They say some animals consent when a tornado is coming. I fancied myself as one of those animals. Deep down always felt like I had a sense of knowing when something wrong was going to happen.
It was all probably because of the tipoff that I had gotten from my brother, but there was some news to be dropping about the company. But then again, there was also the matter of Isabella. I had fallen for her rather quickly, relatively too soon, if I might add. That put me in a vulnerable position. That opened up a lot of potential pain for me. I had no idea why I enjoyed her company so much. I also had no clue why I found her so beautiful. The problem was that I did. With that type of energy, what do you do? She had just broken up with Oliver; I could have just been a rebound man. Maybe it was my negativity seeping in and taking over, but I had no way of telling. It’s just sitting in my rumination while in my office, worried that things will hit the fan. Why couldn’t things be simple for once? It sucked being the owner and CEO of a company because it always felt like the buck stopped with me. It made my personal life half the time feel non-existent. But whatever. I would take it as it came.
It came from Bella being more closed off at my house. It made me question why she didn’t even come in the first place.
“You’re right and everything?” I asked her, hoping the answer had nothing to do with me. We were on the couch at that moment. We weren’t sitting as close as I’d hoped.
“I’m all right. I just have a lot on my mind.”
I hated the next question I was going to ask. Sometimes, there was no way around it. “Do you want to talk about it? The one thing I did admire about you crying that one time once was that you could get everything off your chest. You don’t have to bottle things up with me. I’m a big boy.”
I got no eye contact from Bella. It radiated an uncomfortable feeling into my chest. Had I already lost a girl who I was falling over? That would be my fault. I would never blame her for that.
“There’s nothing I want to talk about. I just kind of want to decompress from things, if that makes sense. Sometimes inaction is the best action.”
I didn’t agree with that one bit; as a CEO, action was always the best course for me. She deserved to have her opinion respected, though.
We sat there watching Dear John, a movie based on a book by Nicholas Sparks where the main character, a soldier who was heavily in love with his girlfriend, had his heart broken. That was the gist that I got from it. I was only half paying attention. It wasn’t easy to focus on a movie while wondering what was wrong with Isabella. My hyper fixation on her got the best of me. That was how I knew that I was in trouble. I shouldn’t have been falling so hard, so fast. I continued to blame myself.
“I think I’m going to head home,” Isabella said once the movie had ended.
There was no expectation of having sex with her. But there was an expectation somewhat that we would have been more social than we had been. Being pushy was not an option, though. Support was all Isabella needed. “Okay. I’ll walk you to the door.”
When we approached the door, the wonder of whether or not she would kiss me popped into my head like a firework. If I wasn’t going to get a kiss, I knew we were probably destined for doom. If she was going to kiss me, then there was a good chance that we had a future.
Hate.
That was what I felt towards myself for wondering all that.
The door opened, she looked back at me, my heart raced, and the kiss happened. It was a longer kiss than I had expected. I was over the moon just from that little touch of her lips. “Get home safe, Isabella.”
Isabella flashed me a smile, and she was on her way.
So it wasn’t that which made my Spidey sense go off. At least not at that moment. Isabella and I seem to be in good standing. That meant that my gut feeling was pulling from somewhere else. The answer to that would come while I was in my office.
It was my brother Levi who came in with a solemn face. Right off the bat, I knew something was wrong. Levi was usually always in good spirits. He was the quieter one of us brothers. Even when he went down, he had a way of showing the world that he wasn’t. I often wondered what was going on in his head. He always seemed to be in a different world while still in the present moment. I admired that about him.
“You look like you missed your cup of coffee,” I said to him it’s he sat down at my desk. The way he had closed the door had given me pause. Despite that, I’d still try to have a positive mindset while he sat across for me. Maybe I could will whatever he was about to tell me into something good.
“The news finally hit Jack. And it has to do with Dad.”
He slapped the newspaper down on my desk. The article was circled in red.
My heart started the pound as I grabbed the newspaper and pulled it towards me. Before I could look at it, Levi briefed me. “Our Father engaged in a couple of flings with employees over the years. One of the longest ones he had was a relationship with the secretary. When things went south, he paid her off and made her sign an NDA. He used company money to do so.”
As he told me the story, I kept telling myself: please don’t let him use company money because that would make it a scandal. Not that paying a woman off with your own funds was the scandal in and of itself, but the fact that he used company money to do so what’s a big deal.
My brother continued. “Apparently, behind all of our backs, our father cleared things up with the government. But the fact that this is leaking out and that he kept it a secret doesn’t look good in our public image.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
“This will fall on you in the category of damage control.”
He was right. It would all fall on my shoulders to ensure that the company rebounded from my father’s mistakes in the past.
It was going to be tricky, to say the least. I wasn’t about to let my company tank because of a scandal like that. But would I be able to handle it? I wasn’t sure.