Did King just give me a job?
My eyes widened in excitement. King has personally given me my first job and it also meant that I got to work with the orphanage in helping the children. Suddenly, it just felt like everything was starting to click and fall into place.
“You should have told me earlier!” I cried out in excitement as I stood up from my seat.
I just couldn’t believe it. I should have known that the thing that I wanted to do was staring me right in the face. If I can help improve the orphanage and the lives of the children, wouldn’t that be great. Plus, this also counts as me working for King and the company. Two birds with one stone, indeed!
“Sorry, I thought it would be a cool surprise. Was I wrong?” Reiner asked teasingly.
“No…you’re not wrong. I am surprised…but still you should have told me!” I exclaimed.
“You’re not making sense. How would it be a surprise if I told you about it beforehand?” Reiner mocked me with a shake of his head.
“I guess you’re right…” I was forced to admit.
…
The flight to the island was a good reminder of our honeymoon trip and I had to say that I was over the moon happy to be on another holiday with Reiner so soon. The weather was just as nice as the last time that we were here when we landed on the island. Something told me that this trip was going to be a meaningful step forward for us and my career.
After studying the documents, I found out that it actually required a pretty huge sum of money to run the orphanage. This wasn’t a project that should be randomly taken on on a whim. The reports showed many cost buckets there were huge and most of the expenses were recurring. In other words, King must be very committed to this project in order to keep the orphanage running. It all made sense considering that each child would be at the orphanage for many years before they grew up into young adults.
Taking in more children also added to the expenses. I couldn’t help but sigh at the depressing reality that the orphanage was very good at burning money. Either I must find a way to spend the money more efficiently or I had to ask King for even more funding in the future. The second way was probably not the best way, so I had to work something out in terms of savings and optimization.
“Don’t stress out, Natalia. Your brows are in a knot,” Reiner teased me as his large fingers tried to pull my brows away from each other.
“Stop that…” I murmured in slight annoyance as I tried to shake my head the other way to escape his fingers.
“You’ve been obsessed with those reports ever since I gave them to you,” Reiner said knowingly.
“I can’t help it. It just feels like there’s so much that needs to be done, you know…” I muttered before heaving another depressing sigh.
“Anything that I can help with?” Reiner offered with a smile.
“This is supposed to be your holiday so I would feel guilty if I asked you to work,” I replied stubbornly.
Plus, I was quite certain that he worked so hard to clear his schedule so that he could accompany me here. This project didn’t involve Reiner in anyway, so if he had to work at the company, I would be the only one shipped out to work on this island on this project. It was already great that he was here with me to keep me company. He also worked so hard, so I wanted him to get his well-deserved rest.
“I’ll feel guilty if I leave my wife to do all the work too…” Reiner countered with a charming smile.
I didn’t know what else to say to that and I found his smile to be so disarming that I decided to let him have his way. Apart from being such a loving husband, I also found out from personal experience that Reiner was also a good boss, and it was always fun to work alongside him.
“I don’t want you working too much. This is my project and I’m going to prove myself to King this time,” I said with wholehearted determination.
Reiner responded by laughing but he did nod his head in agreement. This may be the first of many projects that King might decide to send my way and I was determined to surprise him with some very outstanding results. I can do this!
We stayed at the same place that we did during our honeymoon, and we even slept in the same room after being greeted by the exact same staff member. It really was a scary overload of deja vu one after another. After settling down, we agreed to take it easy for the day while we came up with a gameplan on how to tackle the problem at the orphanage tomorrow.
“So, tell me, what have you got so far?” Reiner asked as he sat down next to me on the sofa.
I turned to smile at him before scooting away from him just enough so that I could lay down and pillow my head comfortably in his lap. Reiner laughed and shook his head a little at how lazy I must have looked. I glanced up at his face before I beamed a smile at him.
“See this…” I said as I held up a paper towards his face.
Reiner shook his head once more at my laziness before taking the paper from my hand. I cleared my throat before I started to explain what I had in mind. Trust me, I didn’t just get Reiner to fly me all the way over here without having put some thought into this matter.
“I actually did some prep work, believe it or not. I got hold of all the historical files related to the orphanage especially those that had to do with expenses, financials and even the line-by-line accounting. Then I had a look at all the big cost buckets to understand what the orphanage has been spending so much money on.
–To be continued…