Olivia And Mr Billionaire

Chapter Five

Monday came sooner than I expected. I was not prepared for this, but I knew I never would be. The room was filled with mirrors, so wherever I looked, I saw my own reflection. It was an intimidating atmosphere.

As I took my seat beside my father, I had the sense that this was a place where men could gain an inflated ego. My father had already been around the room introducing me to most of the staff and board members, but I had already forgotten their names as I heard the next person's name. Yet, I figured I'd have enough time to get to know each of them eventually.

Dad was a little tired. We discovered a doctor who had been doing extensive research in the area of dad’s illness. Dr. Zander had made a significant breakthrough, but the treatment was hard on the body and today I could tell the drugs hit hard. I looked around for his service nurse, but she was nowhere to be found. Dad and his obsession with keeping up with appearance. He knew about his ailing health, but he would rather show that he was still the CEO with authority. I sighed and instead moved a little closer to him to provide support without drawing too much attention to myself. He grabbed me by the hand and held it up like I was the new heavyweight champion. "My son! Here, to take my place. The future of Elrod Inc.," He announced and the room responded with a thundering applause that startled me.

This was beginning to seem more like a party than a solemn, important business affair, as I had been led to think. I almost felt annoyed for all the reading I did that weekend to ensure that I was current with business policies, and …

A woman was standing behind Brandon. I could not see her face but her presence felt a little too familiar. She did not seem like just any woman though. There was an ethereal air that surrounded her and made it seem like she was moving through hazy air. It did not seem right.

She floated around, dancing like an angel and my eyes followed her movement around the room while all the other people who were there with me ignored her in their celebrations, until she finally stopped in front of me. She must have noticed how intently I was staring at her. Wait, was anyone else seeing this besides me? Now that she was close to me, she looked even more familiar, but I couldn't place where I had seen her before.

I could feel someone tugging on my hand. My brain was telling me that this was not real but my eyes were not convinced. I was in an important meeting and supposed to be saying some patronizing bullshit to the rest of the board. Yet I was completely enamored by this ghostly lady. Where did she come from? I thought to myself as I continued to stare ever so intently into her eyes.

She opened them suddenly, and I saw why she looked so familiar. Those eyes… I'd know them anywhere. I stared into them for hours. They'd lain wide open, lifeless beside me while I was helpless, trapped under the wreckage, screaming for her not to die.

Of course, those were Cherry's eyes. She smiled and raised her hand as though she was calling me. There was no way I could help it. I lifted one hand so she could take me with her. Take me away, I wanted to say.

Away from this dreary place.

But her skin cracked open, and blood spurted out of it. It was on my hands, in my hair. I was patting at them, trying to get rid of the blood. My suit was ruined, I truly believed. I had never been one to spook easily, yet the scream that came from my lips would probably rival that of an ill-mannered child.

"Ryan! For goodness' sake, what is wrong with you." I could hear my father say. But as he called my name repeatedly, all I could focus on was Cherry's soft plea. "Ryan! Ryan! Please, I don't want to die now." Cherry, who was always happy and excited, was suddenly crying about something. Her weak and lifeless stare reflected the reality of her death in her eyes, and there was nothing I could do about it.

This couldn't be happening to me. Not here, not now.

I could not help the outburst. "Why won't you just leave me alone?" Immediately I said that, she disappeared.

It took a few seconds for me to catch my breath and for my brain to become re-accustomed to the present. Turning slowly in my seat, I looked at my father's face and my eyes widened. His had taken the shape of a fish with two bug-like eyes and a mouth that was frantically moving, trying to tell me something but I couldn't seem to make out the words. The board was not pleased. Their proud smiles were gone and with it their approval to have me as the head of the company. One of the women seated closest to me crossed her legs and shrunk away from my gaze as though the devil had shown himself through me.

Finally, I could hear my dad. He grabbed me firmly by the hand as though afraid that I would run away. "Let's go outside, son." He said calmly and almost too understandingly.

****

It had been four days since that board meeting from hell and I was yet to stop beating myself up over it. My father had attempted to reassure me that everything would be fine as he led me out of the room where I had embarrassed myself and shown the extent of my psychological problems but all of his words fell on deaf ears. There was nothing anyone could tell me; this was not something that I could come back from.

I left the gigantic building that was Elrod Inc.’s headquarters that day feeling like every single person I passed was looking at me like I was crazy. Once I got into my car, I sped all the way home, got out of my clothes, hurried in the shower, and refused to leave my apartment again.

My father called every day of my hibernation, perhaps to make sure that I was still alive. His tone took on a new level of worry with every phone call and I wish that there was something that I could do or say to put his mind at ease. There wasn’t though, not when I was now seeing Cherry’s ghost with increased frequency.

I saw her in the mornings when I woke up, sitting in the chair by my bedroom window and taunting me with a blood-stained knife. I saw her at noon in my kitchen, mixing a drink of vodka, blood, and tears, asking me why I did this to her. If I drank enough whiskey at night and I distracted myself with some baseball or football game, she left me alone to sleep but sometimes, I saw her in my nightmares from which I always woke up screaming and tearing at my own skin.

The sound of the buzzer telling me somebody had walked into my building woke me up on Friday morning. I got up from the bed alarmed and hurried to the living room. An African-American sports journalist was talking about the game I had pretended to watch last night on the TV I had left on, and the clock on top of it told me it was well past eleven. I walked past the TV to the security monitor and I saw my father, his nurse, and Brandon waiting in front of my elevator.

"s**t!"