The next day at work.
“Mr. Vale, Mr. Vale is here to see you,” Harper said, sticking her head through the door.
Cade raised his head from the field he had been doodling in all this while and looked at Harper standing by the doorway. Surprisingly, she had been so good he couldn’t find any fault with her.
“Send him in,” Cade said, standing up from his desk to the couch set in the room. He would much better have Cael over at the couches than at his desk, and moreover, he had been hunched over his desk all morning.
“It is lunchtime; do you want to go have some with me?” Cael asked as he walked into the room.
“And risk dying at your hands from food poisoning? You should realize that I am clearly better than you,” Cade said. He was on edge from what had happened last night with Ophelia. She had successfully avoided him this morning, and he could not get a chance to talk to her. He did not even know what he was going to say, and honestly, maybe the ignorance on her part was a good thing for him, at least until he figured out what he was going to say to her.
“Ha ha ha, very funny,” Cael said, sitting down opposite Cade.
“Do you see death humorous?” Cade asked, dropping the file he had brought from his desk to the little coffee table that was in between them before throwing his pen on it and leaning into the couch.
“If it is happening to you,” Cael said, causing Cade to actually get a few shivers up his body. How could he say something as nasty as this? Made him wonder if they really had the chance to kill him if they would take it.
“But you angels of death are already in my footsteps. What can I do to escape?” Cade said with a frown on his face.
“Enough with the planetaries; let us talk about our lives for a moment here.”
“What is it?” Cade asked. The only times Cael made it to his office, it always ended badly, and he had to clean up his mess. He did not think of the time he would have to try and bail his brother out of any mess he might have committed while juggling his mother’s thing and also Ophelai’s confession. He wished there was someone he could talk to. “What mess did you make this time around?”
“Mess? I am here to place a very great opportunity in your lap.
“Great opportunity?” Cade scoffed at him. “A great opportunity and you are not taking it for yourself? You would just let it come to me and it is a great one?”
“Of course, you are closer to being chairman than I am, and even though I was the one who grandfather assigned this assignment to, I think you should be on it. You would learn more than you intend to on this one,” Cael said, taking his phone from the inner pocket of his suit and tapping away on it.
“Whatever great opportunity you have, I do not want to hear it; just take it with you and leave.”
“Samsam technologies,” Cael said, and Cade could feel the hairs on his body stand as the words left his mouth. He had been sure that securing the funding for the collaboration between them and Samsam tech would put him in a good spot with his grandfather, but unfortunately, Cael, who seemed to be doing nothing, got it without any trouble.
“Are you offering me samsam?” Cade asked, lifting his back from the couch and clearing his throat.
“Yes”
“What is your play?”
“My play?” Cael scoffed as if he were trying to do the best thing ever and Cade was just trying to ruin it. “I do not have a play; I see that you would be a better fit for this, and I am giving it to you because, at the end of the day, our petty squabble for wealth does not matter; all that matters if that Vale cooperation is safe,” Cael said.
Cade looked at both his ears closely; there was no way those were his words and no way he had memorized them all. Maybe someone was feeding him from another relocation but there was no earpiece on his ears. He sighed and let out a long sound that sounded as though he was frustrated. “So what do you want in return?”
“Nothing”
“That is even more suspicious. Is this like an open check where I would take this off your hands and then I have to pay you late in the future for it?”
“Of course not; it is a business trip and you need to make samsam sign the collaboration agreement and then get funding for the business. It can not be that hard; you have landed more than that before.” Carl’s support was crushing for Cade. It was like he was subjected to a huge rock and more weight was being put on it.
“You are giving me this business trip for free? A trip to Nebula City for free?” Cade asked. He wanted to ask more but it did not seem right at all.
“Yes, you have to close the deal though and you leave in five days. It is s aten day long trip”
“Why? Isn’t this just a deal between us and samsam? Is there something else that I need to know? Why is it ten das long?” Cade wanted to tell him that he had other duties to attend to but this deal was too important for him to pull out now.
“Because I have other business I wanted to, I thought I might just get around to them all at the same time.”
“O really? And you want me to take care of them all?”
“You have to just schedule meetings with them and talk about business collaboration.”
“This seems fishy.”
“I believe the words you are looking for are thank you and you are welcome.”
“Should I be saying thanks? This seems like a trap.”
“Should I give this opportunity to Cody or Chase?”
“I will take it,” Cade said. ALL he had to do was work vigilantly and then deliver as always.
“Okay then,” Cael said, tapping his feet to the ground before adding up. “I will have my assistant send love the meeting schedule and every document you need to yours,” Cade watched Cael get out of the office with a skip in his tail.
“There is something fishy going on here.”