on the wooden floor as she exited the elevator and made her way to the office. She loved entering the building and hearing the sound of chattering employees, it meant that they were still in business and doing their best to be even more successful.

Her office was located in the corner of the top floor, but it provided her with an excellent view of Central Park. There was something therapeutic about having a green borough in a sea of tall buildings and powerful people.

Nyla set down her green tea before taking unbuttoning her black blazer. A newspaper lay on her desk and she smiled to herself while reading the headline.

Philanthropic millionaire Darrius Giordano buys painting at Children's Charity Auction

Settling down in her leather arm chair, Nyla began reading the rest of the article. However, when she finished the ending, she was no longer smiling. The article discussed her as well and how the two of them were seated at a single table. Then it went further on to talk about how she participated in the auction and lost. It made her look bad.

There was a knock on her door and she cleared her throat before yelling, "Come in."

Her assistant, Hyeon stood on the other side with a large stack of folders which she promptly dropped onto her desk.

"You have a meeting with George to sign off on the financial statements, a lunch with Zoey at the steakhouse down the street, at least three calls from reporters including Sona, and an emergency board meeting," Hyeon check her watch, "in five minutes."

Nyla stood up a bit straighter after hearing the last part. "What do you mean I have a board meeting? Wasn't that scheduled for next week?"

Hyeon shrugged her shoulders. "They called on your phone but because you weren't picking up, they talked to George instead who said it was fine for them to come today. It sounded serious." she added before pushing the bridge of her glasses higher up her nose.

Nyla swore under her breath. She had viewed the financial statements earlier and knew that the company was not heading in the direction she hoped for. She only wished that she had enough time to come up with a solution before being forced to stand in a room full of people who were ready to fire in the second she made a mistake.

"Did you get in contact with Marcus?"

Her assistant looked confused. "Did you want me to? I thought you only wanted to know more information about him."

Nyla took a deep breath. This was not good. She was supposed to introduce herself at the gala but between Sona's nagging and the battle between Darius and her, she completely forgot. This day was getting better by the minute. Tapping her foot nervously on the wooden floor she looked up at the photo of her mentor on the desk. She needed to think, what would Raymond do if he was in this situation?

She immediately shook her head. No, she didn't need to think the way Raymond did. In fact, if the company wanted to be successful, she needed to step out of Raymond's thinking and begin her own path. After all, she was at the ships helm and this was a sink or swim situation.

"Ms. Malhotra," Hyeon gently prodded. "You should make your way to the board room now."

Nyla nodded and slipped on her blazer. She picked up the files from her desk and took a deep breath. "I need someone to do meeting minutes,"

"I'll do it." Hyeon volunteered.

Nyla shook her head. "No, send someone else. I need you to get in contact with Marcus and try to secure a meeting with him as soon as possible. Move things around if you have to, but I must speak with him."

Hyeon nodded absorbing the information. Her assistant was young but a fast learner. Nyla knew in a couple of years she would move onto bigger things leaving a big void in company. She tried her best to teach the girl all she knew in hopes that she would go out an be successful in the world.

"Should I order lunch for the board members?"

Nyla buttoned her blazer. "No, I'm going to make this meeting as short as possible."

Hyeon was too polite to snort but she gave a shaky smile, "good luck with that."

Nyla didn't say it out loud, but it really looked like she was going to need it.

♠♠♠♠♠♠

"Good morning ladies and gentlemen, let's make this meeting as short as possible, shall we?"

Nyla took her chair at the head of the table and glanced at the men and women in the room. They didn't look friendly at all. In fact, most looked bored and annoyed by her which was nothing new to Nyla. The day she took over as CEO of Renne was one close to hell.

The board members had argued with Raymond's lawyers about the will for hours but in the end, she had gained the title of CEO with a bunch of high-ranking executives who hated her guts. Every decision that Nyla made, the board members tried opposing. It took a lot of patience and strength on Nyla's part not to throw heavy equipment at them, but she knew she was going to be CEO for a while and they could do nothing about it.

Raymond wrote a clause in his will that stated that if she was terminated from her position as CEO within a year, the board members would lose their dividends for the year. As every single one of her board members loved making money, nobody did anything—until the year was over and that's when hell broke loose.

"We didn't want to be here either."

A newspaper slid in front of her and she picked it up reading the article. It was the same one she'd been reading minutes early.

"And?" Nyla questioned.

"Cut the bullshit Nyla. You know what we mean." Charity, one of the senior board members spoke.

"It's bad press. First you associate yourself with the foolish man and then you lose an auction to him!"

"I didn't loose." Nyla replied coolly. "I chose to back out and you should be thankful that I did because I wasn't going to use my own money for the auction."

Severely voices spoke to her at once.

"You have no right to use that money."

"It belongs to the company."

"Why were you even at the gala?"

Nyla didn't bother correcting them. She had lied by indicating she would use the company's money to riffle them up. If it'd came to the end, she would never touch the company's accounts in matters like this but if her board members already made her out to be the villain, she was only playing the part now. Subtly, she noticed George shaking his head.

Sighing, Nyla decided to put them in place once and for all. "What I choose to do and whom I choose to do it with is none of your concern. I do my best to represent this company and in case you haven't notice, I donated a substantial amount to the gala out of my own pocket. Now that you're done with trivial manners, since all of you are gathered here, I have other things to discuss."

She had originally hoped to get a few more days in order to better her presentation but now she would have to make everything up on the spot.

"George, can you pull up the industry size?"

Her COO did as she told him, and Nyla launched into a presentation of her vision for the company and what she wanted the research and development team to focus on for the next few months. After ending her presentation, she stood awkwardly on the tip of her heels waiting for their reaction.

"It's good." One of the other senior board members began. Nyla became hopeful but the next few words crushed her mood right away. "But it's too risky, I'm afraid I'm going to vote not to invest more."

Nyla nodded and turned towards the other board members, particularly Charity, who knew the makeup industry well.

"I don't think people are going to trust us." Charity began. "Frankly, I'm inclined to believe with them. What does a makeup company know about vitamins and helping to nourish people's bodies?"

"But that is the thing, we do know." Nyla argued. "Our makeup products are for people with different skin types and ages. We have some of the data."

Charity shook her head. "Still, we are going into something blind and I have a bad feeling about this."

One by one, the rest of the board members declined to invest further in creating a new line for vitamins and Nyla was deflated. She watched as they walked out of the board room before standing at the window which gave her a view of New York city.

"It was a good pitch," George offered.

Nyla shook her head. "How can they be so stupid? Don't they see the trend of sales and where we are going? People are beginning to care about beauty from the inside. It's not like our company is growing further than we imagined, this would take us to the next level." she sighed. "I guess my only option is to look for an outside investor."

George winced. "I don't think that's the best idea. The board members won't be happy that you went behind their back to do something like this."

Nyla picked up her files. "Then they can kiss my ass or get me fired."

♠♠♠♠♠♠

Her phone buzzed, and Nyla frowned as she looked at the caller idea. She was avoiding Sona's calls since the morning and it seemed the elderly women finally lost her patience since she was calling on Nyla's personal phone instead of the office.

Taking a break from the reports laid in front of her, Nyla picked it up.

"I don't appreciate being ignored."

Nyla sighed and leaned further back into her chair. She really needed to get pillows in here for the night. Spending nine hours in a chair was giving her a bad posture. "I wasn't ignoring you. I just had a very busy day."

Sona snorted. "Am I to believe that you couldn't take a few minutes out of your schedule to talk to one of your very dear friends."

That's when Nyla snapped. "Yes, I was ignoring you. I told you I don't have time, even right now I'm still in the office while the rest of my employees are gone. You want to know why? Because a company can never stay successful if the captain is looking in the other direction while her cabin mates are running the ship. I still need to prove myself at every single step of the way."

There was a pause on the other line. "I'm glad that you got the out on me instead of the reports waiting at the lobby of your building. That would have been a PR disaster."

Nyla played with the ring on her finger. "I'm sorry Sona, the day just hasn't been what I was expecting it to be."

"You know that no everyday is going to be perfect right?"

Nyla laughed. "But I can make sure its close to perfect as possible."

"No wonder you've left me the dust," Sona grumbled. "It's hardworking folks like you that strive to make the world a better place."

"Through makeup?"

"No, through the charity event that you and Darius haven't spoken about since I mentioned it."

Nyla titled her neck back too look at the brass clock hanging in front of her. "How can you make an assumption like that?"

"What's his phone number then?"

Nyla paused, aware that she was caught in her lie. "Fine, I haven't spoken to him because he didn't give me his number."

"Girl, this is the 21st century, a man doesn't give you his number, you take it!" Sona scolded.

"What if I don't want it?"

"Well be thankful because I'm going to give it to you anyways," Sona began rattling off a few numbers that Nyla didn't bothering writing.

She didn't have time to be chasing after people. If Darius wanted to get off his high horse and come to her castle, fine she would work with him on the event but if he didn't show up, she would plan it herself. What she wouldn't do is disappoint the kids or chase him down. It just wasn't in her nature to do so.

"Well, I've done everything I need to. I'm going to be gone to Kenya for the next few weeks, so I probably won't answer. Leave me an email if something gets very urgent and I'll reply when I can."

Nyla replied that she would and hung up the phone after wishing Sona a safe trip and promising her that she would begin planning the event.

Her office felt even chiller once the call ended as Nyla was the only one remaining. Behind her, the lights were twinkling on the streets of New York. She paused and looked below. It was something she enjoyed doing often, watching what others were doing with their lives and pondering about how different they were from her.

A loud ping made her jump slightly before she realized that it was simply her phone. She glanced at the screen to see a message from Sona and smiled.

I know you didn't write down his number so here it is now, no excuses.

Below Sona had texted her Darius phone number. Sighing, Nyla saved it in her contacts before deciding to call it a night. She needed wine, and a night to curl up into a good book so she could forget about this day and live in a world that was different from her. Tomorrow, she would be back to give it her all once again.

This was a nice chapter to write because we really get to see behind the scenes of what Nyla does. It's going to be a slow burn story so please vote and comment :)