33. Princeton Interference
Twenty minutes later Roth Cromwell sailed through the front door of CromCorp, though he was absent of his usual security detail that dogged his every movement. The man had become quite legendary for the legion of men that constantly surrounded him at every turn, never seeming to be without them. So it came as a huge shock to his employees when they saw the man stomp his way through the building on his own, save for his female companion.
Upon spotting the woman who had to practically run in order to keep in time with the man's footsteps, it dawned on them his reasons for being alone. This had to be her, the mysterious new woman in his life, his wife. All of the employees had heard rumors about the impromptu wedding of their bosses at the bidding of his grandmother, but none thought it was true. It'd only been a few days ago when Aaron Baynes, the head of the legal department had made an announcement of his unofficial wedding.
The man had proceeded to inform them that it was a marriage he intended to keep under wraps and the one responsible for revealing it would not be happy. In layman's terms, if any of CromCorps employees dared to utter a word of his secret marriage to anyone, then they would be out on their asses. If not worse. It was well known in the business world that Roth Cromwell wasn't a person to be messed with, those that betrayed him lived a life of ruin and chaos. No one in the company was stupid enough to believe that they would be the exception to the rule, by betraying him they would be homeless, jobless, penniless. He'd take everything and show no remorse.
Pleased when everyone immediately dropped their heads at his approach, pretending to be busy at whatever task at hand, knowing his secrets would be safe. None of his employees would ever dare utter a word to anyone about the truth that he concealed, least of all to the woman he'd married. Good.
On the fifteenth floor of the building, he went straight to the conference room, to find Aaron anxiously pacing the floor, waiting for him to show up. “Thank goodness you're here,” he started, then froze. “You brought your....”
Noah motioned to the girl next to him, “Aaron I would like to introduce you to Paige, my wife. Paige this annoying waste of space is Aaron, a member of our legal department, but also happens to be my best friend. Most times anyways.”
Paige extended her hand. “It's a pleasure to meet you.”
He brought her hand to his lips to kiss. “It’s a pleasure, Paige.”
Watching as his best friend planted a kiss on her hand, which was meant to be respectful, but it put a lump in his throat and a sour taste in his mouth. He growled. Instantly dropping the woman's hand at the lethal growl rumbling in the chest of the man, Aaron was careful to take a few steps back from her. The man was quite territorial, but then he knew how possessive he could be.
Hooking an arm around her waist as he guided her to the corner of the room, that was as much to get her comfortable as to get her away from Aaron. The old rascal was no doubt sizing up his opponent, to see if he had a chance of whisking her away. Roth's gaze shot in the direction of the man as the thought entered his mind, narrowed eyes hardened to a whole new degree. I just dare you, he thought, she's mine.
Aaron dropped his gaze, message received.
“Why don't you sit down on the couch,” Roth directed her to the furniture on the far side of the room. “There is a television you’re more than welcome to watch. I'll have breakfast brought to you.”
Paige gave him another one of those dazzling smiles, “Thank you, Noah.”
Sailing across the floor only when he was confident she was comfortable, pressing the intercom he ordered to have two servings of breakfast delivered from Emerald Gardens. “Yes, sir.”
Directing his gaze towards the man only once he'd managed to accomplish his goal, Roth sat at the head of the table. Leaning back in his chair, he stared the man down. “Do you mind telling me what the hell is going on now?”
Guessing that his would-be boss had chosen to go this route this morning, Aaron sat down t the table next to him to explain the situation. “It's Princeton, Darren Princeton to be exact.”
“What about him?” he growled in torment irritably at the mention of the man's name, who had become a bitter business rival of his over the last ten years. Actually, their bitter rivalry had been going on longer than that. Much like had been the case with Roth, Darren Princeton had been molded to become the next CEO of Princeton from the moment of birth. Of course, Princeton and CromCorp ran in the same business, that caused them to constantly be pitted against one another, which would automatically make them enemies. Though truth be told--as few did--their rivalry had started long before either of them had stepped in to become CEO of their families' corporations.
In his early twenties, Darren had been completely in love with a socialite named Ericka Wilson, though she'd loved Darren too she'd loved Roth's money more. When the girl had suddenly turned up pregnant Darren knowing immediately the baby didn't belong to him, she had convinced him that Roth had taken advantage of her. Barely at the age of seventeen at the time none of his protests had convinced him otherwise, Darren truly believing the teenager impregnated the girl. The girl had even gone so far as to inform her parents that Roth had slept with her at a party and now that she was pregnant he refused to take responsibility.
The Wilsons had angrily gone straight to his grandmother's house demanding that the boy did right by his daughter after he had defiled her. Of course, his family had immediately rejected the mere thought of the possibility of what they were being told, knowing what the girl was really about. It was at that moment he was given his first life lesson, people would stoop to any depths of depravity and deceit in order to rise above their own status. Even accusing him of a child that wasn't his. It was also in that moment Roth had rejected the thought of all females in his life, building a security detail that would ensure that never happened.
Aaron interrupted to his musings of the past, “Mr. Princeton claims that one of their subsidiary companies owns the leasing rights to the land Hillcrest Hotel is to be on, requiring them to gain permission of the leaser to build.”
“Is it true?”
He flipped through the mountain of paperwork that was laid out in front of him, “I haven't had much time to process everything, but Princeton does have an old land lease that his father purchased thirty years ago. So it’s possible.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose, “Show it to me.”
Picking up the paperwork that Aaron slid across the table to him at his request which was a copy of the original, Roth inspected the paperwork. Sure enough, the paperwork in hand proved that Princeton did have leasing rights to the land meant to be used for the hotel, that had been purchased by his father. “How could they have missed this?”
The man leaned back in his seat in a thoughtful pose, “Your family has the deed to the land, so no one took the time to look into leasing rights.”
Before he could respond a knock came at the door disturbing their conversation, Aaron opened it to see that it was Emerald Gardens delivery. Leaping to his feet at the knowledge that the food had finally arrived, giving the man a sizeable tip taking the food he moved to the other side of the room. Laying the separate containers out on the table to be seen by her, grinning as her eyes lip up in delight, Roth lowered down on the couch opposite of her. He motioned to a chair, “I didn't get to have breakfast, so you will simply have to work while I eat. Could this halt the project?”
“Yes,” Aaron admitted after a thoughtful silence, taking his lead from the man and sat down in the chair that had been indicated. “As the leasing holder, Soren Enterprises will need him to sign off his approval.”
“He won't,” Roth volunteered for him. “He has a deep hatred for this company and wouldn't dare allow us to get ahead on this project if he can somehow stop it.”
Arron groaned in frustration. “Are you sure about that? The Princeton's are businessmen, as the leaseholder this could bring in a sizeable investment for allowing this to take place.”
Roth burst out laughing, “Darren won't care, he will relish the idea of sticking it to us, even it means losing out on a sizeable fortune in the process.”
Unable to keep herself from overhearing the conversation the two of them were having, she saw the reason why Noah had rushed into the office. It seemed that another business was withholding the ability from a job from being followed through, that would no doubt look bad on them with the boss. “What about the shareholders?” she blurted.
Aaron snickered, “I know that's normally how business runs, but this is a piece of land, there aren't any shareholders to consider.”
She frowned, confused. “Who owns the mineral rights then?”
“You have this wrong,” his friend started to say.
Roth frowned at his wife, growing curious about her line of thinking, “What makes you there there are mineral rights?”
Wanting to prove she wasn't the complete retard his co-worker clearly thought she was, she delved through the paperwork, Paige fished out a document she had seen. She presented it to them. “This is an old title to a coal mine.”
“There's nothing about a working mine.”
She bobbed her head. “Early on people purchased titles to these mines, but the costs of opening it against the profit, a lot of them were left untouched. This paper...” She brought up an old inspection. “...states this mine can produce coal, zinc and silver.”
Snatching up the paperwork that she had managed to find hidden in the file, Aaron grinned mischievously at the proof. “Meaning that the land owns mineral rights. Gain majority of these rights, then the mine belongs to you.”
Roth raked fingers hands, “But will that trump a lease right?”
“I don't know,” he mused.
Paige decided to jump into the conversation. “Don't take my word for it, but possibly. My mom used to work for Burmington Electronics. A few years ago they had wanted to open up a new warehouse, but the building sight had old mineral rights. Granted they had the leasing rights to the land, they had to find a new location as the shareholder of the mineral rights outweighed them.”
It was worth looking into it.
“See what you can find out,” Roth promptly informed him. “Call me when you do.”
Aaron frowned as he saw him rising to his feet. “Where are you going?”
“Not here,” was all he said.
Discarding all the empty containers that had been eaten, with Aaron instructing he could eat the rest, Noah helped Paige to her feet and the two of them walked out of the conference room.