THE BILLIONAIRE'S UNDOING

Episode 6 JUST DRIVE!

The driver gulped loudly as if swallowing his fears. He horned loudly at nothing in particular. The other driver at his side rolled down his window and put out his head.

"What is wrong with you?"

Dave waved sorry and just sped up the car instead of replying. One of his peculiarities was that he didn't like violence or anger talks. Luke enjoyed that because it saved him from a lot of small talk where in such instances he would find a way to evade it for himself or his boss.

Violet seemed to get angrier at the unnecessary horning.

"Drive! Dave, just drive!" He nodded.

Then she loosened her seat belt and turned around to face her boss.

"I'd hit you if you weren't my boss."

If Luke was angry, he didn't show it. It wasn't everyday you got to see a PA threatening to hit her employer. Yet it wasn't also everyday one got to work with an employer like Luke. He knew that he could be very annoying. Even though he didn't understand what his offence was, in this particular instance.

"Why?"

He asked calmly. He seemed to have lost the anger he was coming at earlier. Besides, he could never match Violet's energy so he thought it wise to give up earlier without draining his energy. He had spent much of that yesterday at the penthouse. Too much if you asked him. For Violet, one would think her his boss if they walked in to meet such a situation.

Violet's features softened. She was a few out of the hundreds of business people who knew that her boss wasn't arrogant or pompous as he was described in the tabloids or by people he had done business with. Although they didn't have a choice, he was easily the best out there. So rumor or not, anyone who was in this line of business and called it off because of some silly news would probably risk a big loss at the end.

He was good at what he did and he didn't care much for what was said about him. However, she cared. For the sake of the company. And he wasn't helping the narrative if he continued behaving the way he had just behaved at the entrance of the elevator with the latter, affirming the belief of the public even greater.

"You're easily the smartest guy out there. The smartest one I know and I have met a lot of smart people in life. Yet sometimes, I wonder if I'm not mistaken to ascertain the quality of being a smart one all-rounder. Did you realize the effect of what you just did? Or who that person was?"

"And I ask again, what has that got to do with anything?" He asked, still maintaining his calm voice as if not trying to undermine his PA's authority while still trying to show nonchalance. What did it matter? It was just some lady anyway. Why was she still interested in picking up a fight with him?

"Is she your love interest? Do you like her? Do you have ..." He began to ask again when she interrupted him.

"Because she is Elizabeth Halle!" Violet gnashed her teeth together so furiously that he was scared that she would hurt herself.

"And I should care because?" He asked, his tone becoming lighter and lighter by the second. It looked as if Dave was holding his breath, as if afraid that the sound of his breath would increase the tension in the air.

Violet shook her head and handed him the iPad once again. He looked at her lost. She thrust it at him violently. He took it, still looking to her for an explanation. She used her pinky finger to guide him to a name.

"She is on the list of the board we have a meeting with?"

If he was surprised, he tried his best to hide it perfectly. But Violet wasn't fooled. She knew him way past the covers, the walls and the facade he built around himself.

"You should care. That is exactly why you should care," she said in a calm voice, taking away the phone from him in a manner as one would to someone in a pitiable situation. He heaved a sigh. One could barely tell whether it was that of distress or relief. However, judging from the context and the situation around, it had to be the former.

He laced his fingers together and pulled himself to sit in an upright position as he had been slouching all along, hoping to relax himself before the meeting. He just wanted to go home to bed.

"Who is she anyway?"

"Oh! She is you. Only in a bigger and better way with a better platform. And to your disadvantage, she's a woman."

Violet just had a way around her that seemed to get to Luke. He didn't care much about what people thought about him. But he didn't like hearing those words from his PA either. He liked to be best in what he did and so competition was his driving force.

She knew it very much and she used it to her advantage. Also, she had indirectly implied that he was a twit, and there was nothing he could do about that. He just looked at her face, trying to understand what she was thinking.

"I don't think so though. Why haven't I heard about her before?" He asked, trying to gather points for himself for something he thought was probably an argument in which his PA would be declared the winner either way.

She looked at him and rolled her eyes as if to say, "what do you know anyways?" But she said something different.

"Because you're so high in your insteps. She's been abroad and she recently moved back into the country. Brought back a lot of business moguls to the city too. So if you had read the memo I sent you last night properly, you would have noticed that you have new competition and she's the one who taught all of them. She's the boss lady."

Violet knew that Luke had been at the penthouse last night. So he knew that she intentionally said that to spite his last night escapades.

For everything he thought to say, Violet had a comeback twice painful and backed up with proper facts. Who knew it would be a pain in the ass if your PA knew and did her job just too well to fault? He resigned. He couldn't win anyway

"Why do you know so much about her anyway? You're stalking people now?" He asked. This time genuinely, not looking for a comeback but a challenge to ride up to.

"You seem to forget the rudiments of my job which includes studying competition, health and making leverages. She happens to be both. I'd speak to your father about her. You'd have to work with her as leverage."

Luke stared at her open-mouthed. She eyes him with some kind of expression that could pass for disdain.

"I don't want to."

"Well, let's hope she agrees to that too, with the stunt you pulled today."