...
❝He was the poison I was dying to taste on my lips.❞
...
I was a coward.
The coward who wanted to leave behind the wreckage of her life for the man who had tormented her for as long as she could remember. The boy who had spit venom at me gro...
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"IT'S ALWAYS GREAT meeting with you, Mr Vanderbildt."
I nodded and merely shook Raval's hand before drawing back, not bothering to return the sentiment. I could hardly say the same when he was nothing but a nuisance. To meet. To talk to. To be in the near vicinity as.
His smile wavered, but he didn't comment as he gestured to his assistant and grabbed his files and bag before following Liliana out.
She was back in seconds, closing the door behind her as she stalked towards my desk. "River, don't take this the wrong way—"
"If it's something I could take any other way than what you intend, then don't say it."
She sighed. "It's better to keep a good relationship with clients."
"I've hardly broken any ties with Raval."
"Yes, but your... attitude with him is less than desirable."
"It would be more desirable if he stopped being a royal pain in the ass."
"It's akin to treading on thin ice," she continued. "Especially when—"
"Especially when our company is new," I interrupted. "I remember exactly what position I'm in, Liliana."
"So stop being so apathetic towards clients. He wants to work with you. He chose you over hundreds of others."
"Because his company is floundering as it is. He needs someone new, someone fresh, to support him and bring him back from the ground up."
All she could do was cross her arms, tapping her toe on the ground as she watched me. Knowing I was right.
I turned back to my computer. "If you have nothing more to say, feel free to leave."
She huffed quietly before spinning on her heels, exiting the room and closing the door behind her. It very likely itched at her to slam it shut, but she was my assistant and had only been so for five months and I doubted she wanted to put the position on the line.
It had been over three years since I'd shut down my father's legacy, buying out each member of his board with the very money he'd bequeathed to me in his will. Unsurprisingly, he'd left every penny in his name to me as his only son. They'd all voted in my favour when I'd proposed to discreetly sell it off, watching it crash and burn in the wrong hands.
It had taken a while to ensure every one of the employees who'd worked for him all around the country had secured their futures, with glowing recommendations since it wasn't their fault for working under a monster — except for the ones who knew — before I turned my full focus to school, creating my plan with the tatters of his company.
I'd used those fragments and the board of directors and members to create Revive Inc. in which my very first client was my dead father. I'd bought it back six months ago, reforming it from its destruction, changing his initial print and everything he'd designed. The name, mission, location, people; all of it was different, and as much as he rolled over in his grave, it would remain that way.
