I couldn’t sleep.
I was having a literal panic attack in the hours leading up to the interview because if I didn’t get this job, I didn’t know when next I was going to get a similar opportunity. It was a miracle that I even got an interview in the first place, and I just knew that I could not mess this up. I couldn’t afford to. Not with my rent being due in a few weeks, and a baby on the way.
It wasn’t just about me anymore, and the meager salary I was earning at the laundry shop wasn’t going to cut it. This had to work, there was no other way around it.
Still, I decided not to let my anxiety get the better of me. Instead, I put on my big girl pants and dressed up in my most presentable outfit. I took one last glance at my reflection in the mirror, and subconsciously, I found my hand going up to my belly, caressing it and feeling for any signs of life. It hadn’t started to swell yet, but I knew a little human was growing in there and I just couldn’t get used to that.
I booked an uber and once it arrived, I made my way to the NNT head office on main Crescent street which was about twenty minutes away from my apartment. By the time I finally got to the front entrance, my nerves were already acting up again, probably because of the insane size of the
place, but I had to try my best to force them down.
Inside, there were other applicants waiting to be interviewed and I was assigned a spot beside them where I could sit and wait my turn.
It took a while but eventually my turn came around, and I was ushered into a room where I was to be interviewed by a panel.
I didn’t feel as confident as I appeared before them, but I made sure to give it my all. I took all their questions in stride and I answered them all to the best of my abilities while trying to be as precise as possible without sounding too vague.
Finally, the first stage was over and to be honest, I thought I did pretty well.
I was quite relieved that it was all finally over, but my relief was short lived when I was informed that there was yet another stage. I was starting to feel a little discouraged and worried, but Bridget, the nice lady who was helping us out assured us that the last stage was more or less like a formality with the company’s CEO, and that since we had successfully passed the first stage of interviews then we didn’t have much to worry about but I was no fool. I knew that a lot could go wrong in this stage just as much as it could have in the last stage so I wasn’t letting my guard down.
The fact that this last stage was with the big boss wasn’t doing much to put me at ease either. Still, I had come too far to give up now.
When it was finally my turn, I took a deep breath and made my way to the CEO’s office. Bridget led me right to the door but she didn’t follow me inside. She simply knocked on the door and once he answered, she asked me to go in, and I did so with sweaty palms and on shaky legs.
As I stepped inside the office, I could tell that a lot of money had been spent on furnishing the place. Everything was screaming wealth and luxury, all the things I could only dream of having.
I was still admiring the office when the CEO cleared his throat, drawing my attention to where he sat behind a massive mahogany desk.
“Miss Elisa Jones” He asked, speaking from behind a bunch of files.
“Y…yes sir.”I stammered nervously.
“Are you nervous?” He asked, placing the files down on the table and giving me a clear view of his face for the first time since I walked into his office, and the face that came into view sent a cold chill down my spine. It was none other than Charlie fucking Fox, that weasel.
“You.” I seethed through gritted teeth, pointing an accusing finger at him and making my way angrily towards him.
“Excuse me?” He asked, having the nerve to look and sound surprised. The fucking hypocrite.
I picked up the first thing my eyes landed on and it just so happened to be a very big book. Without stopping to think, I lifted it up and hauled it right at him. I had to give it to him though. His reflexes were very good, because he dodged quickly, causing the book to miss his head by a few inches but before he had any time to recover, I was hauling another object, and then another, until the entire office was nothing but utter chaos and mayhem.
“Look young lady, I don’t know who you are or what your deal is but if you don’t end this madness and leave quietly, I might have to call security.”
“Go right ahead.” I replied maniacally. “Would you like me to pass you the phone?” I asked sarcastically, snatching the telephone from his desk before he could get to it, and hauling it at the TV, effectively breaking the both of them.
“Fuck.” He yelled in frustration. “Do you know how much that cost?”
“As much as fucking child care, hospital bills and baby diapers? Do you know how much baby food costs? I did the math, It’s a fucking fortune Charlie.”
“Wait what are you even talking about right now?” He yelled over the Chaos.
“Oh, I don’t know Charlie. Maybe I’m talking about the fact that you knocked me up, proposed to me then started shacking it up with some stupid bitch you picked off of the street, after which you changed your phone number, and fell of the face of the fucking planet.”
“Wha…I…” He opened his mouth, and closed it back but no actual words were coming out. It’s like he had forgotten how to make coherent sentences because he just stood there, brows creased together in thought as if he couldn’t understand a thing I was saying, but I was so done with his act of hypocrisy. If anything, it was starting to piss me off.
“Charlie! For God’s sake would you stop staring at me like a buffoon, and fucking say something, anything at all. Tell me why. Give me a reason an excuse, just give
me something, anything at all.” I cried, suddenly breaking down in tears. It was all too much for me to handle.
That seemed to break the spell because he finally opened his mouth to speak, but the words that came out of his mouth weren’t the ones I had been expecting.
“Well, uh, my name is not Charlie.” He said, refusing to meet my eyes. “ It’s Russell.”
“What? You mean you lied about your name as well. I can’t even believe this.”
“Wait no, that’s not what I’m saying, I’m…”
“Oh please, enough with the lies.” I yelled, cutting him off. “God how could I have been so stupid? I should have known that something was off with how secretive you always acted. The numerous phone calls and impromptu trips. I could never visit you without calling first, and I knew next to nothing about your life or your family or your job. Hell, you are the CEO of NNT fucking cooperation, and I didn’t even have a clue. Oh my God. I’m the biggest idiot that ever walked the face of the planet.”
By the time I finished speaking, I was literally breathless. I was pacing around the office trying to calm myself down but I wasn’t making any progress in that regard. More importantly, I wondered how nobody had come in to check what was going on because even I knew that I was making a lot of noise. His walls were probably sound proof.
“Are you quite done?” He asked when I had calmed down a little but instead of answering I simply glared at him with laser eyes, a look he chose to ignore. Instead he continued speaking.
“Okay, so what I was trying to say before you so rudely interrupted me is that I am the CEO, well acting CEO of this company, but Charlie is not.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I confessed.
“Well in that case, allow me to properly introduce myself. My name is Russell Fox.”
The wheels in my head were spinning non stop, and nothing seemed to be making sense.
“Yeah you kind of already mentioned that. But if you are Russell then who the fuck is Charlie?”
“Well, Charlie he’s uh, my brother, my identical twin brother.”
“He’s my twin brother.” Those were the only words that kept echoing in my mind as I followed meekly behind Russell as he led me out of the office and towards a nearby coffee shop. After his big revelation, I was stunned to silence and I half expected him to call the cops immediately and have me dragged out in cuffs. But he did no such thing. Instead, he asked me to follow him to a place where we could speak comfortably. I couldn’t understand what he wanted to speak about that couldn’t be said in his office. Granted, I had already made a massive mess of the place but still, I’m sure we could have concluded our business in there because walking out into the lobby of the company felt like a literal walk of shame and I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me whole. “Stupid, stupid Charlie.” I groaned in my mind. How could he never bother to mention that he had a twin brother who had exactly the same face, build, and voice as him? Now I had gone and made a fool out of myself. Final
To say that my day had taken an unexpected turn was nothing if not the biggest understatement of the century. One moment, I was depressing over being rejected by the father of my child and the next moment, I was signing documents that validated me as an auditor at NNT cooperation.When Russell had said the position had already been occupied, I couldn’t hide my disappointment because I thought I had done really well during the interview, but apparently, there was someone who had done much better than me. Still, that did not mean that they needed the job more than me because God knows I needed that job, and that person whoever he or she was had gone and stolen it from me.I wanted to mind my business and keep my thoughts to myself. Besides, I knew that it went against some sort of policy to disclose the information of employees except when extremely necessary but honestly, curiosity was gnawing at my insides, and when I couldn’t take it anymore, I blurted out the question which I knew t
RUSSEL'S POV.”One expresso martini, on the rocks please.” I said to the petite looking bartender who batted her eyelashes at me in an attempt to look seductive, but she just came off looking like she had a concoction. She wasn’t bad looking, far from it actually. In fact, she was way over the average looking girl and if I was still as young and immature as I was in high school and my first year of college then I might have offered her a second glance. Unfortunately, at this stage of my life, my priorities had become entirely different and trust me when I say that wasn’t entirely a good thing.I should be used to these advances by now, given that women had been throwing themselves at me at every slight opportunity, from a very young age, simply because I had money and a handsome face, but I just couldn’t get used to it no matter how hard I tried.When I was younger, I reveled in the attention because apparently being famous in high school was an ultimate requirement for having the best
RUSSEL'S POVTo me, getting married, and getting the CEO position were two totally unrelated topics, but apparently the older folks on the board of directors were nauseatingly old fashioned, because why would they chose to believe that my relationship status would somehow affect my performance in the company as soon as I become confirmed as CEO, when I’ve been doing just fine before now. When it came down to it, acting CEO and CEO were pretty much the same thing, and I had been doing just fine in that capacity even without a woman in my life so why did all these people want to make my life a living hell? I loved my grandpa a lot, and I was really fond of him even while he was alive. He was like my mentor and role model whom I looked up to but I really wasn’t sure If I wanted to forgive him for the whole marriage bomb he dropped on me right before his death.“Have you thought about hiring someone?” Sam suggested, pulling me out of my thoughts which were spiraling out of control by the
When Russell told me that he hadn’t told anyone the details of how I had gotten the job, I was a little doubtful. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him, I just thought that he was a really nice person who was probably just trying to protect my feelings, but I did not need protecting. I was a big girl and I could damn well take care of my own problems without his help. Which was why I didn’t call him even though I had so many questions about the company. In fact, his number in my pocket was burning a hole into my skin but I ignored it because I was sure he had his own problems to deal with. Being the CEO of a company as huge as NNT couldn’t be easy, and I couldn’t start bothering him simply because I was nervous. As I walked through the front door that morning for my actual first day, I braced myself for all the possibilities. I mentally prepared myself for the snares, for the whispers, for the gossip, and for all the side glances. I was prepared for literally anything they wanted to throw
The team dinner that April had literally forced me to attend was nothing but a nightmare. Being 8 weeks gone, my belly bump hadn’t started showing yet, but the symptoms I was feeling were a little to hard to ignore and although I did my best to hide it, there were times when it was all just a little too much. Like now, the burger place had an aroma that settled right with me, but the barbecue place we went for the dinner was a whole different story. The smell of the place nauseated me to no end and since I didn’t want to leave at the risk of seeming rude and ungrateful, I decided to stick out for a little while longer. “You look like you would rather be anywhere else than here.” Jason said from beside me, earning him a kind smile. “You have no idea.” I told him truthfully. “You know you really didn’t have to do this if you didn’t want to right? They just really needed an excuse for a good time and free food. Trust me, they do it all the time.” “Tell me about it.” I muttered, just
“Where are we going?” I asked a pissed off looking Russell who hadn’t taken his eyes from the road for even one second ever since he started driving.He was gripping the steering wheel so tightly that I feared he might crack, or worse break it. Also, with the way his knuckles were turning white from the lack of blood flow, I desperately wanted to reach out and ease them back to normal, but given his current mood, I didn’t think he would appreciate the gesture very much.More so, I wanted to make him feel better, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why he was so damn pissed off.“How did you know I was here?” I asked, trying a different question since he had refused to answer my first one.“I followed you from the office.” He replied nonchalant as if that was a normal behaviour that usually occurred between staff and their employers. For a full one minute after his reply, I sat there in silence, waiting for him to elaborate because surely there had to be some sort of explanat
The doctor cleared me for discharge that same day but Russell didn’t seem to agree with the doctor’s decision. Apparently, he seemed to think that he knew more than the professional when it came to matters of health.‘”Are you sure she doesn’t need to spend at least a night? She clearly needs to rest some more and if it’s about the money, you know I have that all under control.”“Well, I suppose she could spend the night if you want.” the doctor replied. “It would be helpful, but its not essential. You just need to make sure that she is constantly hydrated and well rested, and everything should be back to normal.”“What? I can’t do that.” I argued stubbornly. “I need to go to work tomorrow. I can’t spend the night here. I have to go home.”“If you think I’m going to let you go to work tomorrow after everything you’ve been through today, then maybe you need to be admitted for a couple more days.”“But I…”“No buts Lisa.” Russell stated firmly.”Rest well today and tomorrow, and maybe th