head of the table nodded his approval. Andi knew about those ideas since Carys, her best friend who worked in the marketing department, had discussed them just a few weeks ago. Had this woman just stolen her friend’s ideas?
Andi didn’t have time to figure that out because the man moved on to the production director. The director replied quickly to the questions about the supply issues that some of the factories had been dealing with and offered several ideas on how to fix the problem as well as how long it would take to get the fix implemented. Another nod of approval, but the man’s lips thinned. Andi suspected that the man didn’t like the fact that there were unsolved supply issues, but wasn’t saying that. Correction, he wasn’t saying that in this meeting.
Next up was the Human Resources director. There were several personnel problems that the director quickly explained, then answered several more questions regarding other personnel issues. After several minutes of questions, the man at the head of the table nodded and the HR director leaned back in his chair, subtly releasing a breath of relief.
The terrifying man went through the legal team, maintenance manager, security division and new products manager before he turned his eyes towards Harold for financial questions.
“Explain why there is a fifteen percent variance in the gross contribution amount, Harold.”
Instead of answering immediately as the other directors had, Harold paused to clear his throat, which obviously irritated the stranger. Harold lifted a finger, silently asking for a moment to find the answer amid his notes. “I’m sorry, Mr. Al-Sintra. Marty is usually in these meetings but he was in a car accident this morning.
Everyone waited several seconds while Harold shifted papers. Very slowly, he looked to Andi, lifted his fluffy, grey eyebrows and nodded to her.
Suddenly, Andi understood the silent message.
Sitting up straighter, Andi put a hand over her notes, not needing them because she’d already memorized the details.
“The fourteen point eight percent variance in gross contribution is caused by…” Andi went on to explain that the cost of production on five of the current products had been higher than expected because of a better than anticipated launch last month, but that there were several weather related delays that created a higher than anticipated costs for the launch. She explained several more points, not going into detail unless the handsome stranger expressed a need for clarification.
As she looked into his piercing, dark eyes, Andi had to scramble to keep up with his fast paced questions and ignore the fluttering of her heart. During the spare moment in between questions, Andi told herself that she was merely excited about the challenging questions and the opportunity to prove herself in front of Martin. But deep down, she knew that the annoying flutterings in her stomach were something more significant. And more dangerous!
However, after several minutes of this grilling, and the man’s scowls, Andi’s temper flared. Why was he irritated with her answers? What’s up with the angry scowl? Her answers were spot on and she could even cite specifics to back up her explanation! The man hadn’t challenged any of the other directors’ responses like this!
Every time she thought that he was finished, that she could relax like the others, he snapped out another question for her. While the other directors had answered questions for perhaps five or ten minutes, the jerk interrogated her for more than fifteen minutes. She continued to answer everything, even giving additional information when he asked a follow up question. But with every harsh question, Andi grew more anxious. Why was he asking for more information than he’d asked of the other executives? Why did he need to know all of the ridiculous details? The man hadn’t been overly concerned with this level of information from the other department heads!
Andi’s anger increased with every question. Thankfully, she knew the data and was able to answer every question with precise answers.
Finally, there was a pause. Andi held her breath as the man stared at her. She glared right back at him, angry that he’d interrogated her longer than seemed necessary. Some of those questions had felt like a test, as if he didn’t really care about the answers, but wanted to see if she knew the data well enough.
For several long moments, there was silence. Andi waited, tense and bristling, for the next round of questions. But the man at the head of the table merely stared at her. Thankfully, the scowl was gone, but he continued to stare, almost as if he were going through all of her answers. But towards what end?
Finally, those dark eyes moved on to the next person at the conference table.
Slowly, almost as if she were a balloon filled with tension instead of air, Andi deliberately, silently, released the stress from her shoulders. She must have passed the test, because Harold’s hand released her arm and leaned back in his chair.