The Billionaire's Plaything

Chapter Thirty: Butterfly

ELENA ☀️

Pedro’s consistent presence was starting to get on my nerves. Pedro was just as wealthy as my brother if he wasn’t more, since he was mixed blood, with his father coming from Royal Russian blood, while his mom was from Italy.

I was certain that a man like him had many more matters to handle than coming to Nirvana every day just under the guise of wanting to know how his shares were doing.

Even if he was dead ass broke, Nirvana had gone public and he could just check the stock market.

“You report to work quite late for the company boss.” Pedro’s annoyingly familiar voice rang out as I stepped out of the elevator with Lukas in tow.

Unwilling to deal with him and losing face in front of my assistant, I signaled for Lukas to go.

“What exactly do you want?” I asked, unlike other times when I saw him, I was cool-headed and calm.

I just wanted to know what the matter was with him. He couldn’t just come back after three years and wanted to disturb me every single day of his life.

“Could you promise to give me what I want?” He stalked towards him, his towering height casting a shadow over my petite body.

“Knowing you, you could even want my life. How could I dare bargain with the devil?”

Pedro chuckled at my words as a type of coldness glistened in his eyes.

“You are right. I want you.” He confessed and closed the gap between us.

I moved backwards, my back touching the wall. Yet, no trace of fear was reflected on my face. Men like him thrived on fear. I was all too familiar with it.

“My little butterfly,” Pedro called out, very gently, as he raised his hands to tip my chin up and I felt every hair on my body stand. I hated that nickname.

“Do you want me to clip your wings before you decide to come to me?”

“I’m married. Aren’t you shameless?” I questioned angrily.

“You dare to mention your marriage? Carlo was away for the first six months of his wedding and came back to spend less than a week and then return. If I didn’t know Daniel, I would think this was some arranged marriage for him.”

Cold sweat trickled down my back. He knew. Perhaps he already knew before we met at my store headquarters. Had he known I was going there too?

“If you know that much, you must know he’s busy and will be home soon. In fact, I have been considering opening a branch in Italy so that I could be closer to my husband. Now, if you will excuse me, I'd like to get to work.” I knew there was only how long I could pretend and if I didn’t leave him now, I didn’t doubt that I could become a sobbing mess here.

“If you want me to go that badly, I would do you the favor,” he said, and then closed the remaining gap between us in seconds.

“But you are mine, butterfly. And I’ll have you back in my arms even if it means breaking your little wings off.”

I watched him as he walked off and I could feel the sharp change in the temperature around me.

Pedro was bad news and he didn’t seem to be playing anymore….

****

With my ruined mood, I didn’t even want to do any work and just went through some lighter documents that didn’t need much reading before signing.

“Try to sort out the meetings I have to do this week. You can space it on an average of five clients per day, have been tired recently.” I guided Lukas through planning my schedule.

I could take eight consultations and styling in a day, but I really didn’t want to take it and, out of the average of thirty we had in a day, I was going to take just five, while Kyle had agreed to take on ten, which left us with about fifteen unattended clients.

I ran my fingers through my hair in frustration as I looked at the numbers. 50% dissatisfied customers were not good, since in a month, that would be about 450 people turned away.

“I’ll have to increase the amount it costs to get a consultation.” As I tried to find a way around it.

“I think charging by hour is a safer method. This way, you can make clients understand that they paid for the specific time.

Imagine, if we make them understand that the current consultation price they pay covers only for a month, they would most likely just pay for an hour and know they have just an hour with you.” Lukas suggested.

My eyes shined at his words. It made a lot of sense and it also meant that some people would pay less money for like thirty minutes. This meant that she could actually take on close to eight to ten clients on a good day and Kyle could take on even more.

“This is really good, Lukas. I’ll run it with the sales and marketing team and let you know if they think it’s a good one. If it, then you get a raise for doing your job.” Lukas had a look of surprise on his face as he registered my words and then blushed.

This was something I have noticed he did often since when he started working with him.

“Can you prepare a draft explaining the whole concept to them? I need to get a check up at the hospital.” I said, standing up as soon as I noticed it was close to the time for my check-up.

I am about six weeks pregnant now but my stomach is still as flat as ever. I really didn’t know what exactly I was going to say or do as soon as my stomach started to show.

However, I was sure it was only going to make the general public excited when they realized I was bringing a mini me.

“Are you unwell?” Lukas’s concerned voice pulled me out from my thoughts,

“I’m fine. I just like to do this often since I had a sickness scare a while back.” I explained and then packed my bag, allowing him to leave before I stepped out of my office too.