“What are you doing home? I thought you were working today?” I looked at her in confusion.
“I left early. I wanted to be here when you got back. So—how did it go?” She held up the bottle of wine and grinned.
“It—didn’t go at all…” I sighed and looked down at the floor.
It looks like I’ll be drowning my sorrows instead of celebrating…
Alexio
“Deana, get your ass in here.” I opened my door and motioned to my secretary.
“Yes sir, Mr. Hawkins.” She hopped up from her desk and walked towards my office. “What can I help you with?”
“I asked for a report from everyone in the meeting before three o’clock. It’s—ten minutes past three. Where the fuck are my reports?” I walked over to my desk and took a seat.
“I don’t know, Mr. Hawkins. I’ll round them up immediately.” She trembled as she spoke and then made a dash for the door.
Yeah, you do that.
I was on edge, and I had good reason to be. I wasn’t supposed to be sitting in my fucking office. I was supposed to be across town at Stone Properties—signing a contract to add the company to my portfolio. Something went wrong, and I had no idea what happened. I made arrangements to buy enough shares of the company to be the majority owner, but someone had blocked the sale. I wasn’t sure if the SEC was up my ass again or if someone had made a play against me—either way, a head was going to roll once I found out who had the balls to fuck with my deal. It had been a long time since someone tried shit like that—and I needed to make an example of them. It was a cutthroat business, and mercy was a weakness.
“Okay, Mr. Hawkins.” Deana opened the door to my office. “I have all of your reports. There was an issue with the email server that delayed them.”
“I don’t have time for that.” I glared at her and snatched the reports out of her hand when she approached.
“I’ll get in touch with the IT department and figure out what happened.” She nodded quickly.
“Don’t figure out what happened—fire someone,” I growled under my breath.
“Yes sir, of course.” She nodded again.
“Get rid of that ginger-haired fucker that always acts smug when he has to come up here to investigate a problem.” I glared at her. “I hate that guy.”
“He is a bit of an asshole, isn’t he?” She tilted her head slightly. “I’m sure that will get the point across, regardless of who is actually responsible.”
“I think I’m rubbing off on you, Deana.” I tossed the reports on my desk and chuckled under my breath.
“Maybe.” She shrugged. “If you have a minute, we need to talk about the interview that I had to cancel.”
“She was the top candidate, right?” I looked at the reports for a moment and then lifted my head.
“Yes, but that’s not what I meant…” Her words trailed off for a minute. “I can reschedule her the next time you have an opening in your schedule—I’m talking about the other interview.”
“Right…” I sighed. “See if you can set something up for Saturday. Just have Ms. Reynolds send the girl to my house. That’ll be easier for me.”
“Yes sir.” She nodded. “I’ll take care of it.”
I needed to get the other interview over with as soon as possible. My schedule was so busy that I didn’t have time for a relationship, but I had needs. It had been so long since I had a woman in my bed who could satisfy those needs that it was starting to fuck with me worse than the blown business deal. Ms. Reynolds was a madam who knew exactly what I liked—and I paid well to make sure that she kept my bed warm. I had very specific tastes, and while I trusted her, I still liked to sit down with the women she picked out before I agreed to share my bedroom with them. Plus, there were contracts to sign and a non-disclosure agreement that was required to make sure there were no loose lips once the arrangement was over.
I could use a pair of lips right now—but I just don’t have time to interview anyone until I figure out what the fuck happened with the Stone Properties deal.
I spent the rest of the day going over the reports that my team prepared, and I was still combing through them with a fine-tooth comb when everyone else left the office for the day. There was no smoking gun, but I hoped that there would be a clue—somewhere. My clients expected Hawkins Capital to turn a profit for their investments, and I couldn’t do that if I was blowing business deals. All of the money I invested in Stone Properties was wasted if I wasn’t the majority shareholder. From what I could tell, it looked like a small group of anonymous buyers pulled out at the last minute—conveniently, it was just enough shares for me to own forty-nine percent instead of fifty-one. It was a bold move. My lawyers would rip them apart once I found out who had the balls to violate the agreement that we signed—if I didn’t rip them apart with my bare hands first.
I should catch up on the rest of my work before I go home for the evening.
I tossed the reports to the side and nudged my mouse so that my computer would wake up. I never imagined being the kind of man that lived and breathed by a calendar of events which determined how I spent my time every day. I certainly didn’t imagine being the CEO of a Fortune 500 company before I turned thirty. Hawkins Capital was originally just a dummy corporation that I set up in college. One of my friends asked me to invest money in an app that he was developing and thought that having a corporation listed as the biggest backer would help him secure additional funding. It worked—and so did the app. The investment made me a millionaire before my junior year—not bad for a kid that only got an opportunity to go to college in the first place because I could throw a football.
Okay, if I read another email, I think my eyes are going to start bleeding. I need to unwind and get some rest, or I’m going to be worthless tomorrow.
* * *
The next day
“What the fuck is going on?” I looked around the top floor of Hawkins Capital—it appeared that I had just walked into mass chaos.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Hawkins. I was going to call, but I knew you would be here soon.” Deana ran up to me in a panic—but at least she remembered my coffee, even in the midst of chaos. “The computer issues we were having yesterday are back—and they’re much worse. The email server is down, the company calendar appears to have been wiped out, and our servers are lagging so bad that we can’t even get our trades to go through.”
“I’m going down to IT,” I growled under my breath and walked back to the elevators.
It was the worst time of the day for us to be having any kind of problem with our network. My team of Investment Managers had to be lightning quick when they were making trades—a delay could cost us millions. I wasn’t in the mood to lose money after everything went sideways with the Stone Properties deal. I was already going to have to answer for that the next time I had one of my investment strategy calls. I needed answers before I had to get on the phone with the people that trusted me to make good decisions with their money—but first I needed to find out why we were having so many fucking problems with our computer systems. I was ready to blow a gasket when I got to IT, but I tried to get my composure so that I could ask a few questions before I totally lost it.
“What’s going on, guys?” I bit my tongue instead of unleashing a torrent of profanity mixed with threats—they already knew we fired the ginger-haired fucker.
“Mr. Hawkins, we’re about to get the network back online, I promise!” Jake, the guy who was in charge of IT, met me at the door.
“Good, tell me what happened.” I kept my voice calm, which wasn’t easy for me—I preferred a less subtle approach.
“It’s a cyber-attack.” Jake pointed at one of the computer screens. “We thought it was just some kids screwing around yesterday—that’s usually the worst thing we deal with.”
“So what is it? We’re a big company, so I’m sure that makes us a target.” I looked at the screen and saw that our security software was lit up like a Christmas tree
with multiple attacks hitting at once.
“Yeah, and we normally handle them without any issues, but this is a lot more concentrated—it’s a well-organized attack. Usually the attacks are just trying to access our system—steal customer data—the normal stuff you would expect. This is a denial of service attack—DDOS is what they call it in my line of work.” He exhaled sharply.
“I know what a fucking DDOS attack is.” I glared at him. “Just fucking fix it. That’s what I pay you for. If this network isn’t online in the next hour, I’m going to start firing people—staring with you.”
I made eye contact with every member of the IT team to make sure that the message was well received before I walked back to the elevator. I didn’t like ruling with an iron fist dipped in fear and dripping with the blood of their fallen comrades, but it was necessary. I tried the nice-guy approach the first year that I ran Hawkins Capital, and we nearly went bankrupt. The employees took advantage of me, and our competitors thought the company was a joke. It was a ruthless business, and the weak got trampled under the feet of the ones who were strong enough to survive. The people who were investing millions of dollars in the fund that we ran wanted sharks—not minnows. Once I realized that I became the apex predator—I stopped being nice, and I started acting like a conqueror.
“They’ll have everything fixed in an hour.” I motioned to Hannah as soon as I got back to the top floor. “Gather everyone in the conference room. We need to have a meeting.”
“Yes sir, Mr. Hawkins.” She nodded. “Right away.”
I wasn’t a fan of useless meetings, but it was better to get everyone in one place and try to restore a little bit of order. Thankfully, we got the word that the network was operational in half the time that I gave the IT team. The delay was going to cost us some money, but the day wasn’t a complete loss. I instructed Deana to get a full report from the IT team before the end of the day and to make sure the authorities were notified about the cyber-attack so that a full investigation could be launched. I didn’t care if it was an individual or a group that was trying to fuck with Hawkins Capital—I wanted someone in handcuffs so that anyone else playing hacker on the Internet would know that we would take action if they tried anything.
* * *
Later that day
“Here’s the report from the IT department.” Deana walked into my office and put the report down on my desk.
“Thank you.” I sighed and reached for it. “Can you set up a meeting with the CEO of Stone Properties tomorrow? I wanted to sit down with him today—but then all this other bullshit got in the way.”
“Yes sir.” She nodded quickly. “Everything seems to be fine now, but it will take me a couple of days to get your calendar fixed. We had meetings scheduled—for months.”
“Yeah.” I exhaled sharply. “It’s okay. Just make sure we don’t miss anything important.”
“We won’t.” She pointed towards my computer. “By the way, I set up the meeting for Saturday. I made sure to take care of that as soon as everything was back online.”
“Perfect.” I flipped through a couple of pages in the report from the IT department.
Deana had been my secretary since I started Hawkins Capital. She was one of the few people I trusted with the details of my life outside the company. I was never going to be the kind of man that met someone, dated them, and eventually fell in love—I sure as fuck wasn’t going to get married. I didn’t have time for a wife or a family. I believed in satisfying my needs with a temporary arrangement instead of a permanent one. I never let a woman spend more than thirty days in my bed. That was my rule, and it allowed physical pleasure to exist in a fragment of time that ensured there was no heartbreak when the arrangement was over. The fact that I was paying them for their time did the rest—I would never fall for a woman that was getting paid to spread her legs. Those women didn’t have expectations outside of the price we agreed on—and that was exactly what I needed when I could pull myself away from the office long enough to chase my carnal desires.
It’s not like a woman would ever fall in love with me anyway—I’m too complicated and broken to give them what they really want.
* * *
A few days later
The weekend was supposed to be my moment of zen after a week of giving every bit of myself to Hawkins Capital. When Saturday rolled around, I wasn’t feeling very relaxed. My meeting at Stone Properties wasn’t very successful. The CEO was running a fucking zoo and had no control of his company. He was able to figure out which shareholders pulled out of the deal at the last minute, and they were nothing more than opportunist little fucks.
I kind of hoped it was an actual competitor—someone with the balls to make a play against me—someone I could castrate in a public demonstration of dominance. Instead, it was just a few greedy assholes that wanted to get a bigger cut of the pie because they realized they had a chance to make a few extra bucks once I was heavily invested with no choice but to pay their price. That was boring, but they got what they wanted. They could shove their blood money up their asses for all that I cared—they would never get an opportunity to make that kind of play again. Every company they involved themselves in it would be blacklisted from my fund, and if I blacklisted a company, the rest of the industry followed my lead.
Tyranny at its finest.
Unfortunately, the other issue I was dealing with wasn’t resolved. The hackers that hit Hawkins Capital with a denial of service attack were still trying shit. The team was doing a good job of keeping control of the network, but it was a daily struggle. The authorities said the team was based out of Singapore, which meant they were virtually untouchable unless I took a trip there and tracked them down myself. That was tempting, but it was easier to just pay for a few upgrades to make it more difficult for them to hurt the company.
“Mr. Hawkins.” My maid, Olivia, interrupted my tumultuous thoughts by opening the door of my study.
“Yes? What is it?” I looked up from my desk.
“It’s two-clock.” She raised her eyebrows as if I was supposed to know what that meant. “You have an interview.”
“Oh, right.” I nodded. “Yeah, send her in.”
I leaned my head against the back of my chair and closed my eyes. I really did want to meet the girl that Ms. Reynolds had found for me, but my head wasn’t in it. I certainly needed to get my rocks off—that would help ease some of the stress that had turned into a tight ball in my chest. The door of my study opened again, and I leaned forward as I opened my eyes. For a moment, I was—kind of stunned. The girls that Ms. Reynolds sent were usually beautiful, but they were nothing special. The woman that walked into my study was downright gorgeous—she had dusty-brown hair, an olive complexion, curves that made me blink a couple of times to make sure I wasn’t seeing things, and her pale-blue eyes were almost haunting.
“Please—have a seat.” I motioned to the chair in front of my desk.
Why does she look familiar? I swear I’ve seen her somewhere before…
Faith
I was a little shocked when I got the call from Alexio Hawkins’ secretary, Deana, to reschedule my interview. I thought it would be ages before I got another chance to interview for a job at Hawkins Capital, and I had already lined up a few interviews with other companies. Hawkins Capital was my dream job, but I couldn’t wait around for them forever. I didn’t hear from anyone at the company for months after I turned in my resume—I had actually written them off completely before I got the initial call. The call to reschedule my interview was strange, to say the least. Deana wanted me to meet with Mr. Hawkins on a Saturday, and the interview was going to take place at his house instead of the office. The opportunity was too good to turn down, so I agreed, but I thought it was a little bizarre.
I arrived at Mr. Hawkins’ house ten minutes before my interview was scheduled. I would have shown up a lot earlier if it was at Hawkins Capital, but I wasn’t sure what the protocol was for an interview at someone’s house.
Jennifer thought it was odd as well, but she agreed that the opportunity to was too important to question the location. I was greeted at the door by a maid named Olivia, who took me to a small foyer where I sat and reviewed my notes until it was time to meet with Mr. Hawkins. The location made the anxiety and nervousness I had about the interview even worse. I couldn’t even focus on the notes I brought with me, and I struggled to remember stuff that I had rehearsed a thousand times in my head.
The office was a brilliant display of wealth, but Mr. Hawkins’ house was even more impressive. Calling it a house was probably an insult—it was a mansion in Beverly Hills that cost more than I would ever make in my lifetime. A job at Hawkins Capital would give me an opportunity to achieve my dreams, but it wouldn’t make me a billionaire like the CEO and owner. He was a millionaire before he graduated from college while I struggled to make ends meet. If I could turn that tide, help my parents as they got older, and support myself in the process, I would consider it an overwhelming success. I hoped I could convince Mr. Hawkins that I deserved the opportunity to do it at his company.
“It’s time.” Olivia walked into the foyer. “Follow me.”
I took a deep breath and steadied my nerves as I walked behind Olivia. The moment had finally arrived. She led me to what appeared to be a study, and I saw Alexio Hawkins sitting behind his desk—seemingly lost in thought. He was just as attractive as I remembered—so hot that I felt like I needed a glass of ice water just to be in the same room as him. He asked me to take a seat, and there was something about him that just compelled me to obey. I didn’t even realize that he hadn’t offered to shake my hand until I was seated, and his intense gaze focused on me. I wanted to maintain eye contact—that was important for an interview—but it wasn’t easy. It looked like he was trying to read me—as if he could learn more from staring into my eyes than asking a single question. Thankfully, he finally broke the intense gaze and leaned back in his chair.
Interview With A Daddy Page 2
