Bishop Takes Knight - Knight takes Bishop
Part One
By quarter to seven on Friday night, the fifty-fifth floor of the "Shard" skyscraper building was a ghost town; save two offices. Most everyone else had left to begin the weekend at five, however a few die-hard rat-racers hung on until half past six; either out of perceived obligation for some task or because they were shameless suck-ups hoping to be noticed by senior management.
It wouldn't have mattered. Even senior management was conspicuously absent for the most part from the three floors of Praetorian Group, (as even captains of industry are susceptible to the Siren call of a London Friday evening in late June). The big boss Caesar J. Preston, had departed earlier at five to change up and speak at a dinner before he'd receive one more plaque for the crowded wall in his immense office. The sun would not go down until late, the weather was marvelous and money should have been burning a hole in everyone's pockets. So why then wasn't everyone from the equestrian class of the corporate headquarters either home, on their way home, or going back out and smelling of perfume and heady expectations?
Why? Because Annette Bishop wanted to be at the office... that's why, and when you are as powerful as she is, if you want it...it happens. End of discussion and with no negotiation. To her, the clock meant less and less over the years and getting done what needed to be done; either for her or the conglomerate always came first. When she'd married Caesar seven years earlier, he'd given her a gold ladies watch with diamonds as an engagement present and as it sparkled on her arm she had even said, "Thank you so much C.J. its beautiful! It is such a shame I never care what time it is!"
Thirty years her senior, and a widower when he married her; C.J. Preston, thought Annette was just being witty and so he broke out laughing with everyone else at the table in the club; not knowing she was being both blunt and serious. She knew what she wanted then and it most certainly was not a watch. If she got what she wanted she'd buy a watch company. She'd gone from brilliant project manager, to brilliant division head, and now she was a brilliant member of the senior management team of a strong performing multi-national ....plus "the big guy" called her "Mrs." Yet there was more to be had and she knew it. The big guy might have done well to take note that she kept her name when she married him; a shape of things to come from the independent wife burning the candle and toiling away on a lovely Friday night.
Two lights in the on the floor, save the lighted hallway to the elevator were still on. One was in Annette's office. One was in the intern office that opened to directly into Annette's. The intern project, or the "Acolyte Initiative" as it was called, was conceived and spearheaded by Annette. It was her baby and like everything she'd conceived - she owned it! Extremely gifted and talented graduates and third year students from prestigious learning institutions were brought into the initiative and placed with directors, VPs, and the top brass to "sow the seeds" for corporate leadership, ten, twenty, even thirty years down the road.
Sitting at a chair near Annette' desk, Bradley Knight, or "just Brad" as he insisted, was head down looking at his tablet and pondering some figures. Between Brad and Annette lay a stack of pamphlets, sketches, and portfolios that Annette had decided would need to be directly weighed in on at some point in the very immediate future. On the other side of the pile in a chair much more luxurious than that of Brad's sat Annette, finishing a phone call to Houston Texas.
She looked over at Brad wrinkling his brow, deep in focused concentration. She'd picked well, she'd told herself as she listened to Frank in Houston blah-blah-blah-ing away and completely ignored the little toady spilling his guts nervously on the other line. She'd picked well when she'd selected her other intern Shelby and she'd done well with Brad. She could have taken a pair of third-year eager-beavers for the summer, but recent graduates worked just as well and didn't have their eye on heading back for their final term in the fall.
She craned her pretty head of short black feathered hair around the stack of books and portfolios to get a better look at him with a pair of watchful eyes above gorgeous cheekbones that could have belonged to a supermodel or a starlet but instead belonged to the "boss lady." She crossed a pair of long slender legs, pursed the lips on a pretty mouth and beamed with the satisfaction of a tabby cat contemplating an oblivious canary just within her reach. When the selection committee convened in March; as chair, she had the picks of the litter. Privileges of rank, and privileges of being CJ' spouse held sway.
For Shelby, it was an easy decision to bring her back. She'd been with the Acolytes the previous year on summer break from her university. She'd proven herself to be most valuable, plus Annette was comfortable with the young woman and comfortable with continuing the arrangement. For Brad, she opened his portfolio, looked at his grades, and looked at his photo. He was in. Every other dog at the table could feast on whatever scraps were left in the intern pile and then of course the "We regret to inform you," letters could go out for the balance.
She noticed he'd lost weight since arriving.
But wait
,...was that weight loss or just muscle he'd put on making him a bit leaner? She'd been running him ragged that was for sure! From the minute he hit the ground after being unemployed for nearly a year, he was grateful for the opportunity and she could smell that about him. Make no mistake Annette was not only pretty, she was highly intelligent and emotional intelligence was a particularly sharp tool in her skillset kit! She figured things out fast and she figured people out faster... she could tell; who was strong, who was weak, who was to be wary of, who was stupid, who had talents that were hidden from plain sight; within a few minutes of meeting that person. She figured things out, (in the same way she'd figured out Brad the minute she had him come in her office that first day, all those weeks before and she pulled his strings and pushed his buttons with ease).
It was strange; the more she made him slave harder for her, the more devoted and uncomplaining he became. He was good under pressure and resourceful; she liked that. He was efficient and showed initiative, she liked that as well. He had dark thick hair and was tall wiry and muscled, (without a spec of fat on his sinewy sides, smelled good, and he had buns like muffin tins). She liked that most of all! Her little peeks and ogles could be thought of as more privileges; being the wife of Caesar. It was a lot better than looking at CJ's flabby pale seventy-three-year-old form coming out of the shower along with his bald head!
Brad was anything but thinking about what he liked at the moment. The numbers became a fuzzy blur in his head. He'd been at work since seven that morning and then at five minutes to five (just as he was tidying up his desk in the next room), Annette had called him and Shelby in. On a Friday evening at quitting time she told them that she needed them both to stay!
Shelby as usual played the "oh so smart little kiss-ass" and was all "happy and perky at the unexpected opportunity." She never got tired and Brad resented that fact that "Lil miss perky sunshine," could go and go and go! Shelby happened to be currently down on the next floor pulling some materials. He was left with Annette and none too happy about it as she had been in a particularly foul "task-mistress" mood ever since he'd started working late that night! He was grateful for the opportunity to be here (having been placed in this position over so many others), but he'd been going flat-out for the last three weeks and didn't know how much he could take.
She'd badgered him for arcane infractions of judgement and policy that very few employees would have been held accountable
-even in management circles.
She'd gotten up and left in the middle of meetings earlier in the week to deliberately leave him there to answer questions on subject matter and policy he was not familiar when he was supposed to be merely a glorified note taker at the activity. She'd held Shelby up for praise in front of him on multiple times and the little minx had the gall to gloat at him while Annette piled laurels and credit upon the young woman's blonde little head. She even tore him down about the suits that he'd chosen and the shoes he wore as Shelby snickered and tittered in the next office. He couldn't tell if he was truly incompetent and sloppy or if she was simply tyrannical sadistic and cruel.
The worst was the silence. The silence before Annette's explosions could be deafening and her stare could be liquid-nitrogen cold. He knew this first-hand but what he did not know was that for Annette,
it was all calculated
