Author's notes: This was part of a Valentine's prompt I did for someone. Hope you like it. :D You know who you are!
Warning: Uh... for those with hippopotomonstro-sesquipedalio-phobia, beware. :D
With his personal bodyguards melting into the crowd around him from his chauffeured transportation, Kyouya Ohtori strode into the imposing building in downtown Tokyo with a briefcase in hand.
He greeted business associates politely, but sent only refined smiles in the direction of the other calls from his own employees. Across the marble floor of the lobby, he saw snippets of the inner sanctum of the CEO elevator as the crowd of business men and women waned and waxed. It laid open for his easy entry with key-card and physical key by two of his bodyguards, who already waited in the corners of the three-destination elevator like flesh-and-blood statues.
Kyouya stepped in as reliable, old Hotta, nearing 51, entered right after him before the doors silently closed.
The trip up was silent save for the soft hum of the motor, muffled by the insulation surrounding them. In less than forty seconds, he would be stepping out onto the top floor into the empty lobby where his secretary was. In this short amount of time he steeled his mind, fortifying it with figures of monies his company would get from efficiencies he'd made by cutting back on the redundancies in the company and acquisitions from careful buy-outs during the worldwide recession.
Ever-bald Horita slipped out before he did. Kyouya straightened his shoulders a little more and stepped out in business zen-mode.
The pig-tailed blond sitting behind the glass desk wore only enough to not defy company dress code, though the spirit of it was shredded. Her method of dress sharply lent professionalism to an otherwise sultry, innocent flair of barely exposed bosom. "Good morning, President."
Ignoring the slit of bared supple flesh reaching from her neck down the middle of her jacket, the silent CEO of Ohtori Enterprises pulled the thin manila folder from the slender, well-manicured fingers of Kirimi Nekozawa, aged 22 and fresh out of college. She had ruthlessly fought off other, more experienced contenders for this coveted position near Kyouya, and he had been impressed by her careful, if somewhat neurotic, extraction and organization of individuals' information he needed as leverage in his many dealings with clientele, both potential and current. Her background check had come back pristine as he expected with a protective older brother, but her track record with dating had a long list of broken hearts whose engagements were strikingly brief as if she had gotten bored with them the moment her dates opened their mouth. He could understand the sentiment.
He swept past her, even though the long, toned model legs covered in sheer pantyhose beckoned to be touched beneath the black pencil skirt she wore. The wooden, unadorned double doors swung slowly shut behind him as he entered the large, sparse space with the single, modern deco-style desk awaiting him. He settled into a stiff-padded, utilitarian chair opening the manila folder and reading its contents.
It had taken less than a week from hiring her to realize that she wanted him. It took even less than that to realize she was too competent to allow any other company hire her. For the past three months, her attempts at seduction, while clever, were subtle enough for him to pretend they didn't exist.
Her confidence towards a man more than ten years her senior was another striking quality of her character. Kyouya would have never imagined that the flippant, bright-eyed six-year old obsessed with "Prince" stories and Boy's Love manga would transform into such an extraordinary woman. He hadn't really thought much about her at all since graduating from Ouran Academy, until she was vying for the position vacated by his father's retiring secretary.
After looking at the last page in the folder and closing it, he wondered when the scale would tip out of favor for her. Competence wasn't everything; image was. When she could no longer be classy in his presence, she would have to go. He had exactly disseminated that in that case the company would retain her services as a 'consultant' with equal pay, but her office would be far from his.
He picked up his briefcase and set it on the desk. Typing in the pass code on the digital entry pad on front, the lid had no accompanying noise as it popped open. Kyouya settled into work, using mainly his encrypted cell phone to set up face-to-face meetings with potential clients interested in his wares. The rest of his day would be taken up with previously arranged meetings of which the details in the manila folder he had received would prove to be very useful in negotiations.
One of the doors swung open, and the lithe form gracefully sashayed in, her heels clicking on the tiled floor. Her entrance brought the smell of needed coffee and a fifteen-minute warning of an impending meeting.
Moving around the large desk, she set the coffee down, bending enough for a quick view of her goods if he so wanted before she straightened as she had done dozens of times before. He was startled, though only a blink of his eyes expressed it when she didn't immediately leave.
"President."
He looked up impassively at her beauty as she held up two envelopes in her free hand.
"What is it?"
She set one down. "This is my resignation letter."
Kyouya stared at it willing it to spontaneously combust for only a moment and raised an eyebrow at the other envelope. "Are those possibly terms that must be met in order to retain your services?"
She smiled, and he felt his chest tighten. "Something like that." The sealed, blank-faced envelope set next to its identical twin, and then her heels clicked as she stood in front of the desk, her arms crossed loosely under her chest and her hip jutted out in a provocative pose. "I decided that, since another company offered better pay and perks along with a title that didn't include the word 'secretary' in it, I should better my position in life."
"Which company?" He asked politely, though he had already guessed it.
"Hijiki Medical Company."
It was their rival company who bitterly hated how effortlessly he plucked their longtime clients away from them.
A smile curved on his lips though his tone remained calm and unworried, though his eyes narrowed dangerously. "Is that so?" The scale, contrary to his cynical outlook, had tipped much deeper into her favor.
Her grin reciprocated his expression as she shifted into her more normal stance. "Yes. In the spirit of fairness, I'll say that I am still in the process of negotiation with them." She bowed lightly, and he didn't resist the shadowed curves in her blouse this time. "Excuse me, President. I have work still left to complete and notes to make to your next Executive Secretary." She turned without a look and exited as confidently as she had entered, her firm derriere's form only briefly glimpsed under the slack fabric of her skirt.
Once the doors closed completely, his hands were opening the second envelope, and his eyes quickly scanned the contents. Finished, he opened the 'resignation' letter and found that and more. There were strongly veiled threats about releasing secret corporate information from Ohtori Enterprises to their rival company if he did not cooperate. The scale had hit the ground with a silver tone inside his mind.
He threaded the fingers of both hands together and stared at the door ferally. Her attempts at manipulation were amateurish, and the challenge if it had been revealed by a rival company would have been quashed easily because he had years more experience in such matters.
He would have to pay her more, much more of course, and change the title of her position into Personal Assistant, but that was a trifle and not what had knocked the scale over completely.
She had given him a contract to sign. In it, he should have expected one of the terms coming from her, but he hadn't expected her to take the risk of a harassment lawsuit. At the bottom in fine print, it stated that they would have 'monthly, evening business meetings at the President's expense'. Once signed, the contract would be legally binding, and he would be legally obligated to do as it dictated or at her whim she could rake in a severance pay for 'unmet conditions'. Her seduction had reached a level he wasn't familiar with in romantic courtships.
Namely, it was a warning. She could have easily handed it over to his father, who would have been oh-so pleased to sign it by proxy. Over the months, she had discovered how the Ohtori patriarch, while not deliberately handling the affairs of his sons' companies despite owning the most shares, loved to meddle in their love lives, Kyouya's in particular. It was just sour luck that his older brothers had already married and produced grandchildren by the time he had turned twenty-six, so his father's attentions had always been focused on him most of all. Furthermore, even though his second-oldest brother had divorced three years past and lived a bachelor's life, his father's pointed nagging hadn't redirected like Kyouya had expected.
For his father's silence, Kyouya dated every two months whatever 'suitable' women was handpicked from the elite. His dates were sometimes noteworthy but always dull. People were self-centered, and he was too practiced at his game to be anything but a good listener and too locked in habit to do anything but smile congenially and twist the truth to flatter.
He knew without a doubt that she had known he would never sign it. Kyouya only dined on the finest, and their hypothetical meetings would be very public to the upper echelon, many of whom were clients. No one in their right mind would believe that they would have a business meeting at night once a month. It would lead to an image-damaging scandal.
For the first time in his life, someone attempted to seduce him in the prose of business and it had caught him completely off guard.
Obviously, he would have to turn this on her at the first opportunity, ensnaring her with her own web of manipulation. There would be a counter offer, along with not so thinly veiled threats of a lawsuit... He relished the thought of how she would react. Angry? Upset? Pleased? Kyouya had no way of knowing, but he would enjoy the game.
Standing, he placed all the scattered papers into his briefcase before shutting it. After all, he still had a meeting to attend.
With cool disinterest, he didn't glance in Kirimi's direction as he headed to the elevator with the two bodyguards moving into it before him. Horita remained sitting behind the screen at his desk.
Inside the elevator, Kyouya dialed his phone, and it barely rang before it was picked up. "Tachibana, send my lawyer to my office at 4:30." He hung up and pressed the button to the meeting room floor as the well-trained guards exchanged questioning glances behind him.
Oh, yes. This was not a woman he would so easily release, not to the bumbling hands of his rival company. Not to anyone.
Perhaps, presenting a "strictly business" counter offer and the legal statement that she would breach her current contract if she released any such secrets was not typically how people led up to announcing intentions of a romantic nature. Kyouya doubted, however, that she would turn down the gracious prenuptial that would follow the litany of documents. If she did, he would find other ways of keeping her enticed, baiting her again and again. He was very good at exploiting people's weaknesses, and hers would be no different.
At the very least, it would remove the headache of his father's terrible matchmaking.
End.
