Cameron had been texting Jennica all throughout his lunch break Monday morning and was in an excellent mood, despite Aiden's teasing. Not even being called into Aaron's office and being hit by a wall of ice could dampen his mood.
"What are you so happy about?" he asked in a deadly tone.
"Absolutely nothing," Cameron said, trying to hide his smile.
Aaron's eyes narrowed but he dropped it and gestured for him to sit. He shuffled a stack of papers before handing them over to Cameron to read.
He scanned the first few pages. These were stock market trend reports; they looked perfectly normal.
"I don't see what the problem is."
"The problem is that my father personally handed these to me. Why would something that goes through your department end up with him first?"
Cameron's blood ran cold. Aaron hadn't been this pissed off in a while but he couldn't blame him. Part of his job as the manager of the analyst department was to make sure everything report that came through was seen by Aaron's eyes first so he always knew what was happening and could stay a step ahead of Alistair.
That, coupled with the fact that Aaron truly loathed his father for some reason, explained his bad mood perfectly.
"I'm not sure how this happened. All of my subordinates know to put things on my desk and I give them to you as soon as they do."
Aaron pressed his hands together under his chin and gave off a chilling aura.
"It happened because the CEO has a plant in the analyst department. There's no other explanation. I'm not sure what he knows but he's clearly connected the two of us somehow."
"What am I supposed to do? I can't monitor an entire department every second of the day!"
A sinister smile appeared on his boss' face. "You can't but we both know someone who can."
Aiden. He looked like a regular IT employee in a tiny corner cubicle with his monitors faced away from any security cameras but that was far from the truth.
His job wasn't in IT; it was internally examining the pany for Aaron every day. His 'supervisor' wasn't any the wiser because Aiden manipulated his call log and work flow processes in the puter system to look like he was doing regular IT tasks.
Cameron had always been impressed by his ability to do virtually anything involving a puter.
"What are you going to have him do?"
"The next time a stock trend report is due, I'm going to have him monitor every single camera in the analyst department for a few days. Whoever takes the file off your desk has to be the mole," Aaron stated coldly.
Suddenly he was nervous for whichever idiot chose to side with Alistair. "Um…what are you planning to do to them?"
"Ensure they never work in the financial sector again."
It was a really good thing he wasn't on Aaron's bad side. The guy was terrifying and held grudges on a permanent basis.
"Good plan!" he encouraged. "Is there anything else you need me for or should I head back down now?"
"Wait," Aaron manded, rifling through his desk. He held out a plane ticket. "We're going to Monaco this weekend. There is a tournament going on at the Monte Carlo Casino and I expect you to bring home a prize."
Cameron groaned internally. He was planning on asking Jennica out this weekend. She did mention she was currently out of work…she might be free before then.
"In all the time I've worked for you, I've only been beaten twice. Don't worry about it. But why are you ing this time?"
"The banking industry there is growing and I plan to be a part of it. My father is unconvinced but I know for a fact Hale Investments will benefit from having contacts and a branch office there. I'm going on a scouting mission and will submit my report to the board of directors at the next meeting."
This sounded like one of those spooky predicting the future things that Aaron did sometimes. He knew better than to question it at this point; his boss had never been wrong.
He bid Aaron farewell and trudged back to his office. As he looked around the diligently working people at their desks, he wondered which one had made the biggest mistake of their life.
Aaron Hale was the last person anyone in the financial sector should want to cross but he supposed Alistair still held a fair amount of clout himself, though his influence was slowly being chipped away.
Cameron believed in his friend. Why else would he have followed him all these years? Aaron was going to take over the pany and lead it to new heights sooner or later. He was brilliant and callous—the perfect businessman.
His only weakness was Keeley but nobody outside of Cameron and Aiden knew about her so he didn't see it being a problem in this familial power struggle.
He was so glad his parents were normal people. His mom was a third grade teacher and his dad worked in health insurance; he would never have to worry about being plotted against within his own family.
Well…he had certainly had his fair share of arguments with his siblings growing up but it was normal squabbling, not corporate espionage.
Poor Aaron. Neither of his parents cared about him; the entire Hale family was ice cold. Cameron and Aiden were kind of his friends but he didn't think there was a single person in the world that truly cared for the guy. Keeley certainly didn't.
He still couldn't understand why that girl caught his boss' eye. Aaron Hale was a class unto himself; how had he bee so captivated by a pletely normal person? The Keeleys of this world usually weren't sought after by someone so powerful despite the mon 'Cinderella' trope in popular media.
People needed to have things in mon to build a relationship. Keeley and Aaron were like oil and water; they just didn't mix. Cameron and Jennica on the other hand…he had never met anyone he connected with so quickly. Three days of texting and his hands were already itching for his phone even though he was on the clock and had things to do.
A lot of things to do. Managing an entire department was exhausting but this had been what he wanted. All of his classmates back at Harvard would literally kill for this job.
Cameron knew how to appreciate what he had, even if his boss gave him short notice about leaving the country when he wanted to get himself a girlfriend.
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