Page 10 of The Fake Dating Plan

“Did you?”

“Damn it, I said no!”

His eyes were scanning mine as if they were looking for truth, or were they looking for lies? I stared back at him. Satisfied that I wasn’t lying, he relaxed his posture and his gaze trailed from my eyes to my lips. Then it rested there. I felt glued to the ground. My breathing became shallow as the surroundings disappeared, and I noticed him and only him. If I lean in, we could kiss. I almost did. And then he stepped back, and just like that, the moment disappeared.

He put his hands back into his pockets again. Whatever shutters that had opened were now closed. He was back to his dark self.

“My people will be in touch with you soon.”

And with that, he marched back into the building. Did I lose the deal? I hoped not.

After the tour at Emilia’s company, two things were on my mind; Emilia and Heron. The former being an onion I would love to peel once again and the latter one I wanted to crush. I hadn’t expected to feel the rush of emotions I felt when I saw her again. Twice in two days, and she had made me feel like I was a hormonal teenager.

My past with her had gone completely out of my mind when I laid eyes on her. She was wearing another one of her dresses that made her look like she was a delectable dish served only for me.

Confronting her about Heron was a way of reminding myself who she was and how careful I should be around her. And to think I had been fooling myself, thinking I had gotten over her. If I had, I wouldn’t be obsessing over her for two days straight.

This was wrong. I was off my game again, and I needed to get back on firm ground. Trying to go against Heron now and bringing Emilia in would lead me down a path I wouldn’t be able to get back from. Caiden did it, and it took him a decade and more to get over his revenge. He eventually got Hailey in the end. But who's to say the price would be sweet for me.

I was better off leaving Emilia and Heron to themselves. I’m sure she could find another investor. I might even forward a few contacts to her and be done with it. That was probably best.

I wiped the thoughts away and tried to focus on the present. The meeting I was in, except it was dry as fuck, and the new marketing consultant we had brought on kept droning on about sales potentials. I shifted in my seat to wake myself up. Now that I would be CEO for the next few months, it meant I had to attend a lot more of these dreary meetings. I made a mental note to make a few changes to how often and over what people should meet. I glanced around the room. Everyone looked like their eyes were glazing over.

I was about to zone out too for a second time when I caught the consultant saying, “And that’s why we need to look for new products to boost our business. Celeste, for its old name, is unfortunately too old. Young people aren’t visiting their stores because they remind them of their grandparents. We need fresh blood. Young blood, to revive the store.”

I couldn’t help grimacing. “You make it sound like it’s a vampire.”

“It’ll be a corpse if we don’t breathe life into it.” To my surprise, he said, “And that’s why we need to look into bringing in a new designer.”

“That won’t be enough. It will take time and during that period will lose money. Like you said.”

“A licensing deal.”

Now I felt like he was earning his hefty fees. “Go on.”

“Maybe a young up-and-coming house? New designers on the scene might not want to work under Celeste but wouldn’t mind having their products in Celeste stores. They get the prestige of the old brand and we get a young customer base.”

“That’s the best idea you’ve given me all day,” I said to the guy. I knew just the right type of company that would be perfect.

As I went back to my office, called my investment advisor, and made a few more inquiries into Steel Cute and the company documents Emilia had sent me. I had gone through their financials as a potential investor, but going through them as a potential customer gave me even better insight. They had a lot of stock at hand. Which was good and meant they could scale up easily. Their factory was too small, though, and that meant they would probably need an injection of cash to upgrade to bigger facilities. Their debt column was worrying. This was why she needed an investor. The business was over-borrowed and loans wouldn’t come easily to them soon unless they can get the deal that I would offer her.

A few rings later Bonnie answered. “What have you found?” I asked as she picked up.

“They’re overspending. Their business looks good and they have the potential to grow as well as being scalable, they’ve poised themselves to become big. But there’s something concerning I found.”

“Over borrowed?”

“Yes.”

“What if KMVH offers them a licensing deal? How would that shape up for us?”

“I thought you wanted to invest in this personally.”

“I’m having second thoughts.”

There was silence. No doubt making calculations in her head. “It would work, but if they were to come under Celeste, which is what I’m assuming is your play, they might have issues with their brand. I might need to do actual numbers on this, of course, but it could be good for you and bad for them.”

“How so?”

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