The Lady's Butler

Preview

Presenting a short excerpt as a preview of the sequel, currently in progress...

"Now, let's move on to Mr. Kingly. You mentioned that you didn't want to work with Mr. Kingly and refused to meet him when Kyvan went to the trouble to arrange a meeting with him. Do you happen to know the name of the company that he kimheads?"

"No, but I know I don't like him. He didn't even try to view me like a businessman and treated me like a child during our first meeting." Kyren crossed his arms now, glad to be focusing on anything other than the mistake that he had accidentally made.

"Kingly had every reason to treat you like a child, and you gave him absolutely no reasons to think otherwise." Louise declared, turning to shoot a glare to her husband now. "Brandon, when you brought Kyren to meet Kingly, did you tell him that Kingly is your cousin's husband?"

"Yeah." Brandon answered, swallowing hard because he didn't really want to let his wife know that during the introductions, Kyren had been playing around and had not made the most stellar of impression in front of Kingly.

"Then did Kyren know that Kingly's business is a subsidiary under the Greaves-Crawford conglomerate?"

"I... have mentioned it." Brandon's words were guilty now, and Louise had long learnt over the past fifteen years that Brandon was a man who faced up to his mistakes confidently and without trying to hide, but when it came to the mistakes and infractions that his children had done, he was as guilty as a convicted man.

"Then do you" Louise turned back to her son who was beginning to pass the line of being shocked and just looked sickly now, "Do you remember that Kingly is the Head of the Trading Association, which meant that if you had just listened to Kylar and met the man, you would also have learnt that while he had reservations about you being in charge of anything, he was still ready to lend help to family members and connect with the tender manager in Princeton, who is also a part of the Trading Association?"

"H-How was I supposed to know all of that?" Kyren was clearly grasping at the straws for his defence, but Louise as a mother was already unforgiving. Louise as a businessperson was merciless.

"This is the agreement you signed when I allowed you to take over managing Greaves-Crawford Supplies. Every single detail about your own family's businesses was here." Louise introduced, and then finally slid the folder across the table. Kyren's trembling fingers drew out the papers within to show handwritings scribbled all over the pages, making notes and highlighting important points. She flipped a few pages for further evidence before dropping it on top of the previous file. "I assume you had Kyvan helping you make the notes this time?"

"I... Um..."

"When I was your age, Kyren, I had to scrape to get my connections because my uncle did not want to the world to know that Louise Crawford was well-educated in business. I had to have my butler appear during the annual meetings while I was in school, and he had to pretend that he was the one managing everything because I knew that they could not take well to a 15-year-old girl running the business. Oscar refused to allow me to borrow my family name and power, and I had to fight and strategize and plan my every step. That small business I used to hold is now known as the Greaves-Crawford Holdings. What about you, Kyren? Your butlers gave you everything you needed, and what did you do with the effort?"

"It's only because of your butler... if I had him of course I would make it big too..." Keyron did not think it was possible, but the muttered words from his young master that was probably meant as a tiny grumble, which unfortunately turned out to be rather loud considering the tense silence of the room –made the temperature of the room drop by ten full degrees.