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Abruptly, I hurried out of the clinic and stopped in the middle of a crowded street. A moment later, Taylor hurried after me and pulled me to her. I clutched her to me and released several shaky breaths.
“I don’t know if I can do this.”
“We’ll do it together,” Taylor said into my ear. “Don’t worry. I’ve got you.”
Chapter 5: Back
Bernard
“You are a beast, Bernie.” Raymond clapped me on the back and placed the cigar between his lips. He lit it up and blew out a puff of smoke, pointing it in my direction. “You know, I did have my doubts when I came to work here. I’d gotten a lot of offers from other, more established companies.”
I twisted my head to look at Raymond and gave him a small smile. “I’m glad you changed your mind.”
Without good people at the helm, United Insurance would not have been half the company it was today. Granted, I was the one who had come up with the idea in the basement of my parent’s house a lifetime ago, but I wasn’t stupid enough to think I could’ve made it on my own. United had made it to where it was because I’d poured my blood, sweat, and tears into it.
And I hired the best of the best, elevating the company from a small start-up to a multi-million-dollar insurance company. Considering we hadn’t been in the business for long, I took a great deal of pride and satisfaction in knowing that we had some of the most exclusive clients in the world, including several members of royalty and presidents. United was on the way up, showing no signs of stopping.
And I couldn’t have been prouder.
Especially given that I’d spent the past few years traveling the world, amassing clients, and building a name for us. While constantly being on the move wasn’t easy, it had allowed me to expand the company, giving it several international branches as well as two dozen local ones. I hated living out of a suitcase, but each time I saw our competitors go green with envy and clamor to get an audience with me, I knew I had done the right thing.
Raymond blew out another ring of smoke and moved away. He pulled out one of the chairs with a screech and sat down. When he brought one leg up over the other, he blew another ring in my direction, causing my eyes to water. I waved a hand in front of my face and pressed a button on my desk, lowering both windows.
He sat back in his chair and smiled at me. “You deserve a break. You’ve been working really hard the past few years.”
“Business never sleeps,” I replied before taking a seat in my own chair and linking my fingers together. “Speaking of business, we’re going to need to look at the new interns applying and see who fits.”
“You really can’t let a man enjoy his cigar, can you?”
“You can enjoy your cigar while we work,” I offered after a brief pause. I unlinked my fingers and switched my attention to the open laptop screen in front of me. “I’m going to send you an email with the expected numbers for this quarter. We’re doing much better.”
Raymond nodded. “We did a routine system check too.”
“Good. We need to run a security check as well. Cameras flagged something weird yesterday.”
Raymond blinked and lowered his cigar. “Yesterday was a Sunday.”
“I was working on one of our new policies for students,” I responded without looking at him. “We need a different angle.”
“You’re over here making the rest of us look like amateurs, Bernie,” Raymond said a little too loudly. “Don’t you ever rest?”
“I do.”
But it had felt like I’d been going full speed ahead for the longest time.
Five years, to be exact
Since the night I got pulled away from the hotel for the fire emergency that had taken out our whole bottom floor and nearly fried all of our serves. Since then, I’d made sure that not only did the servers have a well-protected floor with state-of-the-art cooling systems, but I’d also ensured that we had a group of professionals who came in every month for a routine check.
All in order to ensure that everything was operating at optimum efficiency.
And all in an effort to keep my thoughts from wandering to a certain blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman who had broken my heart. Even though it had been five years since Rachel Booth had come into my life, a splash of color in an otherwise black-and-white existence, I still wondered how she was.
In spite of my best attempts to avoid thinking about her.
She was still under my skin and in my heart.
With a slight shake of my head, I looked away from the laptop and over at my CEO, who was still smoking his cigar, his smooth tanned face looking contemplative. “We should host some kind of event.”
