Chapter 145: Taking Care of Business
Edrick
We went to the picnic, where everything went well at first. Moana and Ella were the perfect picture of a happy family while I gave my speech, and I was proud of both of them for that. Some people seemed to notice that Ella was referring to Moana by her first name, though, which I knew I would have to handle later before people began asking questions. I knew that I should have talked to Ella beforehand, but I had to admit that I completely forgot. But it was nothing that we couldn’t handle, even if people did start asking questions. With a child that age, it was easy to claim that she was simply trying out something that she saw in a movie, or that she was pushing parental boundaries. Besides, with the work that my PR agency did to mitigate the clips of me punching the paparazzi, I knew that people were unlikely to bother us much — at least for now.
After I briefly spoke to Mia, I decided to let Moana and my old friend get to know each other a bit, so I made my way over to speak to one of my business partners. I had to talk to him about something important that couldn’t wait, anyway.
I had known Mia since we were kids. She was always a good friend, although we did fall off a bit after high school. It wasn’t like it was with Kelly; Mia was her own person, and she never had any interest in marriage. She never followed me around like a lost puppy, and she wasn’t vindictive and cruel like Kelly was. Mia was just a good friend who I saw very rarely, and she was an incredible businesswoman. If I ever had to give up control of WereCorp, I always knew that I would offer her the position of CEO in a heartbeat; and I knew that she would gladly take the role and do incredibly well. Her branches of the company overseas were some of the most successful branches in the world, and she was a fair yet brilliant boss.
Either way, I hoped that Mia and Moana could become friends. I knew that Moana needed some allies in this brutal business world, and Mia was a wonderful person.
I quickly became engrossed in my conversation with my business partner. We had been having some issues with overseas manufacturers dealing with labor strikes, and it needed to be dealt with.
“I say we fire the lot of them and hire new people who won’t complain so much,” my business partner said in a gruff tone of voice. “I’ll tell ya… These humans. They’re never happy with anything.”
I frowned. “We can’t just fire thousands of employees and hire all new ones,” I replied. “Regardless of whether they’re humans or werewolves, they still deserve basic decency. The only way to go about this is to listen to their problems and do the best we can to accommodate them.”
My business partner scoffed. “You’re already too accommodating, Edrick. Give them too much slack, and they’ll keep taking and taking and taking. You need to learn to rule with an iron fist.”
“This isn’t the Dark Ages,” I replied with a bit of a chuckle. My business partner laughed, too, his big round belly jiggling as he did so. The event had only just begun, and his face was already red from too many mimosas.
Suddenly, I felt Moana’s presence beside me. And as I spoke, without even thinking, I put my arm around her. I felt so at peace with her by my side, and despite the fact that my bigoted business partner kept shooting her dirty looks as though I wouldn’t notice, I was happy to have her here. I knew that he and many others thought that she was human, and I couldn’t wait for the day when the truth could finally come out. But first, I needed to know if she really was the Golden Wolf, because she could be in grave danger before her wolf emerged. And I certainly wasn’t going to mention anything about her lineage until our baby was safely born.
“Well… I’ll keep you updated, I suppose,” my business partner said. “Perhaps we can make a deal with them. But if they don’t accept our first offer, I say we lay them all off.”
I watched as my business partner walked away, but his idiotic suggestions weren’t at the forefront of my mind. In fact, I was already preoccupied by the fact that Moana kept glancing over her shoulder. I followed her gaze to find that she kept looking at one of my newer employees — a young man whose name I couldn’t remember — and she almost looked frightened.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, feeling myself become worried. “Are you okay?”
Moana snapped her head around to look at me and nodded rapidly. She took a sip of her lemonade, but I could see that her hand was shaking a bit as she held the glass, and it made me even more worried. “Yes, I’m fine.”
I frowned. “Tell the truth,” I said. “You look like you saw a ghost.”
Moana paused for a few moments, biting her lip as she stared down at the ground. I was just about to press her to tell me what was going on again when she finally looked back up at me with watery, worried eyes.
“That employee over there is my ex-boyfriend,” she said.
I glanced over at the employee again. I couldn’t deny the fact that a bit of jealousy bubbled up already just from knowing that Moana’s ex was here, but I tried not to show it. But it still didn’t explain why she seemed so worried.
“Did he say something to you?” I asked.
Moana slowly nodded. “We broke up on the day I met you, actually. When… Our baby was conceived. I found him cheating on me, with…” She glanced over at him again, then subtly pointed her index finger while she was still holding her glass of lemonade at a tall, blonde woman who was standing with him. “With her. I found them in a restaurant window, and when I confronted them, he threatened me and said some really horrible things instead of showing even a little remorse.”
Although I couldn’t deny the fact that I felt a bit more jealousy bubbling up inside of me as I learned that Moana had only just broken up with her ex on the very day that we met, I was more angry with him that he had done that to her.
“But it’s not just that,” Moana continued before I could say anything. “I’m not upset about it anymore. I hardly even think about it, actually. But I think he might try to reveal the fact that Ella isn’t my biological daughter.”
My eyes widened at this. It made sense… If this guy had been dating Moana only a few months earlier, of course he would know for a fact that Ella wasn’t Moana’s biological daughter. It would only be a matter of time before he revealed it and people began to question it. And if people questioned whether Ella was Moana’s biological daughter, then they would surely question whether the baby in Moana’s belly was even mine.
But I had dealt with assholes like this before, and as I took another glance at the little prick with his girlfriend that was clearly way out of his league, I knew that I could handle him, too.
And I would make him suffer for what he did to Moana.
“Don’t worry,” I said, tightening my grip around Moana’s shoulders. “I’ll take care of it.”
Moana’s eyes went wide. “I-I don’t want to cause a scene—” she began, but I cut her off with a wave of my hand and began steering us toward the one person who I knew would excel at a time like this.
Mia.
