Page 17 of Cruel Fate

I peruse Stella’s résumé. Graduated with honors from her community college. She indicated she’s enrolled in online classes at the city’s university to earn her bachelor’s in accounting. I need to ask her if she’s taking advantage of ourtuition reimbursement program. I’ll make sure she is, or I’ll pay for her education myself.

With a couple of taps to my keyboard, I promote her to the position of executive assistant. I have one, but I don’t know what she’s been doing these past six months without me in the office. I send an email to HR and ask that she be reassigned.

Everyone’s used to my silence, and these orders will create a shit-ton of confusion tomorrow morning.

Zarah finds me later in our father’s study, going over things that are happening, or should be happening, in the company. Mergers and acquisitions have been postponed. Holdings that should have been sold are languishing, losing money because I haven’t been around to approve anything.

“Did you sleep with Stella last night?” my sister asks, sipping my cold coffee.

I’m honest. “I don’t know. I slept pretty hard.”

Smirking, she says, “I meantsleepwith her. I looked for you in your room this morning, but you weren’t there.”

“Yeah. I need her. I just promoted her to be my assistant. Seeing her face at work will help me through some of this mess.” Will help me be there without Dad.

Zarah doesn’t need me to say it, and she hugs me. “I’m so happy you’re feeling better. You’re going to the office tomorrow?”

“Yeah. It’s time. Plus, I haven’t heard an update about the plane crash. I can’t let them stop searching.” I turn in my chair, and she crawls into my lap. “What are you going to do?”

She pauses. Normally, she wouldn’t do anything. Cry in her room. Wander around the penthouse. Hang out in the kitchen with Lucille. After Mom and Dad passed away, she spent her days watching Netflix and not eating.

Six months gone.

Then Stella comes into our lives.

Zarah feels the shift, same as me. She knows lying around all day is no longer acceptable.

She sucks in a breath and then says, “Touring our company, I got a feel for what I want to do, or actually, what Idon’twant to do. I don’t want to specialize in anything, like payroll. I want my fingers in everything. When we were at the club, Ash offered me a position at Black Enterprises. He insisted.”

This surprises me. I don’t think of Ash as competition, though our companies overlap in certain areas. Ash isn’t stealing Zarah, exactly, but I always assumed she and I would work together.

“Can I ask doing what?”

“Teaching me the business, being his right-hand man, so to speak. I don’t want to do that here. I’ll be treated differently, and I won’t learn anything.”

She may have a point.

Dad was my entrée into the business. No one would have crossed him. But I’m a man, too, more easily accepted.

“You don’t have to work. Go to school first. Party, have that experience, like I did at Columbia.”

Zarah bites her lip. “Maybe. But I’d like to work with Ash for a bit. He said...”

I prompt her. “What did he say?”

She looks away. “Nothing. He didn’t say anything. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Of course I don’t.” Ash will treat her well. I trust him with my life.

I guess Zarah and I will both be up bright and early to go to work.

Something Stella mumbled last night tries to wiggle to the top of my brain, but Zarah hugs me and whispers a soft, “Thank you,” into my ear and I lose it. She’ll tell me again if it’s important.

I want to see her tonight, but I’ll wait until morning. I can’t wait to see her face when she finds out we’ll be working together.

Either she’ll be happier than hell or, for pulling strings behind her back, there will be hell to pay.

For once, I’m looking forward to tomorrow.

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