Khan
I’m a driven man. I’d built my empire through sheer hard work, focus and complete refusal to give up. I’d grown up in care for most of my formative years, and then, when I was a troubled teen heading toward early incarceration, a family had taken me in. The Aslan family. First generation Turks, they had run a restaurant, and had agreed to foster me, when no one else would. It took a few years, but their warmth and love helped me to turn my life around. I’d grown to love them, and everything about them. Their culture and traditions. Once I’d made it, I’d helped them retire to Istanbul, where the rest of their family still lived, and I visited them once a year. It was the only holiday I ever took.
Now, for the first time in years, I had a personal problem, and she was sitting outside. I looked through her HR file again, and the other one, the report I’d commissioned from my P.I guy. Eden Davis, living downtown in a terrible neighbourhood, surviving on instant ramen and estranged from her only living relative, her mother, Vivian. I read about her roommate, and her last part-time job, her abandoned university degree, which she had very nearly finished. Thanks to being cut off by her mother, she’d dropped out with half a year to go. I devoured information about this woman.
She’d no doubt be mad as hell to know that I’d had her looked into. I could just imagine the fire her beautiful eyes would spit at me, and yet, it was just the tip of the iceberg.
I knew myself. I was a focussed, obsessive man, who had set his sights on great things in this life, and worked to the bone to achieve them. I recognised the same feeling while I watched Eden work. Quite without my consent or permission, my heart set its sights on her. My next great goal to achieve was to make Eden mine. I planned to pursue that goal with all the energy and intensity with which I’d gone after everything I wanted in life.
Within two days of knowing her, I was already obsessed, and I knew the feeling would only grow.
“Miss Davis, can you come in here?” I asked, pressing the buzzer on my desk. I watched her jump as it sounded suddenly beside her.
“Just coming,” she said sweetly, with an edge that spoke of how pissed off she was when I randomly surprised her. I couldn’t lie. Her fire was half her appeal. I hadn’t been challenged by a worthy adversary in years, and Eden was certainly up to the task.
She came in, walking with her long-legged stride toward me, and stopping just short of the desk, cocking her hip and brandishing her tablet. I had a sneaking suspicion that she could run the entire company from that thing, that was how good she was.
“Remind me about the event tonight,” I asked her.
“It’s at eight PM, at the museum. Black tie required,” she rattled off. I nodded.
“Fine. I’ll pick you up at seven thirty,” I told her. She frowned at me.
“Pick me up? Why?”
“Because I’ll require your help there,” I lied. I wanted to see her outside of work, pure and simple.
“I didn’t know that. I have plans,” she said.
“So, cancel them. What could be more important than work, and double time, at that?” I threw in. She chewed her lip and looked annoyed. “What plans do you have? A date?” I pressed. So, now I was just being pushy, but the annoying thought had weaseled into my head and I couldn’t avoid it now.
“Maybe,” Eden said, and raised her eyebrow at me. “But that’s not a question I have to answer.”
I nodded, conceding that point, but knowing I was going to drag it out of her, one way or another.
“Well, I would appreciate your company, as tonight is a networking event, and I have a terrible knack for names, faces, introductions, and the rest of it. Will you help me?” I appealed to her. Agree to spend the evening with me so I don’t spend the night sitting in a car outside your apartment waiting for a glimpse of you.
She appeared stumped by my earnest request.
“I guess I could find the time for triple pay,” she said finally.
“Done. Clothing is provided by the company.” I said dismissively. She blinked at me, and then narrowed her eyes.
“I do have my own clothes,” she said pointedly.
“Not for this. Don’t argue about a paid shopping trip, Miss Davis. It’s a petty look,” I told her coolly. She thought for a minute on it and then shrugged.
“Whatever, it’s your money to waste,” she said, and turned to leave. Good. She put up less resistance than I’d expected. The brutal truth was I wanted clothes I owned on her body. I wanted my money to provide something tangible for her. I wanted to mark her with my ownership in any way I could. I was that base, when it came to my obsession with Eden and I had already given up caring.