Chapter 1 - Josiah #2
I stand up and reach my hand out towards him. He smiles and stands immediately. His hand grips firmly around mine.
“I look forward to doing business with you,” I smile. “All of you. You can go ahead and draw up the proposed contract and send it to my office. I will have my legal team look over everything."
“Brilliant!” Nestor says.
Benedikt stands and reaches for my hand, too. “We are very excited about this new opportunity,” he says.
After dinner, I head home, confident that I've made a good choice. For now, I can set that aside and focus on tomorrow’s interviews. While the HR department handles everything, I do like to silently observe from behind the scenes. Every person who is employed by my business requires my approval.
As I've said, I have a knack for reading people. It’s one of the reasons I’ve been so successful in this life. Another reason is that I make sure I am part of everything. Regardless of whether the decisions are big or small, I want to be involved in all of them. It is, after all, my kingdom.
***
Seven a.m.
The building isn't as quiet as it usually is at this hour. There's already a buzz of movement through the halls as everyone preps for interviews.
I head straight to my office and flick on two screens. Both are tuned into the video feeds of the interview rooms. Two rooms, two interviews running simultaneously throughout the day.
Both are muted for the time being.
Alongside the video feed, I also have a chat window open, which sends messages directly to the person conducting the interview. I can end an interview in a matter of seconds or hire someone just as quickly.
While I wait for the interviews to begin, I go through my inbox and get all of the tedious admin out of the way.
“Good morning, sir,” Bianca says, setting my coffee down on my desk.
“Thank you,” I mutter without looking up.
She knows I’m busy, so she silently moves away.
At half past eight, the first two interviews begin. I watch. I listen. I don’t feel particularly drawn to or away from either participant.
Marking a number in the column on the sheet in front of me, I use the rating scale to indicate that they were both mediocre.
All morning, the interviews continue until around eleven, when I become extra interested in the people walking into the rooms.
They are now beginning the process of hiring someone who will be working directly alongside me, on the top floor, as my personal business analyst. This person needs to be sharp, focused, and brilliant in every possible sense of the word.
I close the other files I was working on to give the next set of interviews my full attention.
Turning the volume up on both video feeds, I lean back in my chair with my arms folded over my chest and my eyes locked on the screens.
The first two options are men. One younger, one older.
Both with brilliant experience and impressive resumes.
One makes too many nervous jokes. The other won’t stop fidgeting as he sits being questioned.
Neither are an option, and I message to have them dismissed before the interviews can be concluded.
Leaning across my desk to push the intercom button to call Bianca for another coffee, I see the next person walk into the first room.
At first, I can’t fully process what I’m seeing, and my entire body goes rigid with shock. My hand hovers above the button, frozen as my mind races to make sense of what I’m seeing.
It can’t be her.
It’s impossible.
I grab the screen and pull it closer, staring at her face.
She brushes her hands elegantly over her legs as she sits down, smoothing her clothing.
She’s wearing a black dress, knee-length, formfitting and incredibly sexy.
Over it, she has a white blazer to go with her white stilettos.
She crosses one leg over the other and places her hands on her lap.
Her back is straight, her expression is confident, and she remains silent and stern as she waits for the interviewer to greet her.
“Mrs. Ford, thank you for coming in,” Mark says, looking down at her file.
My heart flips over in my chest as tension rises inside me.
“Miss,” she corrects him politely.
“My apologies,” he smiles. He continues to look down at her paperwork. “You have a very impressive background for someone so young. How long have you been in this business now?”
“Four years in business analysis. Before that, I did data capturing, which was the start of my interest in analysis.”
“Four years…yet your skillset is impressively superior to most other candidates,” he murmurs to himself.
“Thank you,” she says, calm and cool.
She hasn’t smiled once.
Kayla Ford.
Am I really sitting here staring at the beautiful face of Kayla Ford? Is this really happening?
She is a piece of my past. A story I have not told or spoken of for five years, yet one I think about almost every day.
Five years.
She is the one who got away. The one I have and never will get over. She had every piece of my heart, and still to this day…to this day, I am not over her.
I had to let Kayla go. She was young and sweet and beautifully innocent. She was everything that would be destroyed if I allowed her into my world.
She had no idea who I really was or what I do for a living. She met a businessman. She was unaware of the Bratva underworld I owned.
She didn’t know the real me, and when I realized just how much she meant to me, I knew I had to push her away.
It was the most selfless thing I have ever done in my life. And I am not a selfless man.
It was also the most brutal thing I have ever done.
I couldn’t risk her trying to come back. I couldn’t risk her thinking there was or ever would be a chance between us ever again. I was cruel in pushing her away.
It broke me in ways I didn’t know were possible.
And now, staring at her, my heart is somersaulting, and my mind is racing in every possible direction.
Do not hire her.
Message them to end this interview immediately.
Yet I continue to stare at the screen.
She’s changed.
She answers the questions with an aloof coldness about her. The warmth I used to see in her eyes has been replaced with reserved strength. The longer I watch, the more I realize that she is exactly the type of person I would hire for this company.
Her answers are brilliant. Informative, sharp-minded, and direct.
I’m captivated by her.
Do not hire her!
The position she is interviewing for is one working directly at my side. It is a risk I cannot take, a move so irresponsible it would destroy the last five years of agony I went through to avoid her.
She shines throughout the interview. By the end of it, I am struggling not to message them and tell them to hire her immediately.
The interviewer smiles at her. “Well, Miss Ford, thank you for coming in today. We will—”
“If you don’t mind, I have a few questions?”
“Oh, yes, of course.”
“I wanted to know what benefits the company offers for single mothers. I have a list of requirements that are not unreasonable, and I just need to know if you’d be willing to consider them, or if the company prefers not to hire single parents?”
Single parent? She’s a mother? When did this happen?
“That is something I would need to discuss with the rest of the team when we go over your interview notes. Can you provide me with your requests?”
“Of course, I have them printed here,” she says, handing him a sheet of paper. He takes it and slides it into her folder.
I’ve been keeping my distance from her, but I have certain alerts linked to her name. I would have immediately been notified if she married or had a child. How is it possible that she's sitting here in my building asking about benefits for single parents?
My head is spinning again. Anxiety is racing through me, and my jaw is clenched so tightly it’s starting to ache.
Kayla Ford.
I have to walk away from this. I cannot allow her back into my life.
Yet, something inside me is already shifting, and I know I can’t let this go.