Sleeping With The CEO
Chapter 86: Oily Carl

Chapter 86: Oily Carl

Derek Haven lived in a fast paced world, and as such he had adapted himself to be able to fit into it. Meetings, functions, speeches, ribbon cutting, seminars, training sessions, negotiations, leading hostile takeovers, fighting off hostile takeovers. Those were all things that were part of his daily life in one way or the other.

If he were to compare himself to another profession, Derek would have likened himself to a race car driver. Always on the race track, zooming so fast people barely saw him move. But he saw it all. He saw the people in the stands, he saw them cheer, he saw them boo. Some of them hurling slurs, while others hurled actual objects(striking workers tended to do both). But no matter what the spectators were doing, their attention remained on him. He was the centre of their worlds even if they did not like to admit it. But to him, they barely registered, he had a million other things to worry about. He was not just watching them, he was watching the track too.

Taking in all the possible dangers and being sure to avoid them. Making it all look so effortless that the spectators thought it all came easy.

But through it all, Derek, like any good race car driver had never truly been alone. He’d had his team behind him. And his team was Emily Molson.

Without her it just was not the same anymore.

But she was gone now, and despite what he had led everyone else to believe, she was never coming back. And that meant he had to replace.

After leaving the interviewing process up to HR, he had been informed the next day that a suitable temporary replacement had been found. So he knew to expect someone.

But being forewarned did absolutely nothing to help him when he walked into the office bright and found a person sitting at Emily’s desk. A person who was very much not Emily Molson.

For one thing, they were male, and for another, they were blonde.

"And just who might you be?" Derek asked, his voice deceptively polite, his eyes glaring daggers at the intruder.

The blonde man, got up, pasted what was clearly a well practiced smile, and introduced himself.

"Good morning, Mr Haven, my name is Carl Jones, I will be acting as your temporary personal assistant until your permanent helper returns,"

Helper?!

Had the man just called Emily a helper. She was helpful to him, immensely so, but for Carl to just take all that she did in a day and call her a helper! Derek seethed.

Emily was way more than that, she was kind, competent, resourceful, his eyes and ears out in the company. She was fierce, and brave, strong willed. All the things that Carl had somehow managed to make sound cheap in just a matter of seconds.

Derek decided then and there that he did not like Carl Jones, the temporary personal assistant.

But if he were to just come out and say it, he would be accused of not being fair. And his conduct would be under scrutiny from people like his uncle. He did not want the likes of that man looking closer and finding that Derek was attached to his old PA. No doubt his uncle would find a way to exploit that.

So choosing to ignore the helper comment, Derek merely nodded and went to his office.

In the end, Carl Jones lasted a week. And in that week, Derek came up with a nickname for him...oily Carl.

Carl, with blond hair styled within an inch of its life just was not right. He always did all of the right things, but they did not feel...right. That was that only way that Derek could explain it.

When they had a meeting to plan Derek’s week, he did not take notes like Emily had, he simply recorded everything so that he could go through it later. It was more effective, but it made Derek feel on edge, like he had to watch what he said.

The first time Carl had brought him coffee, Derek had flat out told him that he did not like it. Instead of just leaving with the beverage, Carl had stood in place.

"Why?" He had asked, his voice not giving anything away. But Derek had caught sight of something predatory in his eyes. Instead of saying, it makes it harder to sleep( and sleep was so precious to him), as he had told Emily. Derek had chosen his words carefully.

"Caffeine is bad for my skin," He’d said, and the predatory light in Carl’s eyes had dimmed.

Other than his general strangeness, Carl did not feel like a PA...at all. He knew what to do, when to do it. But it always felt off, like he had rehearsed. But no matter how hard he tried, Derek could never catch the man being unprofessional, so he had no valid reason to have the man fired. So oily Carl carried on being oily until the day Derek finally found something on him.

As was the usual case, that day, Derek had been busy missing Emily and doing his best to pretend like he had not. So he had buried himself in work, and the next time he had looked away from the screen he had realized that it was already lunch.

’Emily would have reminded me, and we would have ended up eating lunch at the park.’ He ’d thought bitterly.

In an attempt to at least lift his spirits, he had decided to go for a walk in the park, maybe order himself something to eat and have it delivered to the office so that he could have it there when he got back from his walk.

Making his way out of the building and walking to the park at a leisurely pace, Derek was so deep in thought that he nearly missed something very important happening.

Oily Carl getting out of a car that belonged to Derek’s uncle. Thinking fast, he had snapped a few photos and ducked into a nearby building so as not to be seen.

Lunch forgotten, Derek had headed straight back to Haven Group headquarters and into the HR department.

He had found Padma eating lunch at her desk.

"Make sure that piece of trash never sets foot in this building again," He’d said, showing her the picture. There had been nothing more said after that. The war between himself and his uncle was well known. Having someone from his camp being seen with the enemy was not a good look.

And that was the end of Oily Carl.

That night, Derek did not go to the manor, instead he went to his penthouse. Where he proceeded to spend the night on the couch staring at Emily’s coat and pretending he did not miss her like crazy.

When he left the next morning, he left the coat there. Tired of being triggered by it, but not wanting to throw it away either.