The Wedding Plan

Chapter 29

'What then?'

'It wasn't about you. It was about Crain. See, you're not the center of the world.'

He laughed.

'I'm well aware of that.'

'Although they did point out that this was all because of the new management. Under your management. This was what I was talking about the other day.'

'What do you know about that? You just started working at Crain.'

'I do know some things, actually.'

'You do?'

'I said that I don't read news about you. That's not entirely true. I do read them, but I don't read the ones that most people are interested in. I read the articles about you that are written from a business's perspective. I admire you in that sense. Since you first started at Crain as the CFO, that I've been following your work. The rest I couldn't care less,' she confessed, while she pretended to pay attention to what was on the TV.

Sebastian looked at her and didn't say a word. He smiled and stared. There she was with her honesty — she was so different from everyone else in his life — she was always surprising him. Even with such seemingly insignificant and small things, Eleanor managed to surprise someone that wasn't used to being surprised anymore.

'I've got something to show you.'

She got up and picked up her bag. Inside her wallet, there was an apparently insignificant business card.

'A card? Are you giving me your business card?'

'No. Read it.'

Sebastian grabbed the card and looked at it. He tenderly smiled. It was the card that he gave her when they met at Montgomery's; it belonged to his first batch of business card as CEO of Crain.

'Why did you keep this?' he gave her back the card, and she put it away again. 'You definitely never used it to call me. So, why keep it?'

'I'm not sure,' — she shrugged — 'I aimed to work at Crain. Wasn't sure if I was going to make it. Maybe I kept it because if I didn't get the internship at Crain, at least I knew you owed me a favor.' She chuckled.

'What are you chasing? Career wise. What's your end goal?'

'Is this a job interview?' she chuckled.

'No. I mean it. I want to know your answer to that.'

'To be honest,' — she sighed — 'I'm not so sure anymore.'

'You must have an idea, no?'

'I just had this image of being a badass business lady,' — she smiled — 'kind of like Larissa and Lina.'

'I'll tell them you said that.'

'Larissa has already noticed that, I think.'

'Probably. You look at her like she is a diamond on a pedestal.'

'I do not!'

'You most certainly do.' They laughed. 'I wished you looked at me the same way.' He showed her one of his dangerous smiles.

Eleanor blushed and was at a lost for words as usual.

'You know,' — he stopped and stared at her for a moment — 'I didn't forget about our encounter at Montgomery. I just wasn't sure if it was you when we met at Larissa's office. I never got your full name because no one at Montgomery would tell me, and I never got to take a good look at you. You didn't let me. You hid your face.'

Eleanor avoided his gaze and picked up another slice of pizza. These small confessions brought them closer, but they also made things awkward.

'Speaking of Montgomery. Were you ever going to tell me that it is your dad's company?'

Eleanor almost choked on her food.

'No, I was not,' she confessed after sipping some water.

'Why?'

'How did you find out?'

'Well, for starters, your last name. Although, that's not enough, there are more people with that name. But I had my suspicions. You rarely mention your last name. When you talked about your parents, you didn't say where they work at and you had that internship there, but you did not put it on your resume. If I were you, I would've mentioned that. And now I understand why back then no one there would tell me who you were.'

After their encounter at Montgomery, Eleanor thought it was best to cut all ties with the company before applying for Crain. So she omitted her internship and, unless she didn't have a choice, she refrained from mentioning her surname to anyone.

'So, you simply put the pieces together and came to that conclusion?'

'Well, your reaction confirmed it. That, and I asked Larissa. She made me feel extremely dumb. "You only figured it out now?" She asked me that with a stupid smirk on her face.'

Eleanor smiled, thinking about her boss talking like that to Sebastian. Larissa was definitively something quite special and unique.

Both picked up another slice of pizza, and while Eleanor was eating, it finally hit her.

'Oh, dammit,' she said.

'What?'

'It just hit me. You know my dad.'

Sebastian laughed.

'Should I use our relationship as leverage, maybe he will let me buy his company this time around?'