Talia peeked at Arthur's keyboard as he typed in the password to get in and it was all numbers. He then excused himself and turned his laptop for a minute away from her view making Talia furrow her brows.
What is he hiding?
In fact, Arthur had their wedding picture as his background and since his wife doesn't want to reveal their relationship, he wanted to change it.
He took one more glance at the picture and his slender finger caressed the screen over her face. She was staring blankly while he couldn't hold back his smile.
She looked terrible, her usual beauty masked by a veil of sorrow. Dark circles, messy hair, unfit white dress, pale face, her usually blushed cheeks were colourless and her plumpy cherry lips were broken... Did he notice this that day? Maybe he didn't. Maybe he thought she looked fine because she looked more terrible the day before.
Could this even be considered a wedding picture and what happened between them considered a wedding? He wanted to hold on to... Whatever happened between them that day, while she decided to forget it. He would never blame her.
But now is not the time to ponder over those things.
He quickly changed the background to some scenery and opened the file containing their business plan.
Talia looked at his green eyes, lovely as the day she met him. She would be lying if she said she felt nothing sitting beside him like this.
But... It is impossible between them.
She saw the file with the brand name "Royal Vega Dairy"
The brand name was written in a nice cursive way with a crown with a star above 'R'.
The brand name 'Royal' and the symbol 'Crown with a star' can only be used by the Royal family of Esteria.
'Why is the Northern Star using this brand name?'
Wanting to know more, she with no qualms, got the laptop from Arthur's hand and placed it in her lap and opened the file.
Joe by her side saw the pretty bold move of Talia and was worried. That laptop will contain a lot of their company secrets and she cannot get it as she wills. He wondered what got into her today for her to act this rash. She usually has good deportment.
Seeing Joe eying those two suspiciously, Jordan engaged in small talks with Joe to distract him and to know more about Talia. He wanted to know if she is worthy to be still pined over by Arthur. He didn't want his good friend to end up in much worse heartbreak.
Talia got in the file and as she expected it was a business started by the Prince of Esterian Royal family. He is the only son of the current Queen and he is twenty nine and unmarried and the sole heir to the throne.
The company was listed as a separate entity with different CEO and board members and the Northern Star had no controlling stakes in the RV Dairy. So why is the CEO of Northern Star working for a company that is not even their subsidiary?
'Why is the Northern Star Enterprises doing business of the crown?'
" His Royal Highness Prince Edward the Third..., " Arthur chuckled slightly seeing Talia rolling her eyes. She always hated Prince Edward and found him a hypocrite.
"He wants to make his own livelihood and stop getting the' Sovereign Grant' from the national treasury..."
He paused seeing her trying to control her thoughts spilling as words, pursing her lips.
'She still won't say anything unpleasant! How cute!'
He wanted to pinch her cheeks but held himself back.
'If he wanted to make his own livelihood, why must he ride on my grandpa's coat tail? He wants to use the Northern Star's popularity to promote his company in the world stage? Why can't he make a company of his own name? Does he want my grandpa's support since his royal family became irrelevant? Hypocrite!'
"Chairman Brunton asked me to take care of it personally since he felt like in the current political situations, His Royal Highness' decision is right and that we as the aristocrats who have supported the crown till now should help them in this new endeavour too, " Arthur added knowing exactly her thoughts.
" Not the Boswells, " she said with a sneer. What does he mean by 'us' aristocrats, lumping me with the Boswells?
Arthur sighed, " Yep, not the Boswells! "
Joe noticed her demeanour and was surprised. She was sitting with the duchess slant, keeping her knees together with her legs a bit slanted and ankles crossed and her back straight, as usual. She had the laptop on her lap and Arthur was sitting beside her with his arm behind her on the sofa and leaning closer to her and Joe could see the affection in his eyes. And what's with this guy Jordan trying to gather information about Talia's past flames and her current relationship status?
Joe was seriously worried for Talia. There were many underground, unspoken rules in the business world and he knew of it. Trading of many sorts happen to get a deal. And trading women... Still happens.
Is this King one such guy and is he eyeing Talia? But she seems to not even care. She usually is so observant...
Joe felt terrible for bringing Talia with him. In case something of the sort that he fears happens, he decided to grab Talia and run away. If even a single hair in Talia's head is hurt, he will be sleeping in the couch for the rest of his miserable life. He didn't want to make his wife unhappy.
Happy wife, happy life!
Talia read through the document and she found the company's success rate to be high. The Royal family had their own farm and as she remembered, the butter, cheese and milk they had were of top quality. She who have dined in many noble houses and high-end restaurants, have never came across anything close to that cheese they had. Even the cake they made tasted better because of the butter from their farm.
The business plan was to first sell these organic products to five star hotels, high-end restaurants and the elites' dinner parties and balls. To make this a premium brand.
This is achievable...
And this explains why they chose our firm... Most of those in our firm are elites.
"A million dollars per month and we can take care of marketing too," Talia gave a bold proposal.
Even Joe was stupefied by her brazen proposal and was about to talk. Firstly it was because his firm is not that large to do the marketing for such a big company like theirs. And secondly no one in their right mind will spend a million dollar in an upstart company like their firm and trust them with marketing too. Their company have never done marketing.
Before he could talk, his phone vibrated and it was his wife. He already told his wife about the meeting and he brought Talia with him. But it was not like her to call him when he was in the middle of a meeting.
Could it be something urgent?
But before he could excuse himself, the call ended and a couple seconds later a text message was sent from his wife.
He opened the message and was flabbergasted when he read it.
TALIA IS PRINCESS POLARIS!
Princess Polaris for those elites in his circles, is like how Holy grail was for the Knights Templar. There used to be an annual gathering for the elites in all nations where they gather in a ski resort and spend time together. Every billionaire and multimillionaires had a lot of heirs and heiresses. But they all have heard tales of this Princess Polaris, who is the sole heir of the Northern Star Enterprises.
And they as young lads would joke around that they'd just marry Princess Polaris and become billionaire in an instant. All they had to do was find her and make her fall head over heels in life with them and then they can become a billionaire.
But no one could even get a glance of this Princess who lived among the stars.
And all this time, it was Talia?