called. There is someone waiting for you downstairs."

Nyla looked up to face the intern who was replacing Hyeon for a couple of days. According to her calendar, she didn't have another appointment until a few hours later but the intern could have screwed up.

Nyla sighed. She couldn't wait to have Hyeon back. At the same time, she couldn't fault the intern either, but Nyla knew that the mousy haired girl would not fair well in a fast-paced business environment like Renne.

"Well, are you going to tell me who it is?"

The intern blushed, "Yes of course. I was getting to that. It's Mr. Giordano from G Health."

Nyla raised an eyebrow. "Last I checked, he wasn't on my calendar. What is he doing here?"

"I, d-don't know." The poor girl stumbled over her words.

Nyla hated it, but she needed to be hard on the interns. She wasn't ever degrading them, but she was teaching them how the business world functioned. Based on that evaluation, Nyla would be able to asses whether they were a right fit for the company.

"It is a part of your duties to find out all the information before coming to me." Nyla explained in a firm tone. "Frankly, there are always people trying to sneak into the building and it can be threat to our safety."

The intern looked scared out of her wits.

"However, in this case, I know Mr. Giordano and because my schedule is a free for a bit, you can go bring him up."

The intern pointed towards herself, "Me?"

Nyla nodded. "If we have someone coming into our building, its customary for the secretaries to make sure they arrive in the right location and don't get lost."

Nyla waved her hand. "Go bring him up."

The intern scampered away, and Nyla took the time to tidy a few things around her office. For the most part, she kept it clean but somehow, mid-day she would often find herself amid files and her laptop. She finished sending a few important emails and returned to the proposal she'd been viewing.

There was a knock on her door, "Come in." she said, barely glancing up from her files.

It would surely piss off Darius and that thought alone made her smile.

There were a few moments of silence when neither party send anything, but her intern coughed in a way that indicated she was anything but sick.

She looked up to see Darius standing in a double-breasted navy suit. The gold cufflinks glittered when the sun hit him, and Nyla took a moment to appreciate how well the outfit was pieced together. Few were brave enough to pull a double-breasted suit and it didn't look good on everyone's figure, but on Darius' it looked more than perfect.

"This is Mr. Giordano." Her intern introduced her then blushed when realizing how stupid it sounded to introduce Darius to Nyla.

Nyla felt pity on her. "You can go return to your work now. Hold all my calls for an hour but if someone extremely important calls, let them through."

The intern nodded before making her exit from Nyla's office, except she tripped. Nyla watched in second-hand embarrassment as her intern tumbled towards to floor but she didn't fall—because Darius caught her.

Nyla almost rolled her eyes. Of course, he would catch her.

The dark-haired women blushed even more if it was possible before she practically fled from Nyla's office. Darius watched her departure.

"No wonder you were late for our lunch meeting. I would be too if I had someone that incompetent running my schedule."

"Hey," Nyla snapped. She didn't like it when other people made fun of her employees. "She's only an intern, my assistant is gone on a week-long vacation and if you met her, you'd see how competent she is."

Darius took a seat on the sofa and made himself comfortable. "It's a shame. She's going to be let go after her internship, isn't she?"

Nyla sighed. "Yes," she admitted.

"Poor thing."

"One minute you're criticizing her, and the next your ready to be her night in shining armour? Honestly, I don't understand, and they say women are difficult."

Darius laughed. "Oh, women are way more difficult in ways you can't even comprehend." He took his time sweeping around the office, looking at the detailing on the wall. "You've got a nice office, and an even nicer view."

"Thank you." Nyla said sincerely. She took quite a lot of pride in the decoration of her office.

She'd made the place as comfortable and chic as possible. She needed a good environment if she was going to be spending ten hours a day in the room.

"Enough of the pleasantries, to what do I know the pleasure of your company?"

Darius pointed towards the newspaper laying under her files. A smirk was planted on his face, "Did you read the newspaper today?"

"Oh, I've been extremely busy today. However, I don't think there was anything that was too important." Nyla said in a casual tone.

"Really?" Darius plucked the newspaper from under her files. "Because I see that my stock is doing much better than yours which means I win the bet."

Nyla glared at him. "You cheated."

"I didn't cheat, I simply outsmarted you. Just admit it."

Nyla did not. Instead, she turned back to her work completely ignoring Darius. Except it was hard to go over expansion budgets when there was someone like Darius starring at her.

Sighing, Nyla pushed the file. "Fine you win."

Darius merely smiled.

"I was pitching an investment to Marcus."

"I guessed as much," Darius said in a sarcastic tone.

Nyla frowned. "Are you going to let me talk or are you going to keep interrupting me."

Darius held up his hands in mock surrender.

"I wanted our brand to launch a new vitamin line focusing on hair, skin, and nails. The idea that beauty comes from the inside. I needed Marcus' investment to go through with it since none of the board members agree with me."

Nyla explained a few more aspects of her plan and Darius listened to her carefully. Ever once in a while, he would ask a question that made Nyla realize he was paying extremely close attention to what she was saying. She also felt like this was the first time she was seeing Darius, CEO of G Health in action.

At the end of their discussion, Darius leaned back into the chair thoughtfully. "I'll invest with you."

Nyla snorted. "Yeah right."

Darius looked offended by her attitude. "I was being completely serious."

"And I don't believe you for a second. A partnership between us would end up in disaster." Nyla truly believed that it would work.

"Look, we are both professionals and we could make it work."

Nyla shook her head. "I don't want to be involved with anything messy. You and I already can't get along about so many other things, adding a business contract would be terrible. Besides, people would think that we are selling short but partnering up with a pharmaceutical company."

"They would think it's a genius move on your part. You don't know much about the health side of makeup and that's where we would step in. A pharmaceutical company knows what makes a successful drug and what doesn't."

Nyla still wasn't convinced. "I'm sorry, but I think this is a bad idea. Most people have a bad preconception of pharmaceutical companies and even if one-person begins dragging our company, others fall in suit and suddenly we have a major problem."

Darius opened his mouth to say something but there was another knock on her door. "Come in," she called.

George stepped inside his eyes going back and forth between Nyla and Darius.

"Am I interrupting?" he asked.

"Yes-" Darius began before Nyla smoothly cut him off.

"No, we were just finishing up are discussion anyways."

She stood up to introduce the two of them, but George beat her to the punch. "You're Giordano from G Health, aren't you?"

Darius stood up as well and Nyla wasn't surprised to see that he easily towered over the both of them. "Giordano was my fathers name, I prefer Darius."

The men shook hands. "This is George my COO."

"A pleasure to meet you." Darius said, words lacking the sincerity needed to make them the truth.

Nyla frowned at the tone of his voice. It was one she hadn't heard him use before.

"May I ask what you are doing here?"

George's tone was polite enough but there was an underlying threat to it as well. Nyla almost rolled her eyes. How typical of males to try to assert themselves as the top dog.

"I was just having a discussion with Ms. Malhotra about a few things." Darius replied vaguely.

It was clear he wasn't going to mention the investment offer he made earlier and Nyla was thankful for that.

There was a moment of awkward silence before Darius got up to leave. "I've taken enough of your time, Ms. Malhotra. Thank you for letting me intrude."

The words were polite, and distant. It was so different from the Darius she'd been talking to moments earlier and the change surprised her. For the first time, she realized that this was the façade he put out for the rest of the world. But he'd been different with her, he'd dropped the mask enough to let her in.

She gave him a courtesy nod. "No problem Mr. Giordano." His last name felt very foreign on her tongue, but she forced herself to smile.

The both shook hands. "I'll be in touch, later." He said.

Nyla nodded and watched his figure leave his office.

George raised an eyebrow at her. "What exactly were you discussing with Giordano?"

"We are both sponsoring a charity event and had to go over a few things," Nyla half-lied.

George looked at for a few seconds more. "He's dangerous Nyla. You don't need me to tell you that. He could destroy us if he wanted to."

Nyla was annoyed now. "I'm not doing anything wrong. We were having a business discussion and there is nothing wrong with that."

George opened his mouth to say something but then closed it.

"In the meanwhile, since you are here, I wanted to discuss something about the finances. Marcus is saying something is off."

George frowned. "What does Marcus Reed know about our finances?"

"Apparently a lot." Nyla sat back down in her chair. "Can we discuss it now?"

George ran finger through his grey hair. "I'm sorry, I have a business lunch, but we can discuss it later."

"No, it's fine." Nyla replied.

George left her office and Nyla was alone once more. She starred at the newspaper and thought about Darius' proposal. There wasn't much to think about it, she had Marcus lined up and didn't need him. Crumbling it up, she tossed it into the garbage can with a swish and promptly returned to her work. She didn't have time to be thinking about a certain billionaire. Not even for a second.

♠♠♠♠♠♠

Her phone rang, and she frowned at the unknown number calling her. She didn't make it a habit of picking up unknown calls, but she'd finished most of the work for the night and had nothing better to do.

"Hello?"

"Finally, I've been trying to get a hold of you for the last couple of days. Why didn't Hyeon pick up my calls?" Sona's inpatient voice blared from the other side of the phone.

"It's nice to hear from you." Nyla said with a smile on her face.

"Well you would have heard from me a lot earlier if your assistant picked up the phone. Wait, did you tell her to ignore my calls?"

Nyla shook her head. "No, I would never do that. No matter how much you many annoy me. Hyeon is gone on a week vacation and I have an intern covering for her."

Sona hmphed on the other line. "I didn't think it was possible for the girl to screw up, she's a smart one but you need to shape your interns."

Nyla was tired about hearing that she needed better interns. The human resource department took care of that, but it seemed like they really screwed up with this year's crop. Based on the evaluations she'd received from the department heads, most of them weren't fit too be a part of the company. Nyla sighed, it was another thing added to her plate.

"In my interns defense, if an unknown number was calling, I probably wouldn't pick up either." Nyla tried justifying the intern's actions.

Sona didn't seem to agree. "That is stupid, what if the president of the United States wants to get in contact with you and he uses a private number."

Nyla almost laughed at their pointless conversation, but she knew the elderly women wouldn't appreciate it. "How's Kenya?" she asked, switching the subject.

"Oh, its beautiful," Sona breathed on the other line. "There is just something about the place that makes it more magical or my real than even Paris."

Nyla smiled wistfully. She wanted to be able to go to a trip and disappear for a while. She was thankful to her position, it allowed her to travel the world but not as a normal human. She would go to a place, talk to the executives, negotiate a contract, and then be called back to New York. She couldn't travel and explore the cultures of the places.

If there was one place she wanted to go more than others, it was India. She had a vague memory of the vibrant colours but nothing else. She wanted to go back and see more of the place and maybe connect with her roots.

"It seems amazing." She said softly.

"It is, but enough about my trip. How is the charity planning going with Darius?"

Nyla swung around in her chair once. "It's going decent."

"What does that mean?"

Nyla sighed. "We have an idea, someone who's helping us plan it, and we just need some sponsors."

"And celebrities," Sona added. "Children love those."

Nyla grabbed the legal pad on her desk and jotted Sona's idea down. In truth, she hadn't considered contacting celebrities to help with their cause, but it was a good idea.

"Any celebrities we should invite in particular?"

Sona rattled off the names of a few people and Nyla wrote them down. Some she knew personal, and others she didn't. When Hyeon came back, she would ask her assistant to find a way to get into contact with them. It always took celebrities forever to approve requests like this.

"How's Darius?" Sona asked.

Nyla narrowed her eyes in suspicion. "Fine, but I'm sure you can call and find out yourself."

Sona laughed. "I could my dear but it's much better hearing the frustration in your voice. Has he driven you crazy yet?"

Nyla didn't want to admit that there were times she wanted to throw her shoe at him, so she lied. "We are getting better at understanding one another."

There was a knowing laugh on Sona's end. "That boy is difficult, but he also has one of the sharpest minds I've seen in the business."

Nyla couldn't help herself. "Really?"

"Mhhm. Graduated Harvard summa cum laude, went to work in London for a bit before taking over his fathers' company."

Nyla was surprised at the information. She'd known he went to Harvard but hadn't realized he had graduated top of his class. It seemed the words she'd thrown at him when they first met were simply untrue. He had a brain, and a large one.

"Well darling, I'd love to keep talking to you, but the connection is cutting off. I'll call you later for more details."

Nyla said her goodbye and hung up the phone. She stretched from her chair to grab the files at the edge of her desk. She had more work to do.

So, this story went on a bit of a re-vamp. I changed the title and the cover, it fits much better now. I really enjoyed this chapter and I hope you all did as well. It's nice to see Darius and Nyla interacting as professionals ;)