Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer owns all the basics.
Rated M for several reasons.
Chapter 3 Company
BPOV
"What the fuck were you thinking?" Char demands, pacing up and down my office with Aro.
"That I was single?" I query. "And perfectly entitled."
"You do know." She growls. "That when you 'buy' a man at a Bachelor Auction you aren't actually supposed to fuck him?"
Even my blush doesn't distract her.
"I really don't see what the problem is, two consenting adults, twenty first century . . . ."
"He's married." Aro points out.
"I didn't know that." I confess. "I don't follow baseball. But surely that's her problem and not mine?"
"Sometimes Bella." Char groans, collapsing on one of my couches.
"We need damage control." Aro decides, collapsing on the other one.
"What damage?" I ask.
"Bella you are the CEO of a multi billion dollar global business, you have a reputation to protect."
"Has the share price dropped?" I enquire.
"No." They both say at the same time.
"Has the company's reputation been damaged?" I want to know.
"Marketing says unlikely."
"Then what does it matter if I 'boinked' an unfaithful baseball player?"
"What about you?" Char asks. "Don't you care what people think of you?"
"Honestly? These days? No."
It'll die down, it always does . . . .
...
"So." Rose asks, spearing her asparagus and sucking the butter soaked tip lasciviously. "What was he like?"
Its several weeks since the Bachelor Auction and the fuss has indeed died down but I knew Rose would want the messy details.
"Muscular." I snicker, sipping my perfectly chilled wine. "And vigorous."
"Hmm." She hums appreciatively. "I always thought he was hot. I see that his wife has very graciously agreed to forgive him."
"I'm not surprised. He's worth millions in endorsements."
"You're a callous bitch sometimes." She laughs, toasting me with her own pinot grigio. "I flove that about you."
"So." I begin, done with talking about me. "How much of this trip is business business and how much is wedding business?"
"Don't." She growls as the waiter takes away our decimated starters. "I swear she only asked me to be Chief Bridesmaid to save on a wedding planner."
"You and Esme, the dream team."
"Esme's loving it, of course, but in fairness to me and the complaining Em says I'm doing, I actually work." She sighs as our pasta is placed in front of us, savouring the aroma with me. "Yum. But at least she's not interfering, although she doesn't need to. She was extremely exacting about what she wanted, the only way the Ma-in-law and I can go wrong is if we do it deliberately."
"How's Suaveward taking it?" I ask as she pauses to take a bite of her pasta.
"Absent." She laughs. "God this is good. You know the best restaurants Cyggers. He's been measured for his penguin suit and bought the rings. Other than that he's staying well out of the way."
"Sounds like a sensible move."
"One he's copied from Em." She observes darkly and I laugh.
There were times, in the run up to their wedding, when I thought Em might not live to see it, and clearly it still rankles with my best friend.
The waiter tops up our wine while we finish our pasta, thank god I cancelled all my meetings for this afternoon. Who knows what havoc a tipsy CEO could wreak during normal business hours? Experience tells me the Board would consider that more risky than a frisky one.
"Dessert?" I ask when we're done with our main course.
"Hell yes." Rose confirms. "And beaucoup more wine. Em wants to start a family."
I summon over the waiter who obliges us with more pinot grigio.
"What's wrong with that?"
"Are you mad?" She demands. "Motherhood and me? I know I've always wanted kids, but fuck, Cyggers, the responsibility. You know the world is full of assholes right?"
"I'd noticed."
"Bella, what if I raise another one? I'd never forgive myself."
"Oh Rose, only you."
...
Done with our family planning discussion, Rose needs to get over herself and be the mother she was always meant to be, we hit the streets where my name gets us a miraculous lead time on the 'must have wedding cake'. And invitations scripted by the best calligrapher in town.
By which time its 'beer o'clock' and Rose and I retire to a nearby bar.
"Seriously." She snorts as we down another. "I don't care what color she calls it, its fucking beige. How am I going to look good in fucking beige?"
"A tan?"
"That's what I said. Em says he'll take me to Isle Esme before the wedding. That'll backfire on her, won't it?"
"You don't like her?"
"I don't dislike her. It's just. Fuck. My lips are sealed."
"Around the neck of a beer bottle."
"Oh. Yes. It's empty. Where's that sexy barman?"
"Ladies?"
"More beer Dwaine." Rose demands. "My BFF and I are runnin' dry here."
We sip our new cold ones in appreciative silence for a moment.
"I shouldn't be telling you this." Rose admits.
"Huh?" I ask, beer confused.
"Tanya. Bridezilla. She was not best pleased that you weren't going to be a bridesmaid."
"Um?"
"I'm assyou. No, I'm drunk, that's not right. I'm assumin' it's because you bein' in the weddin' party would have given it some social media cachet."
"But I'm still gonna be there aren't I? I'm not uninvited or anything?"
"Groom's family. No uninvitin'."
"Fuck we're drunk." I observe.
"I know." She sniggers. "What say we finish these and find some junk food?"
...
We stagger out into the darkness to find Demetri and my long black car waiting for us. I'd forgotten he was working tonight . . . .
"I love you." Rose informs him as he holds the door open so she can fall inside.
"Thank you." I murmur as I plunge in after her.
"Where are we going?" He asks as he prepares to close the door.
"We need grease." I inform him.
"Dave's?" He suggests.
"Oh god yes." Rose moans. "You get me Dave's cheeseburger and fries Demetri and I'll blow you, no, that's not right, love you forever."
"I know what you meant Mrs Cullen." Demetri drawls as he closes the door on our laughter.
"Haven't you ever?" Rose asks with a comedy wink.
"No!" I protest as we glide away from the kerb.
"I would have." She sighs, leaning her head back with a beatific smile. "He's as hot as hell for an older guy. I would have, every time he 'drove' me anywhere. I'd have put it in his contract, what kind of plutocrat are you?
...
An hour or so later Demetri delivers us to my building and insists on riding up with us in the elevator.
Which is just as well because I need him to open the door, can't seem to get the key to work for some reason . . . .
"Call me in the morning." He says quietly as he steers Rose away from a collision with the 'solid oak' frame. "If you want to go anywhere tomorrow."
"Thank you but I doubt we'll be goin' anywhere till well after lunch."
"Bella. Ms Swan. Let me help you, okay?"
"Demetri . . . ."
"Please, Bella, you know I take my job seriously."
"What aren't you telling me?"
"Just let me drive you."
"Cyggers!" Rose yells from the depths of the apartment. "A little light babe?"
"Fine." I tell him as I sway alarmingly. "I'm confused but I'll call you if I need you."
"Thank you." He says, ushering me inside and closing the door behind me with a firm click.
...
Alright, I'll admit it, it's not always the Cullens that inflict life threatening hangovers on me, sometimes I do it myself.
Ungh.
I stagger into the kitchen, where Rose, whose recovery powers meant she was always destined to be a Cullen, already has coffee on.
"Love the bed hair." She muses as she dips into her bowl of cereal and flicks through the morning papers. "We're in the gossip column."
"Ooh. Mid week gossip, that'll please Aro, were we drunk?"
"Nope, at the restaurant, eating and looking like the rich bitch goddesses we are."
"Good thing they didn't get one of us slumped on the kerb stuffing our faces at Dave's."
"Yeah, maybe, but Em would have been jealous as hell, he has a 'man crush' on Dave."
"What are we going to do today?" I ask as bathe my face in the steam from my coffee.
"We're not drinking that's for sure." She sighs. "We're getting old Bella, I feel like a well wrung dishcloth this morning."
I shake my head at her. Rose is one of those women who rolls out of bed perfect and ready to go, you'd never know she'd been doing shots last night and dancing round my apartment, naked, to Smells Like Teen Spirit.
"We're only thirty Rose." I point out.
"You might be." She snorts. "My birthday's not till December."
"Bitch."
"Strumpet."
...
Eventually, when I couldn't entice her with a TV dinner, we went out for lunch and decided to go bother my realtor. Rose was fascinated with the idea of me buying some dirty great romantically haunted mansion in the middle of nowhere.
But none of the huge properties they showed us in commutable distance of the city were what I'd had in my head when I'd conceived the idea of 'out'.
So we looked at apartments again instead, lining up a couple of penthouses for me to view the following week.
Then she came to a gallery opening with me as my plus one and we restricted ourselves to getting only mildly tight.
...
The following day I loaned her Demetri to drive her round her appointments and take her back to the airport and made my own way into the office.
I read all the resumes Char gave me in bed last night and the words are still swimming in my head when I start the first interview.
By lunch I've done three identikit wannabe personal assistants and almost lost the will to live. I know intellectually that Char's shoes are going to be impossible to fill in the exact same way but surely some kind of personality isn't too much to ask for?
The woman herself bustles into my office bearing food, which cheers me up immediately.
"Well?" She asks as we dig into our noodles.
I pull a face and she laughs.
"They all fit the profile we put together." She points out.
"Good for them." I observe sourly. "You know women used to give birth while they worked in the fields right?"
"This isn't a field Bella and not even for you am I dropping twins in Accounting."
"I know." I sigh. "Sorry. Not handling the idea of change very well."
"You'll manage, maybe this afternoon's crop will be more to your liking."
...
"Seriously." I complain as we lounge on my office couches with our heels off. "He was so arrogant I almost wanted to slap him and when I asked what he felt qualified him to take such a huge leap up the career ladder he laughed at me and told me not to worry about it because he was full of ideas on how better to lead the company. Cheeky fucker."
"I'm sorry Bella, he seemed charming at the first interview." Char laughs. "Maybe he was just trying to make sure you'd remember him?"
"I'll remember him alright." I growl. "And the sight of him scurrying out the door with my exquisitely shod toe up his ass."
"So you liked Felix?" Char asks when she's done laughing at the memory.
"I did. He's got the right experience and I think he'd adapt to the culture here well but he's six seven and every time we walk into a room together we're going to get laughed at. I barely even make it up to his shoulder."
"There are worse failings." She chuckles.
"Yeah." I laugh. "Poor candidate number four, I feel sorry for her, I thought I was going to throw up when I came for my first interview here with the Old Man. At least I got the waste paper basket to her just in time."
"So are you going to give her a job here somewhere?"
"I am, there but for the grace of god and all that. It could so easily have been me."
...
After I shoo Char out to meet Pete I settle down to catch up on all the work I've missed in the last couple of days and its one in the morning by the time I'm done.
Riding the elevator down to the parking garage I'm lost in thought, not even on the fateful day of my interview did I imagine I'd be here like this now. It's surreal . . . .