frankly my dear, I don't give a damn
one
—
At nineteen, Jeremie Belpois had quite a few things to recommend him:
For one, he was a prodigal youth at the helm of a billion dollar empire.
Secondly, when it came to the market, his decisions were quick and ruthless and rarely off point.
Thirdly, he needed an intern.
So Aelita brushed her bubblegum hair and tried to pin it down into some semblance of order, slipped on her most 'serious about being serious' cardigan, and checked her portfolio for the thirteenth time. She warily eyed the scruff on the toe of her oxfords and ignored the throb of the migraine tickling her temple.
Aelita had stayed awake the majority of the night reading up on Jeremie Belpois: his childhood, his family, the current board members of the company, the direction of the market…
Surprisingly there was little about the man himself - if you could call him a man, Aelita thought with a smirk.
Nineteen, blond, scrawny, wore glasses and always appeared distinctly bored in all of the photographs Aelita had found.
Maybe he needed a friend? Maybe he actually hated working at the company and had been dreaming of running away to be a painter, a sculptor … Aelita invented fiction upon fiction as the train made it's way downtown.
She imagined a universe where they would bump into each other in the lobby of the fifty floor building his father's company occupied. She'd apologize for being so clumsy, and he would be struck by how awkward she was, in that movie type of way where awkward girls were also impossibly beautiful.
Aelita looked at the fraying hem of her skirt and swept that fantasy out of her head.
Her looks weren't what she was banking on, it was her head. And if that failed her, at least her stubbornness.
The train unceremoniously arrived at her stop, and with a heavy breath, Aelita stepped through the doors and into what she hoped was her future.
—
From the fiftieth floor, Jeremie stared at his computer screen unceremoniously. He was entertaining a few thoughts simultaneously, none of certain importance or priority. Whirring distractions from the fact that for eight weeks he would have to tolerate some simpering idiot, fresh out of university or - to further his angst - still in school.
There were reports to analyze, board meetings to attend, departments to be restructured … An endless litany of things he hated but still preferred to the thought of an intern.
The windows on this floor stretched from the ceiling to the floor, prisms of light as the morning sun filtered in.
He had already interviewed with roughly twenty applicants. Hopeful, eager, insecure, some smirking, projecting their parent's connections as they walked through the door ignorant to how he loathed such presumptions.
And from the corner, to keep him in check, hung the portrait of his father, now stifled beneath the dirt and moss of the earth.
His mind began to whirl again, calculating the amount of time he was wasting on his useless future protégé.
The death was recent, and as Jeremie tapped his knuckles on the oak of his desk, he thought without fury or sadness - not recent enough.
It was this apathy that kept him keen, anchored to the earth, sharp and ready. The old man was a peace of work, and with his habits, it was due time that he exited the world.
At this, Jeremie opened the bottom drawer of his desk, and watched the sun catch the glass of bottle upon bottle of whiskey.
Yes, the cleaning crew had missed this, and Jeremie closed the drawer swiftly.
He had inherited everything - the company, the money, the board members, vultures swooping at his crown and fortune, and even the ghosts of empty liquor bottles and long nights.
Jeremie felt his mind focus, grow silent. He sat at his desk, fingers deft and quick over the keyboard. The clicking of the keys soothed him as he drafted a proposal. He quickly pulled reports from their tracking software - created by their own engineers, Jeremie thought with pride - layering them one over the other on the multiple displays in front of him.
This was the feeling he craved, the complete and utter emptiness of feeling. The tight control, the cold security of logic.
"Mr. Belpois?"
Jeremie looked up, and his face must have conveyed his annoyance because his secretary shirked. His tone was unforgiving. "What is it?"
She flushed, at least thirty years his senior, and his father's secretary. Jeremie wondered if she hated him, if she missed his father. Or maybe she was relieved. What did it matter, after all?
"Your eleven o'clock. Miss Schaeffer has arrived."
Schaeffer, German. He couldn't recall any families in his circle with that surname. Not upper class then, but of modest means, surely.
Regardless, still a waste of his time. Time that had to be wasted, mainly due to a clause in his inheritance that required he participate in this internship program to improve the company's public image.
At least it gave him someone else he could watch as his own intellect flew far above their comprehension. As they tried to please him or worse, befriend him.
"Let him pass."
Something flew across his secretary's face, as if she wanted to say something, but she thought better of it and nodded.
Jeremie opened a game of minesweeper and folded his hands over his keyboard. At least he could entertain himself.
His secretary promptly returned and Jeremie forced himself to look up from his game.
His eyebrow rose as he saw the candidate.
A slip of a girl, bright hair, rosy cheeks and dark, impossibly round eyes.
"Excuse me," he said suddenly. "Are you lost?"
Surely at least the level of competency in the Human Resources department was enough to field candidates of appropriate age.
She seemed as if she was caught by surprise but her astonishingly pink mouth firmed into a scowl.
"No." Her tone did not leave room for disagreement, which strangely relaxed Jeremie. Not a worthy contender, never worthy, but perhaps he could put minesweeper away.
Yes, she was somewhat pretty, if jailbait was your thing, and assuming she could keep this attitude up, he might actually consider -
"Should I sit down?"
She looked uncertain, but with a level of composure he hadn't seen in some of the most senior board members of the company. It wasn't arrogance, it was just sheer determination. An inability to relinquish control.
Ah.
"Yes," Jeremie replied, closing his laptop completely.
This could be interesting.