Possessing Bella Ch. 06

While Kurt called down to the lobby security, Bella took the stairs to the roof. She imagined that the pedestrian traffic downstairs would make the lobby and sidewalks crowded and all she needed was a little bit of pure sunshine on her face. The tan she had amassed during her time at the beach house and then with Sire on the trip they took was fading fast here in the city.

She found the fire escape unlocked and stepped out into the morning sunshine, wrapping her jacket more firmly around her. Of course, there was a helipad that shouldn't have surprised her. These were rich and powerful men who did business here but for some reason it did surprise her. She had hoped to find some sort of high rise garden or an atrium but as she looked around all she saw was concrete and steel.

The view though was spectacular and she walked towards the edge to look out in the direction she thought would be east to see if she could see the bay in the far distance. She heard a sound behind her and turned to see a young man waving her away from the edge. She wasn't even that close she thought, but took a few steps back to appease him noting his scowl as he came closer.

"You can't be up here Miss," he said sternly. "Authorised staff only," he pointed to a sign near the door.

"Oh, I am sure if you called Mr. White he would say that it's okay," Bella offered with a smile.

"Look I know all the executives here and their assistants. I am not going to disturb any of them because a pretty girl fluttered her eyelashes at me. You have to go," he said adamantly, "Now."

"Maybe we should start again," Bella offered and went to hold out her hand.

"Maybe I should just call security." He looked at her hand disdainfully. He then grabbed her arm with the intention of forcing her back through the doorway. Bella shrugged free of his grasp; he had not held her tightly thinking his threat was enough to scare a dumb secretary or whatever she was.

"I think you should call security and you should pack your things at the same time, so they don't have to wait to escort you from the building. On second thoughts let me call them for you, so you don't have to worry about me disappearing; god knows everyone needs to watch me in case I jump off the roof," she finally vented all her anger on the young man. "Of course I am just a silly little girl who can't be trusted to make any decisions on her own or even be on her own, for five fucking minutes of the day!" Bella was ranting now, letting everything out as the young man stood there, shocked into silence as she pulled her phone out of her jacket.

She paused for breath and glared at him. "What's the number for security?" She spat and he turned walking away shaking his head and muttering about 'crazy dumb ass women'. She walked slowly after him and watched as he picked up the phone within a small booth and called security. Then she returned to her spot in the sun looking out towards the bay and waiting for the drama this would cause to erupt. She had just wanted a few minutes in the sun to think and accept that this was the life she asked for, the life she wanted.

"Great view isn't it?" It wasn't security that arrived; it was Kurt himself who appeared beside her on the rooftop and looked around at the view.

"Yeah," she said quietly. "I just needed some fresh air and sun and didn't want to deal with the crowds downstairs. I didn't know I couldn't come up here." Bella began explaining herself before he had even asked the question. "I'm sorry for the fuss." She finished quietly.

"No fuss, just a little confusion on the mechanics behalf," Kurt laughed. "It's always been a men only club up here. I guess we will have to change that." He wrapped her in a hug. "Feeling better?"

"No, I feel awful, I really yelled at that guy but he grabbed me to make me leave and I just..." She ran out of words as the expression on Kurt face changed. "He was just doing his job and I was... well in the way probably. He let me go pretty easy but by then I was ranting like a crazy woman." Her head dropped as she told Kurt what had happened. "I was just frustrated and needed five minutes in the sun and fresh air to think when I saw how full my schedule for this week was. I was working out how I could implement my own ideas and when I would have time to do the things I planned. Then suddenly I didn't even have my five minutes anymore and well... I wasn't very polite."

"Come on we will fix this," Kurt said softly leading her over to the small booth where the mechanic still stood watching them curiously. "Damien isn't it?" Kurt extended his hand to the young man.

"Yes, Sir, Mr, White," he took the offered hand and shook it.

"Enjoying the job here? You're getting some flying time with the pilots?" Kurt asked again, knowing that one of the biggest perks of this job was that the mechanic got fly time so they could act as co-pilot in an emergency.

"Yes, Sir, Mr, White. It's an amazing opportunity," he said enthusiastically.

"You have read the company memo's and all that boring stuff about what goes on downstairs?" Kurt asked knowing the answer but giving the kid the opportunity to save himself.

"Yes, Sir, Mr, White," he began to look unsure of himself.

"Good, good, so you know who this is then? Her picture was in the one that came out Friday before last," Kurt said seriously, "and if I remember rightly, in several before that over the last year. I know you haven't been here that long, but you should have seen the most recent one." The young man licked his lips nervously.

"I would hate to think you just put your hands on one of the company owners, second only to myself on the corporate ladder, without good reason," Kurt frowned at him. "Unless of course you are not reading those memo's and didn't realise who this was. If that is the case, you have just lied to me and I am afraid with people's lives in your hands that would be a serious misdemeanour."

"Company owner?" The young man stammered, "but she's..."

"Bella Biancotti. Yes. It was all outlined in the memo yet again for new people," Kurt voice had a hard edge to it now. "You see my problem here, either you just lied about following company policy or you have just tried to physically force one of your employers from a roof top which they own. Either way, it doesn't look good for you, does it?"

"I didn't realise who she was," he admitted. "I am very sorry Miss Biancotti but even still, you can't just walk out onto the pad like that," he said, "It's dangerous, especially if the boys were landing."

"It's an easy mistake to make, I don't photograph well," Bella smiled still feeling bad about the way she had yelled at him. "I will be more careful in the future, truthfully I had no idea this was here."

"At the very least there will be a performance review," Kurt said. "I will let you and the pilots know when that will be." He turned back to Bella, "You have been in this helicopter with Mel, just before your trip to Italy, when he went to find you at your parents' house. You really didn't know it was here."

She shook her head feeling all kinds of silly. She had been so busy and trying so hard to do everything right that she just felt stupid. Stupid for not knowing there was a helipad on the roof. Stupid for seemingly always being in some sort of danger she needed to be rescued from. Stupid for believing this idea of hers could ever have worked. She resigned herself to the fact that she was just not cut out for this and resolved to just tinker at the original idea if they let her while attending all their meetings and other ways of keeping her busy.

They walked back to her office in silence; Andrew appeared relieved to see her but greeted her as he always would but without the details that would normally accompany his greeting about anything that occurred in her absence. He simply gave a ten minute warning regarding the first meeting of the morning.

"Oh, yes. Of course," Bella smiled, "I'll just grab my tablet, you don't have to wait if you need to be there early," she said softly to Kurt. "I have probably taken up too much of your time already."

"I don't mind waiting a minute," Kurt said magnanimously, "I enjoy your company and I am really glad you're here with us."

She grabbed her tablet and came back out. Turning to Andrew she murmured, "If you could decipher that script for me while I am gone that would be great, but don't change anything at all until we have talked properly again, please."

He wrote a quick note and passed it to her with a smile, "Your messages while you were out."

She read the top note that suggested she may want to check her reflection before entering the meeting and paled. Nodding her thanks to Andrew with a grimace, she left with Kurt. They had gone about halfway down the corridor when she spoke, "I just need a quick stop at the ladies room before we go in," she blushed.

"Use the one in my office," Kurt smirked, "Dianne has all her girlie stuff in there too."

"Yes Master," she almost whispered and carried on walking with him.

Bella smiled at Dianne as she walked past, but the smile didn't touch her eyes, Dianne looked questioningly but Bella just shook her head slightly and followed Kurt into his office.

"Please excuse me a moment," she whispered and disappeared into the bathroom she knew so well. It was such a small space things hadn't changed much in there. She looked at her windblown hair and marred makeup and thanked Andrew silently for his note. She released her hair from the pins that she had caught it up with that morning and began pulling it back into a severe ponytail before changing her mind and shaking it out again.

She began opening drawers and just as her own things had once lain there so now did Dianne's. She took her time fixing her makeup and restyling her hair into a loose French twist. How many times had she been in here questioning her relationship with Mel, feeling trapped as she did now by people who sought to dominate her as he had but without his love and affection. She had never just resigned herself to her fate back then; she questioned and railed against her own feelings and the sense of taboo his hidden world held.

Mel had loved her because of those things, not in spite of them. She was strong and intelligent. She didn't just buckle under and give up something she believed in. Her brain began to whirl around a small plan of action and she felt positive that she could get what she needed from this meeting if she timed it right and approached it with honesty and a reasonable argument. She returned to the office and the meeting, feeling better than she had before she walked into the room.

She continued to think about what it was she would say as the men each spoke about the big projects that were in their portfolios. Only being here a week Bella wasn't expected to present anything but Kurt turned to her and asked if she had any questions.

"Actually, I do," Bella said clearly. "Why am I here?"

"You are part of the company executive; you should know about the running of the company." Kurt frowned at her.

"I am hardly an executive in the true sense of the word," Bella smiled at them all. "You all deal with things on such a grand scale, warehouses and factories and conglomerates. I want to open a shop, a boutique really. High end luxury, I admit, but I want a few artisans to create unique pieces not factories to mass produce. I want to source very small amounts of precious materials, gems and metals, not stock warehouses full." They were watching her and listening she realised.

"I don't possess even a little of your experience in these matters and I am so grateful to you all for taking the time to include and teach me but I feel like perhaps I am out of my depth here. I am learning as fast as I can. But there is no substitute for experience," she paused nervously. "I am finding with so many meetings in which I am not able to contribute or truly understand the intricacies of, that I have no time at all for my own project."

"I am truly honoured to be included in the executive, please do not misunderstand but, if I am honest with you all, Mel had only just given me a small company to manage, much like the one I was hoping to build here just before he... left us. I am sure there are interns here who possess as much if not more knowledge than I do. So I was wondering if perhaps Sir Rhys, who has expressed an interest in the business I planned could take me on as an intern of sorts and perhaps I could attend these beginning of the week meetings to still get an overall feel of the company without feeling so lost, rather than every meeting on my overfull schedule."

She turned directly to Rhys to address him. "I think that is what we had begun doing last week and I would value your leadership and expertise." Turning to Kurt she smiled, "It's just a little shop, no factories or warehouses, a small staff eventually, I really want to try and it would give me the proper experience I need." There was a pleading in her voice as she asked his permission without actually asking the question she needed to.

"Mel built this company, he left you in charge. I trust you even more probably than he did; you don't need me in these meetings. I doubt you need me at all. I am just playing executive here; we all know it." She said self-deprecatingly, "I have a lot to learn, and I am not so sure I am swimming very well in the deep end and would like to go back to the shallow end for a while please."

She finally finished talking and sat back into her chair becoming worried as the silence lengthened.

"I think she has a valid point. I worked here for ten years before I ever even saw this floor for myself," Jeremy Bagley said. "There is a lot to be learned during an internship that college just can't teach, we don't have time to explain every clause in a contract to her."

"I am happy to oversee her project with you Kurt," Rhys said. "Not really an internship but more of a mentoring role. From my understanding being able to work on her own project was one of the reasons she returned to the company at all. It would be a shame if she didn't follow it through due to lack of time and attention to detail."

"I would still like you to learn about all aspects of the company," Kurt said in an even tone. "You could do that one portfolio at a time, starting with Rhys," he agreed. "You will however, be at these meetings and any other I deem necessary to keep up with what is happening within the company." He studied her a moment longer, "I know you could build your little boutique on your own, but you have a wealth of resources here and people to help you. Mel left you part of his legacy; it would be wrong to ignore it and waste that business degree you are hiding behind that simple girl facade."

"I understand," she said and looked at the three other men present. "Please do not think I am ungrateful for the time and effort you have all given me since my return. I look forward to continuing to work with you all." Once again Kurt made her feel like a sulky spoilt brat and she was disappointed in herself.

"Rhys can you stay a few minutes, we'll have a look at this overfull schedule of Bella's and see what we can do with it. We'll send you an amendment if any changes involve you gentlemen," he said to the others as they stood to leave. Bella opened the document on her tablet and placed it on the table.

Kurt gave it a quick look over and frowned before handing it to Rhys. No wonder she had made that impassioned speech, it was almost indecipherable. "I believe Dianne and Patrick may have some explaining to do, can you make sense of that?"

Bella was confused and looked between the two men as they chuckled over some of the things on her schedule. Kurt had gone briefly to his computer and within minutes their assistants entered the room. Rhys fixed them both with a steely glare as Kurt spoke.

"You are both aware that Bella is no longer an assistant?" He asked in his own way, making people work out for themselves why he was not happy.

"Yes, Master," they replied in unison.

"I expect you are also aware that she has projects to manage while she is here?" he asked.

"Yes, Master," Dianne said quickly, "Bella is excited about her boutique; we have talked about it." Patrick nodded his agreement having seen the look Rhys gave him he chose to stay silent though until he could recognise what he had done wrong and beg forgiveness.

"Good come and look at this if you will," he passed them the tablet with Bella's schedule on it and gave them a moment to compose what they would say. Dianne opened her mouth to speak again but Kurt held up his hand, stopping her. "I just sat through a long impassioned speech by a girl who is so overwhelmed just being here and believing that I had left her no time at all to work on her own project and said she couldn't cope and asked to become an intern again." The colour faded from Dianne's face and Patrick had a look of horror on his.

"Imagine my confusion at this announcement? I knew nothing I had added to her schedule would be too time consuming. In an effort to understand and perhaps make life a little easier for her so that she was not so overwhelmed I had a look at her schedule, I would be overwhelmed by that monstrosity. You haven't even given her time to piss!" His voice had risen to a roar.

"Do you really think she needs to accompany you to the gym?" Rhys asked Patrick in a deadly quiet voice in counterpoint to Kurt's.

"Andrew just came to see us, we have told him everything is optional," Patrick choked out, "But he wouldn't let us change anything until he had spoken to Bella about it."

"Bella you can go and see Andrew now if you like," Kurt made the statement an order rather than a suggestion.

"Fuck Dianne, you of all people know she won't fight a decision I make; she will give up and go home. How many times did she run from Mel when she was under too much pressure. What the hell were you thinking? No wonder she bolted this morning after seeing that." Bella could hear Kurt's voice through the door she had just closed. Once again she had caused a fuss because of not understanding what was going on. She turned and walked back into the room to the surprise of the occupants.

"It's not entirely their fault," Bella said in a voice louder than she meant. "If I knew more, if I had done a proper internship I would have seen the joke there. I am sure they only did it to make me smile and brighten my day. They didn't mean any harm and I didn't exactly bolt this morning, I stayed in the building." She felt her heart pounding in her chest. "It's not their fault. It's mine. I should have asked them before coming to you, or at least waited to see what Andrew said after he spoke to them for me while I was in this meeting," she finished quietly.

Dianne reassured her that it was not her fault at all. How could she know that all of the meetings listed there were not real and admitted she had not considered the amount of time Bella would need in these early days of putting her ideas into a workable business plan. Rhys and Patrick left shortly after with him saying that he would meet with her in the scheduled time the following day and discuss her internship.

Kurt said he understood why she had felt overwhelmed that morning and not to worry about any of the fuss as she put it. There were no problems that weren't fixable and it would be all cleared up by lunchtime. She could take a day to work on her own project and he would meet with her before she left this afternoon.

With everything seemingly smoothed over, Bella went back to her office where an agitated Andrew looked up at her again with relief. The poor man, she thought to herself, he was probably regretting taking on a position with such a drama queen. Dorothea had arrived and as her friend and confidante came from behind her small desk to hug Bella, she finally burst into tears and let her feeling of being a silly little girl wash out over the woman who said nothing as she held her and let her cry.