'Some say that it is impossible for us to be invisible, you are seen all the time, by people, by cameras, watching all the time. Others say that even with very little effort, one can disappear into thin air without anyone noticing. However in light of quite possibly the most ludicrous and ridiculous bombshell to hit the financial world since the Wall Street Crash and of course what we all thought to be Doomsday, well, the cameras must definitely be rolling. Good lord forbid if even the smallest detail were not to be captured on tape, that would truly be a travesty. I of course would rather stay out of the limelight, however, as CEO of one of the world's largest conglomerates and now quite possibly the richest person under thirty alive, well, its as if I was trying for the target in the back look. I must say though, I look pretty good in white with a splash of red. After all, when the world's eyes on you, there truly is nowhere to hide.'
The thought to leave by a back entrance had only ever crossed Adrian's mind for a spilt second, however, he quickly banished that thought. He had nothing to be ashamed of and his lips twitched with a smirk. His encounter with Selena had gone completely different from what he had expected, only better. He had had a select few of his best IT experts to dig up deep-buried details of SelenaYingyue Zhao's short life thus far. After all, as they say, know your enemy. Zhao Bo Hai had done his job well, buried all the hatchets accordingly, and left no trace behind. His team had churned up next to nothing, barely scratching the surface of the enigma that was his counterpart in Zhao hai Industries.
The elevator dinged, announcing their arrival to the sea of jostling cameras and branded microphones that flooded the lobby. As the metal door slid open, Adrian handed his light briefcase to his secretary and walked through the crowds while the camera bulbs flashed and captured picture after picture. He was sure the pictures would be splashed across the news front page early the next morning.
His car was waiting outside, chauffeur opened the backseat door and he slid in, his secretary handed him his files and a tablet before sitting in the seat next to him. Caleb Rang had worked with Lee Incorporated since Adrian had first founded his company. A middle-aged man on the wrong side of thirty with a pair of small spectacles and a permanent worried look etched onto his face, Caleb had spent most of his career in the cutthroat business world catering to every single, sometimes downright maniacal requests of his boss. From work assignments at 3 am due the same day at 6 am to frequent trips out to buy some pretty questionable stuff to fending off the media and hyperactive teenage girls who had seen Adrian Lee on the top of the 'hottest eligible bachelors' list in the latest magazines, Caleb had yet to manage to keep a girlfriend for more than a month. Something about him paying more attention to his work than them, or was it cheating on the girl with a stack of contracts and papers. One of them had thrown a turquoise vase which narrowly missed his head whilst hysterically screaming about his other affair which he was supposedly having with his boss, Adrian, himself. It was safe to say that that one didn't last very long either. In the spacious back of the car, Caleb stared down at his tablet, the screen illuminating his face as he typed ferociously, his fingers hammering onto the screen as he squinted at the intelligible squiggles.
"Caleb, I can see the smoke pouring out of your ears, put the tablet away." Adrian all but wrestled the device out of his assistant's hands and put in on his left, away from Caleb.
"Sir, you wanted that report for this afternoon?" Caleb muttered, taking his glasses off and rubbing his temples.
"The report can wait, if you go down again then whatever will I do?" Adrian asked seriously.
"Hire one of the many interns for full time and give me a month off with full expenses paid trip to the Caribbean with plenty of alcohol and no mobile service?" Caleb deadpanned accompanied with a hollow laugh.
"You have one of those fortnights every year?!" Adrian cried in mock outrage. "That's my Christmas present to you!"
"You have no imagination, sir."
"And yet you accept every year. The report can wait. Cancel all the meetings I had lined up with prospective buyers of the Zhao Hai Industries shares."
"All twenty-three?"
"The will and NDA dictates otherwise. All bets are off unless Selena herself authorises the transaction and I've yet to gain access to her personal phone number or email address, how are the team doing with her socials?"
"I could tell you if you gave me my tablet back," Caleb smirked reaching for the device.
Adrian quickly deflected his hand and Caleb's smirk widened into a huge grin the spread across his face, opening his mouth up like the grand canyon. "It's like your first teenage crush about ten years too late, that's cute."
"Shut up," Adrian flicked his assistant's ear and they sat in companionable silence, "she's private on all networks and so are most of her friends' she doesn't have very many though. The first three hundred and fifty-nine searches that were thrown up were about the funeral and high society."
"Let me know when you have some way of contacting her that is not via that secretary of hers, Elise Faulkner, undeniable as a great secretary - "
"Personal assistant."
"Fine personal assistant, there is some stuff I would rather go straight to Selena than through her if you know what I mean."
" If I need to do more damage control then I'm hiring a new team of PR consultants to handle it."
"Stop worrying Caleb."
The conversation peated out and the men sat in silence, Adrian sat staring at the back of the headrest of the seat in front of him, contemplating the brief conversation he had shared with the most enigmatic woman he had ever met. Although he had never been in short of girls to take out should he ever wish to do so, he would know a decent chunk about them beforehand. He had known Selena since they were both children, he was almost five years ahead of her and he remembered one particularly rainy afternoon when they had chased each other around the vast gardens of his parents' mansion where he had mused that her small legs would never catch up to him and moments later he had been sent tumbling into the mud by a small ball of speeding little girl. He had gone off in a huff then and she had run trailing after him, her pink dress muddy and begged for forgiveness, offering dolly mix as some kind of repayment gift.
After those candid snapshots, blurred by time and captured out of focus by the mind's eye of a child, they had rarely seen or even spoke to each other. He had traipsed to posh schools and learned the cutthroat art of business while she had been taught deportment and decorum. They had shared one quick half a dance at her debutante ball before she was swiftly whisked away by some other man, and then she disappeared. She had gone to university, graduated and now they were running in the same circles again but this time. This time there was a difference, in the way she carried herself, in the way she spoke, and the way she moved. It was as if her time away from high society and business deals had softened her edges, molded her from a block of ice onto something exquisite and brand new. It was refreshing and new and he liked it.
As the car rumbled to a halt outside of the back entrance of Lee Corporations and Adrian made to move out of the car when he caught sight of Caleb Rang who had fallen asleep leaning against the headrest. Adrian tapped the chauffer and whispered instructions to keep driving without him until Caleb woke up. Adrian knew that he had been up for the last three days consecutively and would inevitably crash at some point. "Tell him to report back as soon as he feels he will not pass out on me."
With that, he opened the doors and got out, briefcase and tablet in tow.