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Of Corporate Scandals
Chapter 7. Unexpected Happenings
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Annabeth sighed, propping her head on the palm of her hand as she flipped through the pages of an architecture text book that probably weighed more than her head. Gazing upon the blonde, one would think she was bored out of her mind from studying – what with the glassy expression in her eyes. But, alas, no, she had other things on her mind. The book was actually quite interesting and the information inside served as a welcome distraction.
With her job at Open Seas Inc. in the morning and her college courses in the afternoon and night at Columbia, it was quite an understatement to say Annabeth was busy. She had come to New York for the sole purpose of college. She was here to get an educated – first and only priority. But wanting to attend the best school meant paying for the best school so working was moving up on the priority list. Most people used the weekends to relax and free their minds from work, but for her, it was a chance to catch up on her school work.
The campus library was a nice, quiet place to work with the high, arched windows that let soft, morning light stream in – bits of dust in the air illuminated. It was filled with cushiony armchairs and large, mahogany desks and the whole place smelled of parchment, old leather, and the smell of newly processed paper.
Annabeth finally sighed once more, not, though, in contentment, but in frustration. She closed the book and decided to just let her mind wander. Her thoughts were all focused on the events of yesterday.
"Calypso?" Percy asked, abruptly sitting up.
Annabeth's hands flew from his back and she clasped them behind hers as she gazed up at the woman who just entered.
Calypso was a tall, beautiful woman with long, cascading, dark red tresses that looked too glossy to be natural. She had sparkling green eyes and perfect make-up as well as stylish designer clothes that were, no doubt, worth more than her apartment's rent. Everything about the women was voluptuous and curvy…except her nose. Despite her other perfections, her nose was a bit odd, as if it she had broken it before.
Standing next to the shapely Calypso, Annabeth felt scrawny and mousy. She squirmed nervously.
Calypso continued, "Oh, I'm sorry. I'll come back-" But she didn't sound sorry at all.
"No, Calypso. It's alright. You weren't interrupting anything." Percy cleared his throat, awkwardly. He ran a hand through his hair again before he seemed to remember that Annabeth was also in the room.
"Oh, yes," He continued, "Calypso, this is my assistant, Annabeth Chase. Annabeth, this is my colleague, Calypso Atlas. Her uncle is the CEO of Weight of the World, the company we're hoping to work with."
Annabeth smiled, timidly shaking her hand, "Hello, nice to meet you."
Calypso smiled, brightly back, although her grip seemed unnaturally strong, but Annabeth took it as a friendly firmness. Her calculating eyes lingered on Annabeth.
Calypso sat down on the armchair across from Percy's desk, "Well, Percy, we have much to discuss…"
Annabeth took that as her queue to leave and slipped out of his office.
The rest of her day was spent doing odd jobs for Mary-Sue and Silena. Percy and Calypso never came out of his office once. Annabeth's desk was close enough to the door so that she could hear them chatting and laughing together. Around lunchtime, a delivery man from Circe's arrived with heaping trays off spicy tuna rolls and other assorted seafood to bring their lunch.
The whole day Annabeth had been feeling irritated and bitter. It was not until five in the afternoon, when she about to depart to go to her classes, that she realized she was jealous. Jealous that Calypso was spending time with her boss, jealous that they had feasted upon a lunch that cost more than a whole weeks' worth of pay, and most of all, jealous of everyone else because they weren't in love with their boss.
Annabeth sighed – twenty-four hours later and she was still feeling bad. She checked the time on her wristwatch. 9:45. It was still early in the morning, but Annabeth had been there since the campus library opened at 7:00 and she deserved a break. She gathered up her things and hastily crammed them in her overflowing messenger bag.
She began walking to the entrance when she was stopped by one of her classmates.
"Annabeth!" A petite brunette said, walking up to her. A light spray of freckles covered her nose and around her blue eyes.
Annabeth forced a smile on her face, "Oh, hi, Katie."
"Have you finished Brunner's essay yet?" She asked, balancing a precarious pile of text books.
Annabeth caught one and placed it neatly on the top and answered, "Yeah. I finished it the day before yesterday."
Katie's surprised showed on her face, "But that was only two days after he assigned it on Monday."
Annabeth shrugged, "I can't afford to put things off. I'm way too busy with work and everything."
Katie nodded, sympathetically, "Yeah, I heard you work for Open Seas, right? That's a pretty busy company."
The blonde nodded, "Yeah. Anyway, I better get going." She bid Katie goodbye, saving her pile of books from collapsing again, before hopping on the subway home.
She thought of Percy the entire way home.
Annabeth unlocked the door to her apartment and walked in, "Thalia?" She called. Annabeth glanced at the clock, it was past ten. While Annabeth's day started long ago, that was not the case for certain roommates.
Annabeth carelessly dumped her bag on the love seat in the living room and walked into the kitchen, pouring herself a glass of orange juice.
She looked around her apartment, rolling her eyes. The flat looked like what any twenty-somethings' apartment would look like.
Old boxes of Chinese take-out were strewn across every available surface with random clothing articles carelessly thrown on the floor. Even the trash can was full to the brim with empty pizza boxes.
After doing a quick cleaning of the place (scooping everything into the trash can and dumping clothes into the hamper), Annabeth walked back into kitchen and surveyed the only clean room in her home, besides her bedroom of course.
Annabeth's reign in her and Thalia's small kingdom was the kitchen. She could cook anything and make it twice as delicious as the recipe whilst Thalia almost burned down the house while trying to boil water.
Even after reorganizing the pantry and attempting to study again, Annabeth couldn't get a certain green-eyed, black-haired boy out of her mind. Finally she decided to talk to her best friend about it.
Annabeth walked into the hallway to Thalia's room. Loud, rumbling snoring came from her room. She rolled her eyes, almost eleven in the morning and she was still asleep.
Not bothering to even knock, Annabeth walked in and threw open the curtains, flooding the small bedroom with light, "Rise and shine, Thals!"
Looking back over her shoulder, Annabeth saw that she hadn't even budged. She walked over and shook her awake, "Thalia. Come, get up, Sunshine. It's like eleven already."
No response.
Annabeth rolled her eyes, "I'm going to have to resort to the last thing." She began to pull off the blanket, but her roommate kept a firm grip on it, mumbling something incoherent in her sleep.
She finally managed to pry it away and pulled the blanket off to find-
"Luke!"
Her roommate's very, naked boyfriend hastily pulled the blanket back on to cover himself. "What the hell, Annabeth!"
"What are you doing in Thalia's bed?" Annabeth cried with her eyes still covered with her hands.
She heard the rustling of cloth. "I spent the night, obviously."
Annabeth asked, "Are you decent yet?"
After a positive reply from Luke, she uncovered her eyes and glared at him, crossing her arms, "You could've given me some warning! Instead of Thalia I find her boyfriend naked in her bed!"
Luke sighed, "Well, I'm not the one who barges into people's rooms without knocking!"
"Well, why are you naked?"
Luke looked at her, "Do you really want me to answer that?" He said, sarcasm dripping off every word, "Why do you think I'm naked?"
Annabeth blinked, "Oh, right. Yeah. Don't answer that."
He asked, "Why do you need her anyway?"
She replied, "I need to talk to her about girl stuff-"
He cut her off, "Never mind. I don't want to know."
Annabeth asked, "Where is she anyway?"
Luke said, "She went to the store to get some things." He climbed out of Thalia's bed and grabbed his wallet and keys, "I should get going. I'm working for my dad today."
Annabeth nodded, showing him to the door.
Luke gave her a quick one-armed hug, "Tell Thals I'll call her later."
Annabeth hugged him back, "Ok. Bye."
After his departure, Annabeth settled on couch to watch TV. Over the past year he and Thalia had been dating, Luke had become like the older brother she never had. She knew that one day, her two best friends would end up married.
A few moments later Thalia returned. She walked in and set her plastic grocery bags onto the kitchen counter, "Hey."
Annabeth looked up, "Hey."
Thalia plopped down on the couch next to Annabeth, "Where's Luke?"
"He had to go to work. He said he'd call you later."
Thalia nodded, "So what's up?"
Annabeth bit her lip, "I need to tell you something."
Thalia looked at her quizzically, "Shoot."
The blonde sighed, "I'm having work problems. There's this new girl, Calypso, and I can't stand her! She's this one client's niece and urgh! She's like this celebrity guest at the office and everyone treats her like a princess and it's getting on my nerves!"
"Why?" Thalia asked, quizzically, "What did she do?"
Annabeth fumed, "Well for one thing she hogs my boss all day! I can't even talk to him!"
A smirk crossed onto Thalia's lips.
"What?" Annabeth asked.
Thalia grinned, "Ooh. You're jeal-ous." She said with a singsong-y voice.
"Jealous of what?" Annabeth scoffed.
Thalia continued as if it was the simplest thing in the world, "Of this Calypso chick. You're jealous she's spending all this time with Mr. Sexy Boss."
Annabeth looked at her, crossing her arms, "Mr. Sexy Boss? Really? Anyway, no! I'm not jealous of her. I'm angry she's messing up my routine."
Thalia grinned, "Yeah, whatever."
Annabeth fumed, silently.
"So," Thalia said, sounding way to nonchalant to actually be nonchalant, "I have something to ask you, too."
"What is it?" Annabeth asked, slightly suspicious.
"You know my friend Rayne?" Thalia continued.
Annabeth nodded, "Your doctor?"
Thalia sighed, irritated, "You know she's not just my doctor! She's my friend, too."
Annabeth chuckled, patting Thalia shoulder, knowing it annoyed her "Yeah, I know. What about her?"
"Well, she's getting married and I said she could have her bridal shower here. Is that cool with you?"
Annabeth nodded, "Yeah, that's fine. Who's going be there?"
Thalia said, "Oh, you know. Only a few people. Just you, me, Rayne's sister and sister-in-law, and a couple other of her friends and bridesmaids."
Annabeth nodded, "Ok, cool. When is it?"
Thalia refused to meet her eyes, "Um…well…tonight?"
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"Based on the numbers coming in from the projects in South America," Open Seas Financial Manager, Hazel Levesque stated as she pointed to the power point with her laser pointer, "I'd like to ask your opinions on how we're doing with the amount of imports we're taking compared to the lack of exports we are sending."
The members of various Open Seas departments sitting around the meeting table in board room 4A shared their thoughts and tapped away on their laptops.
Poseidon Jackson, video chatting in from his office in Athens, Greece, said, "I think that we should speed up the manufacturing at the company there for more exports, but the domestic decisions are up to my son."
Hazel nodded, looking over to the other end of the table, "Mr. Jackson?"
To those in the meeting, Percy looked like he was very bored with his sunglasses slipping at the end of his nose, his drooping arms crossed, and his slumped posture, but in fact, he was more than bored; he was asleep.
Ms. Levesque sighed, "Mr. Jackson, your opinion?"
Percy even started to drool a little bit.
Hazel smacked the table with her pointer, "Percy!"
Percy jolted awake, "Huh-um, yes! Yes, I agree as well." He blurted, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
Hazel rolled her eyes, while Poseidon cleared his throat angrily from the monitor broadcasting his video chat.
"Mr. Jackson, as I was saying, how do you feel like using maximum manufacturing speed for the factory in Brooklyn so we can export more things in South America?"
"Um," Percy said, rubbing the back of his neck, "Okay? Sure, why not."
Hazel nodded, "Alright. That concludes our meeting." She packed up her brief case and filed out with the other businessmen and women.
Percy stood up, stretching and yawning. He was about to leave.
"Perseus, wait a moment," Poseidon said, staring down at his son from the monitor.
"Yeah, dad?" Percy asked, looking up at him.
"I don't appreciate you falling asleep in your board meetings."
"It's the weekend and it's so early in the morning, what do you expect?"
"Percy, it's almost eleven o'clock." Poseidon said, looking at his son.
"Yeah, but it's still Saturday!" Percy retorted.
Poseidon sighed, running a hand through his slightly graying black hair and scratching his beard, "Perseus." Percy cringed at the sound of his full name, "You need to understand that as the CEO to one of the biggest companies in North America, you have responsibilities."
"So what, I'm only twenty-five!" Percy said, exasperated.
"Yes, but you still have your responsibilities. I appointed you CEO because I needed to run all the international companies, but one day I won't be here and you'll have to run everything. Then pass it on to your own child." Poseidon grunted, "Well, hopefully a child. I'm not sure about you and all of you-"
"Dad!"
"Right, sorry. You're going to take over the company one day, son."
"What if I don't want to, Dad?" Percy snapped.
Poseidon sighed, "I've built you an empire, Perseus." He looked away, "My father was never good to me or my siblings. All he wanted was power even if his children got in the way of that. He made us suffer. I never wanted you to ever experience that so I tried to be very successful so you could have whatever you wanted. Now I've got it and I'm one of the richest men in the world. I've given you a part of it and that part is your responsibilities."
Percy sighed.
Poseidon continued, "Now I have another call. I'll call you tomorrow. Goodbye, Percy."
"Bye, Dad," He mumbled.
"Oh, wait. One more thing. Calypso's uncle is still on the fence about signing the contract."
"What does he want?" Percy asked, curious.
"Well," his father cleared his throat, "It seems that Calypso has been interfering with his decisions."
"What, why?" he asked, incredulous.
"I don't know. Just spend time with her. Get to know the girl and find out what she wants."
Percy nodded, "Alright."
The screen went dark as Poseidon bid goodbye to his son. Percy picked up his bag and was about to leave when the meeting door opened.
"Percy?"
"Hello, Calypso. Would you like to go have lunch?"
Calypso flashed him a flirtatious smile, "I would love to."
A/N: Please leave your questions, comments, and constructive criticism in a review below!