“You know? I actually don’t know much about you personally, just that you’re this big boss who is generally nice until you get scary and call people people viciously. Since I’ll be gone for a while, do you mind if I ask you some personal questions?” Valentina asked while arranging her plate the way she wanted it.

As she took a big bite of pasta, she looked at him expectantly.

“That pretty much sums it up, but ask away. I’ll answer almost anything.” Kaiser responded as he elegantly ate the pasta. “This is delicious, by the way. Good job.”

“Thank you. You helped as well. Uhm, let’s start. I’ve met your brother and your…cousin Jonathan. Any other family members?”

“Well, both my parents are alive and healthy, and I have lots of extended family. In my immediate family, apart from Roman and I…I also have an elder sister who you haven’t met before.”

“What? I thought you were the eldest.” Valentina looked at him in shock, completely missing his hesitant expression. From the way he acted, he seemed as if he had been bossing people around since birth.

“Nope. My sister and I are almost five years apart, and Roman and I are a bit over a year apart. I’m the middle child. You couldn’t tell?”

“Uhhh no, not at all. I don’t really follow the business world or news about you or your family, but I don’t think I’ve heard of your sister.”

“You wouldn’t. She left the country and renounced her position as head of the family to live a…quieter life, which is why I’m the boss now. Otherwise, with my personality when I was younger, there’s no way I would have been the first choice.” Kaiser chuckled darkly at the thought of his colorful youth that had given his parents premature gray hairs.

“You were a bad kid? I guess Alexandria did say you were rebellious.”

“I was completely horrendous. Just an all-around truly bad child. I think my parents were honestly relieved when I told them I would go join the military. Finally, somebody else could try to control me. Though I went in for a different reason than they think.”

Hearing his words, Valentina could only blink. This was completely unexpected news. She couldn’t reconcile the image of the well-put-together man before her with a rebellious child. Her brain could simply not compute it.

“What, you don’t believe me? You can ask Roman. He was a couple of years behind me in school, so he saw the carnage I left behind. Don’t get me wrong, my grades were good. I graduated 2 years early, was at the top of my class, and did sports and all the extracurriculars, but I was constantly in trouble with teachers and other adults for playing around, skipping class, smoking, getting into fights, etc. I’m pretty sure I beat up most of the guys at my private school at some point. My parents had to donate so much money to keep me from being expelled that it’s not even funny, haha.”

As Kaiser laughed openly about it, Valentina took a sip of her drink before asking, “…can I ask why? I really didn’t expect that from you.”

“I was a rebellious little shit.” He replied bluntly, “I don’t have a personality that tolerates arrogance towards me or my people, and rich kids are mean. They used to pick on Roman cause he was smaller and weird and tried to mess with me because my sister was the heir, even though she was a girl. I’ve always been bigger than most kids, so each time they picked on him, messed with me, or talked shit about my sister, I happily sent the person to the hospital.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Well, that’s not so bad. You were defending your family.”

“Nah. You’ve seen my personality and my bad mouth. I tend to speak my mind regardless of who I’m talking to, and maybe it’s my face, but guys used to pick fights with me constantly and make snide comments, so I just beat them up. I also beat people up if they pissed me off. Beat them up if they talked to me arrogantly. Beat them up when they sent their elder siblings after me. Haha, I was a total tyrant in school. The teachers were so relieved when I graduated. They all cried tears of joy as I walked across the stage and each of them bought me a bouquet of flowers to celebrate and threw a party. Good times, really.”

Valentina: “……”

Seeing as he was happily reminiscing about his school days, she really didn’t know what to say.

“Ah, don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t just beating people willy-nilly. A lot of the other stuff was just me trying to figure out my place in life. An early existential crisis, if you will. I know I grew up privileged, but I felt like nothing I did mattered. Even if I skipped class, my grades were still good. I was still strong, fast, and dominated even if I smoked or didn’t attend training. People sucked up to me even if I behaved badly. Regardless of what I did, it just felt like nothing mattered. Everything was predetermined, and I was just an extra cog in the whole system.

The way my parents wanted me to be was to fit in within the bounds of their ideals. Choosing my wife, my career, even the school I went to, and what I studied it all had to fit within their boundaries. I hated it and struggled to find a way to figure out my purpose without shorting myself of the natural advantages I was born with. And the only one who really understood that was my sister.”

“… what did your sister have to say about it?”

“Who do you think I learned my bad behavior and rebelliousness from? My sister and I have the same personality, and I dare say hers is worse. She used to get into more fights than me and do worse things before she graduated. She just got away with it more because she was a pretty girl and hid it better. I simply didn’t care to do so. Between me, her, and Lia, we spent our high school days terrorizing those around us.”

“Uhm, wow. That is….surprising.” Valentina could only blink at the barrage of information.

“Don’t worry, I’ve had some growth in my personality and have become slightly more tolerant. One thing I learned in the military is that nothing fucking matters unless you have power. And to gain the freedom and ability to make your own decisions, you need lots of it. So I joined the military, did a four-year bid, and came out when I needed to. And during that process, I molded my personality into a more constructive one.

Rather than physically beating people up, I’ve learned the joys of messing people up financially. Lawsuits are fun, tanking people’s companies is more fun, and these days, it’s only the old geezers who try to mess with me because of some outdated seniority bias. As long as people don’t mess with me and mine, I generally don’t care. Apparently, I’m a tyrant at work, though, but I pay well, and as long as people do their work, they will rarely see me truly angry.”

Taking a moment to digest all the information he had dumped on her, Valentina sipped her drink in silence before speaking. Although it was kind of surprising hearing Kaiser’s back story, it didn’t really affect her one way or the other. If anything, it was nice to see that he hadn’t grown up perfect and untouched by the world the way she expected him to be.

“Interesting…I really thought you had this cold, calm CEO thing going on. Very cool. Very macho. And an ice block. Who knew you were a tyrant when you were younger?”

“Hmmm, I can see why people think that. I’ve been pretty focused on work since I took over, and I’m not super friendly like Roman. I don’t go out a lot and prefer private things to being known in public. I got all that out of my system pretty early on. Not the most exciting thing, I know. Disappointed?”

“Nah, I think it’s kind of cute in a kind of way. Look at you being a bad boy. I bet you were pretty popular with the girls.”

“Reformed bad boy. And yes, I was very popular with ladies. Jealous?” Kaiser gave her a sly smile.

“Why would I be jealous? I’m very pretty, smart, and talented. Men are falling all over me.” She gave him a confident smile as she held up her glass and took a sip

“I know I am. Completely smitten and falling deeper every day.”

At his cheesy words, she couldn’t help but roll her eyes even as she blushed. Not responding, she quickly swallowed the last of her drink.

“Valentina.”

“Hmmm?”

Hearing his suddenly serious tone, she gave him her full attention.

“I’m going to miss you while you’re gone.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I like having you around.”

“I’ve actually enjoyed my stay here as well. It’s been… peaceful and, honestly, the first time in my life I’ve had somebody to talk to and to care of me. It’s been a really nice change of pace.”

“Yeah? Good. I know you have plans after filming, especially since our contract will be done by then, but I want you to come back here when you’re done. And I want you to make a decision about us.”

“What do you mean?” she pretended not to know what he was talking about, and Kaiser gave her a droll glance before continuing.

“This…thing between us. I want it to continue, and I don’t want your mind to change or be swayed while you’re gone. I realize that you’re very popular now and are going to be even more popular in the future, but I don’t like having people touching my things.”

Staring at his serious expression, Valentina gave him one of her own.

“One, I’m not your thing, but let’s have an adult discussion about it. You can start by refilling my cup with something sweet, please.” She got up and walked behind him, trailing her fingers along his shoulders.

“Yes, ma’am,” with a chuckle, he snagged her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm, “Your wish is my command.”