50 Shades of Davies
Chapter 1 – Part 3
Why does she have such an unnerving effect on me? Her overwhelming good looks maybe? The way her eyes blaze at me? The way she strokes her index finger against her lower lip? I wish she's stop doing that.
"Besides, immense power is acquired by assuring yourself in your secret reveries that you were born to control things," she continues, her voice soft.
"Do you feel that you have immense power?" Control Freak.
"I employ over forty thousand people, Miss Carlin. That gives me a certain sense of responsibility – power, if you will. If I were to decide I was no longer interested in the telecommunications business and sell up, twenty thousand people would struggle to make their mortgage payments after a month or so."
My mouth drops open. I am staggered by her lack of humility.
"Don't you have a board to answer to?" I ask, disgusted.
"I own my company, I don't have to answer to a board." she raises an eyebrow at me. I flush. Of course, I would know this if I had done some research. But holy crap, she's so arrogant. I change tack.
"And do you have any interests outside your work?" I'm probing.
"I have varied interests, Miss Carlin." A ghost of a smile touches her lips. "Very varied."
And for some reason, I'm confounded and heated by her steady gaze. Her eyes are alight with some wicked thought. "But if you work so hard, what do you do to chill out?"
"Chill out?" She smiles, revealing perfect white teeth. I stop breathing. She really is beautiful. No one should be this good-looking.
"Well, to 'chill out' as you put it – I sail, I fly, I indulge in various physical pursuits." She shifts in her chair and leans forward. "I've a very wealthy woman, Miss Carlin, and I have expensive and absorbing hobbies."
I glance quickly at Maddy's questions, wanting to get off this subject.
"You invest in manufacturing. Why, specifically?" I ask. Why does she make me so uncomfortable?
"I like to build things. I like to know how things work: what makes things tick, how to construct and deconstruct. And I have a love of ships. What can I say?"
"That sounds like your heart talking rather than logic and facts."
Her mouth quirks up, and she stars appraisingly at me. "Possibly. Though there are people who'd say I don't have a heart."
"Why would they say that?" I'm genuinely intrigued.
"Because they know me well." Her lips curl in a wry smile.
"Would your friends say you're easy to get to know?" I regret the question as soon as I say it. It's not on Maddy's list.
"I'm a very private person Miss Carlin. I go a long way to protect my privacy. I don't often give interviews," she trails off.
"Why did you agree to do this one?"
"Because I'm a benefactor of the University, and for all intents and purposes, I couldn't get Miss Duarte off my back. She badgered and badgered my PR people, and I admire that kind of tenacity."
I know how tenacious Maddy can be. That's why I'm sitting here squirming uncomfortably under her penetrating gaze, when I should be studying for my exams.
"You invest in farming technologies. Why are you interested in this area?"
"We can't eat money, Miss Carlin, and there are too many people on this planet who don't have enough to eat."
"That sounds very philanthropic. Is it something you feel passionately about? Feeding the world's poor?"
She shrugs, very noncommittal.
"Its shrewd business," she murmurs, though I think she's being disingenuous. It doesn't make sense – feeding the world's poor? I can't see the financial benefits of this, only the virtue of the ideal. I glance at the next question, confused by her attitude.
"Do you have a philosophy? If so, what is it?"
"I don't have a philosophy as such. Maybe a guiding principle – Carnegie's: 'A man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled.' I've very singular, driven. I like control – of Myself and those around me."
"So you want to possess things?" You are a control freak.
"I want to deserve to possess them, but yes, bottom line, I do."