"President Raine..."
"I know, give me a minute or two. Call and confirm if Secretary Rose is already around." Raine said as she interrupted April.
These past weeks had been harsh on Raine. Her family had a rule of handing down the company to the firstborn child. However, throughout their generations, the firstborn child had always been a male child.
Even in her generation, she had had an elder twin brother but he had died not long after his birth. She had had to be hard-working throughout her life not only because of the various dissatisfaction she faced from other members of the family but also because of the threats to her life.
Her father had been hard on her because he wanted her to claim her birthright but he became sterner the instant her mother had given birth to a boy six years after her birth.
They all knew the other family members would try their best to either get rid of her younger brother to get a place in the inheritance for their sons or would pit the two siblings against each other. Her father had placed the responsibility of protecting her younger brother on her shoulders so even at her young age she had had to become an adult.
When she was 16, which was the usual age for the heir to start familiarizing themselves with the company, the shareholders in conjunction with her relatives opposed her grandfather's decision.
They stated the fact that there had never been a female heir before and that there were numerous males who could compete for the title. That since she was not male then she could only start working from the lowest level.
It took her a long time to convince her grandfather that she was willing to start from the very bottom. When her grandfather finally agreed to their suggestion, he had a condition. He said that all those males who were eligible for the inheritance were to start together at the bottom with her and that whoever was more competent would be the heir.
She had worked hard for eight years to get to where she was now. The instant she had been made a CEO of one of their subsidiary companies, she had established her own investment company which had grown very successfully after three years of its launch.
Although nobody knew about her involvement with the company, her name had still spread amongst the business circle as an ice beauty business prodigy. It was said that any business she touched flourished. She had beaten her opponents' hands down and had earned the right to inherit the business which was what had given her sleepless nights.
Her family business, the whole conglomerate had been handed unto her last week while her father resigned as president to become the new chairman and her grandfather was just an advisor and temporary decision-maker.
It should have been a thing of joy but then her uncle had mentioned the issue of her being unwed. Usually, in this case, her firstborn child could be adopted by her maiden home so he could be the next heir after her but her uncle said he was worried about the whole issue.
He had said that for the whole family to be reassured that her spouse would not cause problems later in the future or that she would not have a problem with recreation that they had decided to find her a spouse.
If she was not engaged in a month then she would be forced to marry their choice of spouse.
It was a decision that came as a surprise to her and her family especially when they had heard that her grandfather had agreed to their suggestion.
Raine and her immediate family had gone to the family house to meet with her grandfather concerning the issue and he had said that it was about time for Raine to have an heir.
He had reminded them that although the other branch of the family disliked them, they would not choose a bad spouse for Raine because their company was at stake so there was no reason to disagree with them. Although they were doing it because of their greed, they still had good cause to worry.
It has been ever since then that she had had to shovel between work and blind dates. She had attended nothing less than 15 blind dates this last week and she had to work overnight to ensure the proper management of the companies under her control.
Moreover, ever since she had taken over, she had had to visit each company and show her dominance as well as make a few changes and try to reduce the influence of her relatives in each company.
Without the pressure of the blind dates weighing over her, she already had her hands full.
She wouldn't have visited her investment company if she hadn't overheard her uncle tell her that the spouse they got for her was about to be invested in by the Lluvia investment company.
At first when she had heard about that she had been shocked because she hadn't heard anything about it so she had contacted Rachel and had found out that they had received the proposal a month ago for the project and that she had told Rachel to take care of it.
Raine had thought back and remembered that something like that had indeed occurred. It was then she had told Rachel to extend the meeting day by a week and to make sure a detailed report about the company and its project was prepared as she would sit in on the meeting.
However, of what use was the meeting? Raine thought wistfully as she opened her eyes and prepared to get down from her car. She had wanted to gain Intel about her prospective spouse and had been thoroughly disappointed in her employees.
She got out of the car with her personal assistant April at her back and they both walked into the restaurant where they were escorted to Raine's private room.
While Raine had been working and making her reputation in one of the subsidiary companies of her family's conglomerate, Rachel had been working under her family's company while she was setting up a restaurant.
The instant, Raine had asked her to become the CEO of her investment company, Rachel had told her to become a partner of her chain of restaurants in return. The Bleü Raine now belonged to both of them but the world thought that the owner of the restaurant was a French chef.
Seated in Raine's private room was her secretary, Rose and she stood up to bow to her the moment Raine entered. "Ms. President!"
"Have your seat. April please excuse us for a moment."
"Yes, Ma'am," April responded and backed away but just as she was about to open the door, she was stopped by Raine.
"April, one minute, please. Let me know when I have a guest. I'm expecting one soon. You may be excused." Raine said before turning back to face Rose.
The instant April left the room, Raine spoke. "I need you to look into something for me."