Top Note

Chapter 2

Darcel

My cell phone has been vibrating for the seventh time in a row, and I know who the caller is, but right now I am so furious that I don't have it in me to speak with her.
I rubbed my forehead with a futile hope that it would even change the condition of my throbbing head.

Three years ago, when I approached my maternal grandfather, the chairman of the Karwitz corporations, with  my proposal to expand our business into the perfume industries, the old man had laid out two conditions.
One was that, it shall be under the scrutiny of the same board of directors who run the Karwitz Hotels.

The second condition was that, it must become the topmost brand in the perfumes in the next five years.

If the above conditions aren't met the company will be merged with the Karwitz apparels, or in other words it will cease to exist. I knew my grandfather very well, he was the patriarch of the Karwitz family, and he understood business more than anything, he was impeccable, hence even though he is seventy three, he commanded the boardroom in an unparalleled way. So, when Mr. Maximilian Karwitz said something he meant it word by word. Especially when it came to me, all his terms and conditions were the harshest.

He knows you are the best and hence he wants the best out of you.

I could almost see my mother's words, she has always been telling me the same thing over and over. So that, even if she is maligned with her own darkness, she kept pushing me towards brighter side of life. Her efforts were relentless.

She was eighteen when she had me, a girl who was abandoned by the man she loved and trusted with her everything. My mother had her own war to fight with her father.

Carnelia Karwitz, the cherished daughter of Maximilian Karwitz; it wasn't easy to revolt against her father and the entire family, it wasn't easy for a beautiful and talented young woman to stay as a single mother. She was no less than a scandal, a blemish to the image of the Karwitz family. Everyone wanted her to have a fresh start, but she chose to stay unmarried and live the rest of her life atoning her mistakes.

The mistakes?

First it was her passion for perfumes which had dragged her to go abroad and study about them, my mother had dreamt of becoming a perfumer.

Her second mistake was to fall in love with a man she had just met abroad, who threw her away once he was satiated.

Her third mistake was ME. My mother's decision to bring me to this world. It wasn't easy for her to keep me, an unwanted child out of wedlock, she could have aborted this life. But, she gave birth to me, loved me and taught me with her all. She taught me how to survive, when she was fighting her own battle with depression, and PTSD, at the end of that battle she withdrew. The woman who was said to have the gift of gab, lost her voice.

The only person whom Maximilian Karwitz blamed for his daughter's predicament was me.
I know deep down he wants me to fail, in order to show me my 'place', for although I call myself a Karwitz I am really not one according to him.

Well, his second condition wasn't a problem at all because that's all I wanted to do. I wanted our perfumes to be unrivalled and my passion was entrenched far beyond mere business. The major problem was the board, it was headed by my grandfather and his closest associates, there were only a few people who were on my side, extremely few.

Today's board meeting was a catastrophe, this was the first time I had no concrete stuff to show or prove why I needed the funding for our new launch. And to add to my troubles someone from inside the company has let out the situation about our creator team.
Well, I can't deny it's absolutely screwed up, but with the tight deadline in hand I can't really work with half assed, airheads who don't have any creativity in perfumery, it's a science blended in art, that's what my mother always says...said, now she either writes or speaks in sign language.