The Cheap & Dupe CEO

CHAPTER 13

The next morning.

When the maid came to Adam’s room to wake him up at seven, he was already awake and reading a book titled ‘The Weak Wish; The Strong Work. The Poor Dream; The Rich Live’. It was a book written by Parul, so he was giving it a read.

Some of the points mentioned in the book opened his sleepy eyes wide awake.

“‘Dogs take on debts; their owners take on the world,’ and ‘Never reply when you’re angry,’ huh,” Adam was mightily impressed with some of the quotes in this book. “Man, this guy is scary good. I can see how he managed to become so rich.”

The maid gave him coffee, which he found hard to drink. He never liked coffee, but the real CEO Adam did, so he had to drink it now without complaint.

Compared to Parul’s book, the short list of women the real CEO Adam made was like a pile of dung with little worth to it. Sofia Bacic was also described there as a nasty whore who was quite masterful at sucking the balls and deep-throating the dick. Nothing else.

It was Sunday, yet it wasn’t a holiday for him. There was a meeting with the board of directors, so he couldn’t help but begin to feel tense. The personal secretaries usually prepared the speeches for the past Adam, but the current Adam wanted to deal with things by himself.

However, his friends also began to call him to come to the casino for some gambling as it was a weekend. While he was told to avoid meeting as many friends as possible, he was finding it difficult to respond to their questions through mobile talking or chatting.

“It’s Sunday, but it’s going to be a tough one. I just feel it,” he took a deep breath and exhaled the same.

After breakfast, he reached the headquarters. There were few to no employees present today. Even the C-suite was empty.

He went to the reception desk and asked, “Where’s Evelyn?”

“Sir, she applied for a sick leave,” the receptionshit replied, standing upright fast. Currently, there was no else in sight except for her and him. So she felt a bit awkward and tense. After all, she had heard a lot of things about Adam being a womanizer.

“Sick leave?” Adam looked puzzled as he went back to his room. “She looked fine yesterday. Why did she suddenly get sick?” he wanted to call her, but it wouldn’t be professional, so he mailed her and waited. Ten minutes passed, but there was no reply. “Dealing with the board of directors without her around will be tough. I don’t even know their names. How am I going to handle this?” he began to check the details of all the directors on the desktop. It was boring, but he had to do it in order to not look like a fool during his first meeting with the board.

Meanwhile, at Evelyn’s home.

She was lying down in bed, and her mother brought her warm water mixed with honey and grated ginger.

Upon checking the temperature using a thermometer, her mother was slightly surprised. “It crossed 102.” She wiped Evelyn’s body with a wet cloth. “Are you feeling better now?”

“Mm,” Evelyn couldn’t even reply with a word. She felt so weak right now.

Her mother checked her phone. “I don’t see any missed calls. It seems none of your colleagues are worried about you.”

“It’s Sunday, Mom.” Evelyn had to put in some effort to speak.

“I know. I know, but shouldn’t your boss at least call you?”

This time, Evelyn had no answer.

“I didn’t work in a professional atmosphere like you do,” her mother said, “but I’m old enough to know you don’t find best friends in a company you work at. Not just your coworkers, but even the companies don’t really care about your health or well-being. That’s just the way it is, unfortunately.”

After her mother left, Evelyn began thinking. Her mother wasn’t wrong. Even though she had been working for years, she didn’t make any friends, male or female, in the company. She was so focused on her career, she didn’t care about her friend circle. But right now, when she was feeling sick, she felt like she had at least one person to care for her aside from her parents.

She briefly remembered Adam’s speech at the school. (You talked about the necessity of having both selfishness and selflessness, and the need to go out of one’s way to comfort and help others, so why aren’t you calling when I’m on sick leave? Were your words just meant for the stage? Do you only care about those women who give in to your demands?)

Meanwhile, in the Conreid headquarters.

The board meeting would be starting in a few minutes, but Adam was still in his room. He checked his watch. “I’m hungry. The delivery is going to come on time, right?” he was thinking, and the door was knocked. A pizza delivery guy entered. He was wearing the capped uniform of Rye’s Pizzas, and he had a long beard.

“You are five minutes early,” Adam was pleasantly surprised. “How did you get here so fast?”

“By bike?”

“Huh, such an obvious answer,” Adam looked at the name tag on this man who seemed to be in his late twenties, “Mr. Benjamin.” He gave him a hundred dollar bill. “You can keep the change.”

“Thank you, sir,” he said and was about to leave but then noticed that Adam’s tie wasn’t properly folded so he went over and refolded it fast.”

“H-How did you do it so fast?” Adam was slack jawed. “And it looks way better now,” he had to admit.

“I’ve practiced on hundreds of complex knots, so this much is easy. Anyway, I gotta go. It was nice meeting you.”

“You, too.”

After the delivery guy left, Adam kept checking the tie. “You really can’t judge a book by its cover. He’s got such flair and skill, yet he works as a pizza delivery guy.” He sighed. And then he noticed the pizza on the desk. “Oh, crap. I totally forgot about the pizza.” He quickly checked the watch. “Shit. I only have three minutes left.”

He hurriedly stuffed the pizza and liked its taste, but there was no time for him to savor it.

Afterward, he dashed to the conference room. The others were waiting, and when he walked in, nobody stood from their seats. Adam reached his sit. As everyone looked at him, he ended up burping.

Silence filled the room.

“My bad. I just had a pizza a minute ago,” said Adam.

“Yeah, we can smell it from here,” one of the board members said, making some others snicker.

“It’s good to meet you all,” Adam somewhat enthusiastically said and smoothly greeted everyone, changing the mood rather quickly.

After the discussions started though, there were a few who hinted that he should take a longer break and let one of his brothers take his seat. That didn’t hurt him much, but then they unreservedly roasted him for not accepting to launch the 5G upgrade in the Conreid Lore. No matter what reasons he gave, they didn’t care.

“Your opinions don’t matter, Mr. Adam,” the fattest director in the room spoke. “Only results do. And backing away from a move that boosts our productivity is not something our or any shareholder with a brain would like. We can’t afford to worry if a child gets a headache or cold from the millimeter waves. There are more people getting sick from the ever changing GMOs, yet do you see the court banning them at all? Even they know that ethics must sometimes take a back seat when necessary. If you get what I’m saying, take back your decision and implement the upgrade as early as possible.”

“I will think about it, Mr. Rutherford,” Adam tried to look confident even though his heart was beating fast because these directors looked intimidating, each and every one of them.

After the meeting finished, he sat down and rubbed his forehead. His whole head felt heavy.

All the directors left, except for one.

“Mr. Adam,” a rather sad voice reached his ears.

Adam looked up. A short, lean man sat down in the nearest seat. “Did your body heal well? Or are there still aching pains?”

“It’s fine, sir,” Adam couldn’t remember this man’s name. “Is there anything you want to talk about?”

“Ah, yes,” he kept his head lowered for a little while.

Adam began drinking water.

“It hasn’t been long since my son passed away, but we shouldn’t delay matters regarding money, so can you please return the 2 million dollars you took from James?”

Adam choked on the water and ended up spilling some on the table.