Liar

34

"So that's how I ended up in finance." I looked down at Summer's CV, the notes I'd made this week highlighted in according to importance for me. In all honesty, she seemed like the perfect candidate to bulk out the team.

"Amazing. Okay, well I think that's all the questions I had for you Summer. Do you have any questions for me?"

"Just one, Willow Finance has been running for 2 years now."

"It has." I nodded.

"What are the next 2 years going to bring?" I smiled, shifting in my chair. Oh, she was staying. She reminded me of 19-year-old Tori.

"That is a good question. I'd like to think we'll continue on this upward trajectory you know? I think I'd be stupid to assume we're going to carry on skyrocketing and I don't expect it to always come as easy as it has so far that's for sure. But we're making a really good impact into the industry and I know we can carry that on if I make the right moves for us all to keep going. Does that make sense? It kind of came out a muddled mess."

"Just more of the same right?"

"Yeah pretty much. Just making money, getting more customers, climbing that ladder." She grinned again.

"Alright well that was all I had. Thank you so much for your time."

"No," I stood up quickly, rounding my desk and walking with her across to my door. "Thank you. I have a few more interviews today and I'll make my decision but with me being off for the next few weeks, it will be Mickey from the front desk who emails out on Monday so keep an eye out for it. She'll let you know either way." She nodded, shaking my hand and thanking me again before dashing out of the offices.

I sighed, looking at the odd handful of people wandering around the office slowly. We hadn't been in office long really and most of these people had been here weeks if that. But with the pace the business was growing, I couldn't carry on having people dotted all over London and a serious expansion was in desperate need. In 3 months, I'd tripled Caswell investment's profits. It took all of 3 weeks after that went public for companies to start asking for my help and after taking on my 4th company 8 months in, I hired an extra pair of hands 6 months later we had the same problem and then I had to start a wait list because the amount of requests were just getting crazy.

It was nearly 2 years since I hired Michaela now and I was still in a chaotic dream state that this was real. I didn't quite believe that I'd managed to make this successful without my families input. I'd beat the odds in ways I could never have expected and now my little startup was quickly closing in on them with profit margins. I met Emmett once a month for coffee and he was tired, struggling and ready to give in. Dad was working him to an inch of his life and with the twins at home now, I could see it having the effect on him I knew it would. It sucked. I hated watching him struggle but I wasn't going to cave now. I'd worked too damn hard to get here.

I pulled on the papers on my desk, staring at the 3 CVs I'd interviewed. I didn't have any more interviews today, it's just the polite thing to say. Now I just had to decide who my next little mentee would be.

"Knock, knock." I looked up, smiling and waving Ash in. "I waited."

"I noticed." I raised my eyebrow, looking back at the papers and scribbling notes on all of them, trying to make a decision on who would be best. "I thought you had meetings today."

"I skipped them."

"Asher." I groaned, laying my head back on the chair as he pulled me backwards, getting down onto his knees. "You can't just skip meetings babe."

"I made a sale in my first one, dad's taking the other 2."

"He's not supposed to be in office Ash."