"I don't see any particular reason why you have kept on requesting my presence. Still, Mr. Schmidt, I'm here."

"Miss Ciarve, I am very grateful for this, but...I wanted you to look at the retail market yourself, for it can bring enclosure to why we demanded the change."

I raised my eyes straight toward the man in front of me, perceiving my sharp gaze he tried to avoid looking at me by looking toward his sub-ordinate and ordering him to bring out papers. Maintaining my calm, I kept my voice steady as I repeated the words my assistant has been telling him, "Your approach and requests are unreasonable."

Seeing that I was resolute to not give him the way, his tone turned pleading and humble when he again tried to hold my gaze and requested, "We know Miss Ciarve, and we can't change your decisions, we have no mean to. That's why I want you to see it yourself."

I looked at the man triple my age, for a second questioning myself how come his spurious beseeching actions are apparently efficacious and is he the same obsequious man with whom I formed a business alliance four and half years ago. Mr. Schmidt started his retailing proprietorship business years ago, but it wasn't doing well and had fallen to cut-price. That's when, we reached to buy his company's forty-percent ownership. With the help of our financing and economical standing, in a year the retailing business emerged with greater revenue and with time reached, where I bet, Mr. Schmidt would have never envisioned.

Being a co-owner and CEO of this retail company, which is now among the top ten in Germany, Mr. Schmidt along with Allgaier's have gained both money and fame through our partnership. But for about a year now, I'm being sent requests and reports of how he wants to change the things, mainly the policies and name of the retail brand.

In fact, it's all his charade, which he thinks I'm unable to see —hidden behind his apparent and concerning demands are subtle attempts to push us to the edge.

My eyes flickered from Mr. Schmidt's, hands that were holding the papers, ready to be rushed toward me, to his face curled in an expectant smile. When we first time met those felicitous smiles and humble hands, which so willingly shook my hand to commence our cooperation -today they are nowhere in sight. Because today's Mr. Schmidt doesn't want the company he has built from scratch to fall heavily into other's hands, suddenly he's capable to buy the forty percent he has to sold.

He thinks of himself as a quite smart man, I just hope he has prepared well for what he'll face sooner or later.

Putting on my slight smile, I looked straight at him, my tone was mild, "If that's what you insist, now that I'm here, I find any reason inappropriate of denying to have an enclosure."

Registering my words, his smile widened, and directed toward his subordinates he started praising in German while giving them the papers back, eventually turning to me, "Very well, I have prepared a team exclusively for Miss Ciarve, they will give you extensive details of everything."

My face didn't change much, "That's very thoughtful of you, Mr. Schmidt."

He nodded his head and exclaimed of how this was no bother to him and anticipatingly looking me he spoke, "So, should I call the team, so Miss Ciarve... " leaving his words midway he waited for me to complete.

"About that, I have somewhere I need to be, till then tell your team to prepare everything, I'll join them after the lunch break."

Hearing my words, his smile faded a little but the satisfaction on his face was nowhere dimmed after knowing that I will return a half-day later.

I know he's eager, for deceiving me the biggest hurdle he faced was why would I sell something in millions when that millions can be covered by it in a year or so.

To convince me, Mr. Schmidt has chosen his options pretty well. For quite some time he has been pestering things mainly revolving around the change of the policies, which were previously worked on and approved by me. The reason focused for this is pretty inadequate and unproved solidly, all based on his estimations, and blaming current policies for lacking future perspective.

Things are pretty standard and lame till here until one dives into the plans he's adamant to apply. Which are full of his discreet attempts; one instance being he wants to remove the name of Allgaeirs from everywhere under the claim that how it's harming the repute of retail business with the involvement of foreign name in the local market.

"Please tell them to be concise in their details, I can only spare limited."

With these words, I bid my leave from him and left the company with Nayla and Ali, who this whole time was silent at my side.

The moment we stepped outside, although the cars were in sight, I turned toward both of them and suggested, "Let's just walk to some nearby cafe, we have no time to waste." They both agreed without any words and we made our way to some decent cafe.

At about ten in the morning, a big and vibrant city like Berlin is quite filled with people, I have been here quite a time, for a month I stayed here when I had to re-establish the company along with Mr. Schmidt. Kai too was with me so, I have visited around the city along with him, although I haven't come in much contact with others, still what I like most about this city is its air of social freedom. In a city with such rich history; whose traces can be seen everywhere from the graffiti on the walls to the monuments, it always feels special being here.

Making our way through the crowd on the sidewalk, we found a pretty modest-looking cafe at just a fifteen-minute walk. Stepping inside, I searched for a quiet table in a corner -the cafe wasn't filled much with people and it was considerably tranquil inside- spotting the desired spot, we made our way there.

"Mr. Schmidt seems pretty assertive in what he's doing."

While we were getting comfortable on the chairs and opening our files and documents on the laptops, I heard Nayla's tantalizing comment and my eyes raised toward her smiling face.

"He does." I agreed nonchalantly and proceeded to open the file to once again go over the conditions on it.

"If Boss already saw through Mr. Schmidt tricks, why stretch it for a year?"

I raised my eyes toward Ali, he rarely speaks much with everyone, and just listens. I have always admired his capability of being a good listener, still, the whole team always finds means to make him talk more. With time I have noticed that he only speaks when he's intrigued about something and asks directly regarding things he doesn't understand.

Smiling toward him, I placed the file down on which the papers stated the conditions under which I'm going to sell the shares back to Mr. Schmidt's, and tried to convey my intentions, "Sometimes in hastiness, people tend to cut their own ways. I was waiting for him to do the same."

For a split second his brows lowered and his eyes raised toward Nayla, who was smiling ambiguously while looking between us, she's well aware of my ways, so, I know she guessed it long ago. Racking his brain for another second, Ali nodded thoughtfully and his lips curved in a slight smile.

With a smile on my own lips, my eyes moved toward the papers Ben has prepared and sent this morning. He has detailed all the conditions and amount, which is four-time of the current market value of the shares, but I know Mr. Schmidt will comply, he'll probably too happy to deny or object. The thing he has been waiting for so long will be finally in his hands, how could he not accept in a second. I have been bearing that man's subtle tactics for a year now, his amusing tricks never failed to entertain me. I waited, waited to see how far he can go. And it reached the day, to convince me of the sudden loss, he, himself, started making shortcoming in his own business.

To prove my policies wrong he started his tricks of antagonizing things, which eventually lead to comparably lessen profit in past months. After putting the blame on the involvement of a foreign name, being a polite person he can't say anything directly but he edged me toward the loss this business will be, so I will surely show understanding after analyzing things and offer Mr. Schmidt from my mouth about selling the forty percent.

Inwardly shaking my head, I can only say one thing, whomever Mr. Schmidt is taking advice from, he needs to fire that person.

"Ali, you keep looking into the stock market, and Nayla, you once again overview the list of companies we are buying and start contacting them." Both nodded at my instructions and dived into their assigned work.

There's no benefit when it comes to forcing others to do work for you, I have long ago learned to treat my employees good. I would have easily let him off, if only instead of becoming a coward he directly had come to my face and presented his request. But, nope, he decided to play, so, how could I not play my part. I have my own limits, and when it comes to Allgaier Corporation, never test them.

In his constant desperation, he has eventually paved the way for his own downfall. With the biggest benefactor stepping back, Mr. Schmidt will have a long way in cleaning his own mistakes.

Whatever Mr. Schmidt's doing, I don't blame him, he's doing business but he too can't blame me, because I too am doing my business.

My lips curved in a sparse smile, although I'm somewhat here to play along with Mr. Schmidt's tricks —it's more fun when his allusions will break. But what I'm here for is to invest in new developing companies, I have kept my eyes on them for the past few months. All of this will be done on the money that will come from Mr. Schmidt's after selling the shares.

With that, along with ordering some coffee and cakes, we fell into the discussion of finalizing everything and dividing the work.

I'm only here for three days, we reached last night in Berlin, and rested pretty well. Originally I wanted to work rather smoothly here, although the work is not as serious as we had in Milan, so, I wanted both Ali and Nayla to rest well here and roam around a little. But, now that, we are a day overdue, so the four-day trip shrank to three days including all the work. I don't intend to extend our stay here, after the conference on the third day's night, that night Nayla and Ali will fly back while the next morning I will head to Gaborone(Botswana) —to 'Protect Wild Nature' organization's head office.

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After about two hours, to fulfill the priorly arranged appointments (which was initially of yesterday) Nayla left to, herself, visit the companies on the behalf of Allgaier Corporation. Ali has to follow up on his stock market, therefore, he stayed in the cafe and after an hour I too excused myself to got back to the formerly agreed settlement.

With my hands inside the pants pockets, I let my pace had a leisurely touch at the same time I was vigilant of my surrounding, while looking around I made my way toward the company through the busy commercial area. To have not my time wasted there, I have my files transferred to my iPhone —sent by Ben to review.

As I reached the company, taking the elevator I directly approached Mr. Schmidt's office. Where he was impatiently waiting for me, and warmly greeted, once again, at my arrival. Without wasting time I showed my approval of starting the work as soon as possible, to which in a boastful manner he told me of the team he has exclusively appointed, already waiting in the meeting room.

Showing me the way we reached the meeting room, as his secretary opened the door, after him, I followed in. As I stood beside Mr. Schmidt, my stance was still with edgy indifferent laxity as I nodded my head while he introduced me to the people inside the room. Intending to vaguely look over their faces once, I raised my head toward the people standing in my presence.

What I never expected was my gaze to halt on one particular face, smiling audaciously as he returned my stare.

Again.

My expression turned utterly impassive, and I could feel Mr. Schmidt looking at whom my gaze was directed at. Coming beside me, I heard him say, "This is one of the company's legal advisors," My line of sight broke at his words and I calmly moved my eyes toward Mr. Schmidt, he was pointing toward the man I was staring at just now.

He stood at the potion just on my left, so it wasn't hard for him to extend his hands as he uttered his name, yet again a false one;

"Asher Charles."

Looking at him once again, his wide smile now faded into slight curves, I moved my eyes from his face to his hand, with no intentions of taking it to shake.

"Mr. Charles, Miss Ciarve hands are wounded, so," Seeing that I had no plans of even uttering a single word, Mr. Schmidt did the work of a mediator. Hearing the explanation, he withdrew his hands back, but I noticed how a flash of doubt passed through his smiling face as his gaze flickered toward my hands hidden inside pockets.

Even though I'm in my usual calm, but I wasn't able to hide the momentary annoyance that surged inside me after seeing his face.

And for that split-second, I know it was visible on my face when I raised my eyes and met with the familiar gaze of the amber-eyed man in front of me.