Chapter 7

Chapter Rating: PG maybe? There is swearing and leg admiring...dont know what that gets me?

Olivia walked confidently into the conference room to find Mr. Rivera's assistant sitting at the table, talking to two other men. The first man to notice her in the doorway quickly rose from his chair and walked over to meet her with a welcoming smile. He was a tall man and of a rather fit build. Olivia immediately noticed that his face, which she had assessed in the back of her mind as being quite handsome, seemed oddly familiar to her.

"Good Morning, you must be Ms. Spencer, I presume," the young man spoke as he held out his hand. "Mateo Rivera."

Aha...that explains it, Olivia confirmed to herself.

"It's nice to meet you, Mr. Rivera," she said pleasantly, taking his hand.

Mateo, like most men that Olivia encountered, had been momentarily lost in the mesmerizing eyes before him. He turned her hand with his and ran his thumb almost imperceptibly across the back of it. "The pleasure is all mine," he said in a tone slightly lower than his greeting.

Very subtle, Casanova, she chuckled inwardly. She thought for an instant about flirting back, just to see how fast she could throw him off his game but quickly pegged him as being much too easy of a mark.

Olivia was certainly no stranger to the admiring eyes and cunning advancements of men. At times she rather enjoyed the power her beauty gave her over them. But it had been far too long since any of them had inspired her with anything even remotely original. Nowadays she found it all to be almost boring.

She removed her hand from the newly smitten man, politely, and moved to one of the chairs at the far end of the table facing the windows. The other men who were sitting there rose slightly from their chairs as a courtesy and waited for her to be seated before sitting back down. The older gentleman who she had not yet been introduced to reached a hand across the table.

"Andres Bellerives, Madam," he proclaimed in the thick French accent.

Mr. Bellerive had one of the higher counter offers in the bid for The S.B. Empire. How high, and precisely all that it entailed, Olivia, of course, had not been made privy too. It had to be substantial; that she knew.

As the Frenchman eyed her with equal suspicion from his place across the table, she turned to Jacques and nodded with a smile.

"Jacques and I were just arranging to take Mr. Bellerive and his associates on a tour of the hotel, " Mateo spoke, turning towards her in his chair. "Have you had the pleasure of seeing all the sights that The Empire has to offer, Ms. Spencer?"

"No, actually, I ended up having an early night last night."

"We could go after the meeting if you like," he offered and then flashed his charming eyes. "I would be more than happy to take you myself."

I'm sure you would, she smiled. The attention he was paying to her face made Olivia feel a bit awkward due to the fact that there were others in the quiet room. In any other setting, she would have flirted back simply for the minute thrill it would provide her. But in this arena she needed to stay strictly professional. Distractions were dangerous things when you were the only woman walking into the Boy's Club.

Just then the door opened and in walked Mr. Rivera, Sr., followed closely by his daughter.

Or not the only one...

Olivia had not expected to see Natalia at any of the meetings, as Natalia had stated in the limo that she had wanted “nothing to do with this 'deal'”, as she put it. Her mind flashing back to the intensity of their parting words during this morning's encounter, she knew that Natalia's presence here indicated that she had, indeed, meant every word she had said.

As Jacques and Mr. Bellerive nodded their salutations to Natalia and Mr. Rivera, they moved to seats at the other end of the room so that the two could seat themselves near the head of the table. Natalia sat herself directly in front of Olivia with her brother to her right and her father, in his large executive chair, at the end. Now sitting side by side, Olivia could clearly see just how alike the siblings were. As close to a spitting image of each other as it could get with the gender difference. Both had the exact dark hair and beautiful eyes. Striking features and tall, lean frames. Smooth skin being shown off on long, shapely...

Wooaah what the fuck! Olivia snapped to attention to notice that while her mind had been comparing the two siblings, her eyes had been focused only upon the woman in front of her. The same woman who was right now looking straight at her.

"Ms. Spencer," Natalia greeted her.

Olivia cleared her throat in an attempt to collect herself.

"Ms. Rivera," she responded.

Please God, tell me she did NOT just catch me checking out her legs; Olivia's mouth went dry.

"Alrighty then," Mr. Rivera's voice broke her thoughts. "Let’s get to it."

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Natalia stared blankly at the boring, grey-haired main wearing an equally dull grey suit, who was rambling on about the successes of his company's investment funds. This was the technical side of the family business that Natalia loathed the most. Slideshow presentations, flow-charts, graphs. In her mind, which in all fairness had previously tried desperately to focus, all these things seemed to be smearing their colors together on the far wall of the conference room in different abstract designs. They meant nothing to her. The monotone speaker to her far right was now diverting from the dreary market analysis and stock-forecasts and using whatever he had just been speaking about to try and make his point as to why he was going to be offering a specific dollar amount per share. Natalia knew that this part of the speech was going to include a lengthy history of his past successes and a historical view of the Empire's failures. Time to tune out, she sighed to herself.

She rummaged around in her briefcase quietly in order to try and discreetly let out the yawn of bemusement that she had trapped in way too long. Her movements caught the attention of the hotelier in front of her who, without turning away from the man at the front of the room, shifted her eyes towards Natalia, catching the yawn. Olivia darted her eyes back to the speaker before Natalia straightened herself in her chair but couldn't help the small smile of understanding that sneaked onto her lips.

Natalia looked at Olivia and saw her smiling.

Great, busted. She kept her eyes on Olivia. I wonder if you are as bored as I am. Maybe you would like to take a break from this pathetic little presentation and check out my legs again. She almost laughed out loud and tried to erase the smirk that was trying to plant itself on her face. Oh yeah, Ms. Spencer...I definitely noticed your little ocular faux pas.

The Frenchman had apparently not been paying attention to the time. Olivia kept checking her watch to see how much time she would be allotted to speak whenever the rambling man decided to be finished. She took her pen and began to nibble of the end of it. Shut up, shut up...fucking ferme la bouche...was her silent chant, biting the pen a little harder in frustration.

I wonder how many poor minions heads those pearly whites have chewed off, Natalia contemplated her adversary with narrowed eyes. No doubt you're an ogre to work under. The image of a giant Olivia wielding a spiked mace in the direction of frantically scurrying tiny employees made her smile again. She quickly dropped her eyes when she saw Olivia's questioning them.

Well it seems as though you've found something entertaining to occupy your mind with. Olivia did not know why Natalia was smiling at her but she thought it best not to engage her in another stare-athon at this particular moment. If this mumbler would stop blowing his own horn, I could say what I have to say and get the hell out of here. Everything was annoying her right now. She wanted to get away from the admiring eyes of the young Jr. Mr. Rivera that she had no doubt were secretly trying to undress her at the moment. She wanted to run away from the woman across from her who was most likely plotting a way to murder her in her sleep. She just wanted to go call Greg to see if there may be an off chance that a random employee had done something careless within the past couple of days. I just need to scream!

"Ms. Spencer?" Olivia whipped her head to the right at the voice calling her name.

"Yes! Yes, I'm sorry, what?" She said trying not to sound so confused.

"I asked if it would be okay with you if we could get around to your presentation at a later time?" Mr. Rivera seemed to be as annoyed with the ramblings of the Frenchman as they all were. "It seems as though our time has been taken up for now."

Thankful to be at least getting out of the conference room, but dreading having to do it all again tomorrow she answered, "Absolutely, that is not a problem with me."

"Excellent. Thank you, Mr. Bellerive, for your thorough comments. I must attend to some other business matters but I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow." He made his way to the door and the rest of them packed up their things. The men donned their jackets and began talking about random news events.

"Seems like the universe has something against you making your presentation, Ms. Spencer." Natalia grinned.

Olivia knew Natalia was egging her on. She knew the woman was aware of how much her presence there had thrown her off. And she knew that Natalia was waiting for her to crack under the pressure.

"It doesn't bother me in the least," she said carefully calculating the tone of her voice and the look in her eyes. "In fact, I think I rather enjoy it this way. I always love how it feels when the tension finally releases after a long, slow build."

Olivia's words had caused their desired effect, and she could see the tangible proof on the young woman's face. They had sucker-punched the woman into silence. Natalia tried to speak, but nothing came out and could only stare as Olivia threw her confident smirk and proceeded out of the room.