Carlton

Carlton

I walked into the room, my twin brother Alec right on my heel. The rest of the board members were already waiting, since we were actually late, but no one said a thing about it.

They all stood up as we joined them and took our positions. I took the seat at the head of the table and Alec took the seat to my right. Between us and the other attendees of this board meeting were several empty chairs, and I couldn’t help picturing a canyon separating us from them. The move was definitely deliberate.

It was more than enough to know they weren’t happy. They weren’t expecting us to begin with, Dad was supposed to be sitting at this board meeting, but after he’d suffered a heart attack about a week ago, we had taken over for him, for now. He was hardly in the best of health to be handling the company, but since my brother and I were new to the company, we weren’t trusted. It was an unfortunate turn of events, but we all had to adjust to it at our own pace.

Somehow, we had to get the board, the investors, and the rest of the company to put their trust in us. Dad was supposed to retire and the handover wasn’t going to be quite so immediate. I would have had time to prepare myself, as would my brother, and it wouldn’t be as much of a shock. If we didn’t succeed, we could cost Dad his company. Already stocks had fallen slightly because the CEO fell ill. Though it fell, it was less than expected, so we had to do a good job if we didn’t want it to plummet.

It was somewhat difficult, navigating everything between the two of us, especially when it happened on such short notice, but we did our best.

“My brother and I apologize for arriving late,” I said, facing the rest of the room. “We are both up to date with our father’s projects, so we’re ready to go ahead with the meeting. If you would please begin.”

With a nod of my head, I sat down, and tried to look like I knew what I was doing, like I belonged in the chair I’d taken. Though Alec and I were twins, I was older by nearly an hour, so the position was mine while dad was out of commission, even when neither of us wanted it. My brother sat stone faced beside me, not once looking at me, and I knew he resented this.

Honestly, so did I. The only reason I had appeared, was because I was genuinely worried for my father, but my life couldn’t be further from put together if I tried, and I was not in the best frame of mind to be taking over a million-dollar worth company.

If only life would give me some breaks. At this point, I thought I was entitled to several.

“…The point of this meeting was to discuss the latest contract your father discussed with us for the company,” one of the board members was saying. “The assumption is that he collapsed before he was able to handle the contract signing.”

Alec nodded. “This is true, but I’ve been looking into it personally. A contract was already written up when my father met with the interested parties, all that’s left is to discuss the terms and come to an agreement. The other parties have agreed to go ahead with the signing, as long as we can come to a collective agreement.”

He pulled out some papers from the folder he’d come in with and distributed the sheets to the other members of the table, having to stand up to hand them over. I was mostly silent as I watched over the proceedings, as Alec and I had talked at length about this. He’d been adamant about handling this contract on his own, and because I couldn’t be bothered, I left him to his own devices. It wasn’t as if he required supervision, anyway, and if I pushed the issue, it would just be annoying and more drawn out than necessary for the both of us.

“As you can see,” Alec said, sitting back down. “The terms stated in the contract all have a clause or a limitation, and that is how far the other side is willing to compromise. Depending on the results of this board meeting, we can sign the contract as early as this afternoon, or as late as next month. Please consider the document carefully.”

I had a copy myself, and even though I’d gone through it several times to the point I nearly had it all memorized, I picked up the sheet and skimmed through. No matter what was going on in my life, this was something I had to take seriously.

Still, with my wandering attention, I was bored of the meeting before too long, and my gaze moved around the room. It wasn’t only the board members in attendance. Some of them had brought their assistants and secretaries along with them. They didn’t sit, but stood either behind their direct supervisor, or lined up along the wall. Every single one was dressed in a sharp suit, hands folded behind their backs, standing perfectly straight.

Then I noticed one particular woman standing in the corner. Unlike the other women in the boardroom, either standing or sitting down, she was dressed simply. Her skirt and blouse were pristine, but not expensive, and that caught my attention. It told me she didn’t like to stand out, at the very least. It reinforced my thoughts that she was new too, not yet able to afford the designer suits some of the women around the table wore.

Her blonde hair was done up in a messy bun that left strands of her hair falling out to frame her rather pretty face. She fidgeted, with her hands in front of her twisting and untwisting them together, as she shifted from one foot to the other, light brown eyes bouncing around the room, never focusing on one thing for long. She looked uncomfortable just standing there, and I wondered if it was her shoes, though the heels were the shortest I’d taken note of so far, or if she was just nervous.

She stood in an awkward position that made it hard to tell who her direct supervisor was, but it was easy enough to tell she was new. If not to the company then to the atmosphere prevalent in most of these board meetings.

Who is she? I wondered.

While I hadn’t been too involved with the company before Dad’s heart attack, I was familiar with the operations, as it had always been expected that I would take over. His recent illness just brought it up a lot sooner than any of us expected. Aside from receiving various reports, I made visits to the company plenty of times, but I had never seen this woman before. I knew enough to know that if she had access to the board room, especially during a meeting, then I should know her, because that privilege didn’t go to just anyone.

My attention went back to matters at hand, but a short while later, right in the middle of the contract discussion, the door was shoved open, which immediately disrupted the meeting. Screeching through the open door was the cry of a baby. Felicity, Alec’s secretary, who I’d had looking after my son while we dealt with the meeting, came racing in, her eyes wide with fear as she came speeding up to me.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said, her arms busy bouncing my son. She looked like she was about to join the baby in bawling. “Sir, I don’t think I can do this. I’ve never had to take care of a child before, and I’m just not good with kids.”

I sighed and stood up. This was one of the reasons I would have rather not been in the meeting. I had been temporarily instated less than a week before, and I didn’t have time to prepare. Because I couldn’t leave my son with just anyone, I’d had to bring him in to work. For obvious reasons, I couldn’t bring him into the meeting. It was Alec’s idea to leave Sam with his secretary, but I’d seen from how nervous she’d been and how awkwardly she’d taken him, that it was a bad idea. She couldn’t even hold out for half an hour.

Before I was even all the way off my chair, the woman who was fidgeting in the corner made the first move. As everyone else in the room seemed to have frozen, she practically floated over to Felicity, arms outstretched, finally looking in her element.

“It’s okay, sir. I know how to look after children, I can take him.”

She couldn’t have known who she was addressing, but she sounded so confident. I finished rising out of my seat, and her eyes met mine across the large table. Her eyes seemed to widen as she faltered for a moment, but then the look was gone, and I wondered if I imagined it.

“Who are you?” I asked.

She seemed to hesitate. “My name is Lexi, sir.”

I stared at her for a long moment, trying to read her. I raised my son alone, after we’d lost his mother a year ago, and Sam was only two years old. He seemed to be particular about the people he trusted, so finding someone to take care of him when I had other obligations was something complicated. Then again, aside from this, I’d focused solely on raising my son as a single father.

Sam seemed to be calming in Lexi’s hands, though, the wailing sounds tapering off to light sniffles, then not even that, as he completely quieted down. Even as she levelled her gaze at me, Lexi hadn’t stopped gently rocking Sam, and he seemed to respond to it. His eyes grew heavy as he stuck his thumb in his mouth. She immediately pulled his thumb out and replaced it with the pacifier Felicity still held in her hand

“Step out of the room,” I said after what felt like a long moment, though it was only a few seconds. “But please don’t go too far. Inform me if anything happens.”

With a nod, she turned and left the room. Felicity, still looking like she was about to cry, hurried out after her. The room settled into silence once more, everyone looking at everyone else as they wondered what happened next. I cleared my throat and several eyes looked up at me.

“Please excuse the interruption. Shall we go on with the meeting?”

I sat down, and slowly, focus shifted back to the point of this meeting, but my mind was stuck on the woman I’d left to look after my young son, even though I barely knew her, wondering what I was thinking when I did that.

***

“Well, that was a mess,” Alec muttered. “I thought for sure they’d drag it on for another hour even though it was practically a done deal already. We didn’t even change much.”

“And the changes might be minimal on paper, but I agree with everything and I’m sure Dad would, too. It’s fine, either way. I’m just happy we managed to get through it without them shutting us down at every turn.”

“They couldn’t do that even if they wanted to,” Alec snorted. “They wanted this contract too badly. They wouldn’t mind discrediting us, though, if they could. Did you hear how they kept trying to trip me up? As if I would fall for such stupid tricks.”

I rolled my eyes but said nothing. He might not have fallen for their tricks, but he’d still lost his composure plenty of times because of his temper, which flared up whenever his pride was questioned, and he had definitely put his pride on the line with this contract. It was the first major business contract he would be signing for the company, after all.

“That’s why we need to be careful. We can’t start picking fights, especially this early. Don’t forget we’re only holding the fort until Dad gets back on his feet. We don’t actually own this company, until he says he wants to retire.”

When the last person left the room, we both relaxed and stopped speaking so quietly. Alec dropped back into his seat, and after a second, I sat back down as well.

“Still, we had to make some adjustments to the contract. I haven’t had as much interaction with the other side as you have, are you sure it won’t be a problem?”

He nodded. “No problem at all. Dad had pretty much done all the work, so I didn’t change much in it. They should be fine to sign. I’ll talk to them later today, send a copy of the adjusted contract, and after they review it, they should let me know when to go and sign.”

“That’s good,” I nodded, rising to leave the room.

I rubbed my forehead, happy to have this one thing out of the way. There was still a lot I had to get through today before I could leave the office, even though all I really wanted to do was take Sam and head back home. Then I frowned as I remembered.

“Hey, who was the woman from before? The one who’s looking after Sam.”

“Oh, her?” Alec’s voice was dismissive. “She’s just an intern.”

I whirled around and stared at Alec in surprise. “I’m sorry, did you just say intern?”

That couldn’t be right. If she was just an intern, how could she have access to the board room in the middle of a meeting?

“You’re surprised too, right?” He asked. “So was I, when I walked in. I came across her a few times while you were busy in the office. I thought they’d just have her doing some errands, so who knows how she walked into the room.”

I frowned. “If she was inside, shouldn’t she have the right to be here?”

“Oh, no. She’s only an intern, but she’s total crap at even that. If it wasn’t for special circumstances, do you think she’d even be working here? Hell no. if I could, I’d throw her out, but Dad said to leave her alone.”

My eyebrows arched up. An intern that my father knew? Now I had to know who this woman was. Come to think of it, I’d only thought of how pretty she looked before, but she was a little familiar. If Dad knew who she was, then maybe I knew her, too?

“What’s her name?” I asked.

“Lexi,” Alec said, raising an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you don’t remember her. Then again, you’ve been busy with your own world, right? You haven’t thought about the company in a long time.”

I pursed my lips. What he said was true. I hadn’t thought about much outside of the state of my personal life for a while. No one could blame me, with everything that had happened over the past few years.

“Let’s get back to work,” I said decisively. “We’re done with this one meeting, but we still have a busy day ahead of us.”

I turned around to go and find Sam before going back to my office, only to pause when I realized Lexi was standing at the doorway. She was holding Sam, who rested quietly in her arms, sucking on his pacifier, her head ducked down, and shoulders hunched.

Fuck. Did she hear us?

“How long have you been standing there?”

Alec smirked. “Oh, she walked in about as soon as everyone else had left, so she’s been here since I called her a crap intern.”

I sent a glare at my brother, wondering why he couldn’t just tell me we had company. I turned around and looked to Lexi, who still hadn’t looked up, and quickly thought of how to fix it.