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.