Only For You

Chapter 1 - What Happens In A Small Town

Nicholas' POV

"Mr Bishop, there is a Miss Crowe here to see you..Alaia Crowe... She insisted that you will want to see her.." my father's assistant Salva tells us, as we are about to step into the board room for a meeting.

I crunch my eyebrows trying to remember the name...Alaia Crowe? Ohh yes..Steven Crowe comes to mind... This must be his daughter we were talking about not too long ago, But what is she doing here, how did she get in here i wonder.

"Have her wait for us in the lobby, we will be with her when we are done here". My father says, looking at me.

Us?

How did i suddenly become part of this.

"We have more pressing issues to attend to at the moment." He adds, making me sigh, do i really have to be part of this today, I have other plans after this meeting.

Throughout the Meeting however, my mind gets disinterested, my thoughts wonder, and i can't help but think about this whole Steven Crowe fiasco and his daughter who has just arrived here. She is probably here to beg for her father's freedom.

Tsssst, i frown.

I'm surprised my father is even willing to give her an audience, normally he wouldn't even have time to deal with such matters personally, but i guess the severity of this project can be reflected in his willingness to meet with her and now am anxious to meet with her too.

As the meeting progresses, i can't help but recall the last time we met Steven Crowe. The bloody bastard......He is one of the engineers at one of our old electronic manufacturing plants in the small town close to our city, and from what i heard, he was a good engineer, but the man tried to steal from the company.

He and two other men from the company were trying to sneak some high tech equipment from the plant and sell to a private buyer. Luckily, we found out about it before it was too late and caught them red handed during a meeting with their buyer. We had them arrested soon after.

And as luck would have it, it came to our knowledge that his family are owners of a diner that sits right in the heart of the piece of land that is very vital to the next project our company intends to embark on.

We bought off all the surrounding property, but my team failed to reach an agreement with the owner of the diner who turned out to be Steven Crowe's family, the thief himself.

This led to me and my legal team personally meeting Steve to negotiate a deal, his freedom for the diner, Unfortunately, due to an issue in the paper work and ownership conditions of the diner, we discovered taking ownership would prove to be a bit of a complicated matter.

This misdemeanor on his part, should have made things easy to negotiate a profitable solution for all parties involved, but it turns out the original owner of the land, Steve's Mother left it to her first born granddaughter, who is only allowed to sale or transfer ownership after her first wedding anniversary....which is the dumbest thing I have ever heard.

Psshhh, what kind of request is that?

But then again, when you discover that her grand daughter is blind, it kind of makes sense. The old woman must have been pretty desperate to insure her blind grand daughter is not taken advantage of by adding such a condition to the ownership so that no one marries her for the wrong reasons or something like that.

Anyway, according to our investigations, the dinner is making a loss as of late, therefore, selling the property at the moment will only be in their best interests, instead of holding onto it, especially now that the rest of the surrounding property has been bought off, but ofcourse the dilemma of that special condition still stands and since it seems no one has been willing to marry the poor girl so far, technically, they would not be able to sale even if they wanted to.

On top of that, they are basically drowning in some other debt, which would explain why the old man tried to steal from the company. Anyway, last we spoke, i made the man an offer that would sort out all of his financial problems if he can find a loop hole in the contract and somehow make the sale.

"Mr Bishop?"

"Mr Bishop" someone says.

"Nicholas" My father, Allesio snaps, when i appear not to be mentally present in the meeting.

I snap out of my thoughts upon hearing my father call my name and find that everyone is looking at me expectantly.

Ohh shit, the meeting.

"I will have the development team look into it..I expect to have a work plan delivered to me by friday.. So we should be looking to have this off the ground by Monday" i say in my business mode, tapping my fingers on the table.

Everyone seems satisfied with my response.

My father gives me a quick glance and shakes his head, smiling a little.

Hell yeah, I was listening.

My ability to multi task never ceases to amaze him.

The rest of the meeting goes on smoothly for about another hour after which, i walk out with my Father and brother Aaron, who is also in attendance and part of the company 'Bishop Consortium International', or group of companies to be specific.

My father is getting ready to retire due to health problems, so i have been slowly taking over most of his responsibilies in the company and also preparing to be chairman of the board.

I had to step back from my own businesses to take care of the main family business which mainly involves, Electronic, Automotive and Aircraft Manufacturing and Engineering.

"How are we doing with the land acquisition issue Nick? You just announced to the whole board to have things going by Monday, am i right to assume you finally came to an agreement with Crowe? Is that why his daughter is here?" My father asks with some worry evident on his face.

We have been stuck concerning this issue with our acquisition team for obvious reasons for some weeks now, and now it appears time has finally run out. We need to set up a new Automotive factory and even though we had trouble getting the locals to sell out their properties, we finally managed to get that done, except ofcourse the property belonging to Crowe.

"Well not exactly....I'll figure something out. And since Steve's daughter is here ...lets see what we can work out" I say, accepting that I will be part of a meeting I had no idea I was going to have today.

"I have places to go to. I will see you guys at home" Aaron utters, patting me on the shoulder and turning a corner.

" I have another meeting, make it quick" Dad says, turning in the direction of my office.

I frown.

Realising that this has been laid completely on my shoulders now, and that he expects me to be in charge of the meeting.

Turning to Salva, I signal for him to go and bring our visitor, as i start to follow my father.

A/N. Thanks for being part of the journey...Cheers.