"No, thank you." Jonathon replied, looking at the clock on the wall and frowning that it was only ten in the morning.
The older man poured himself a shot of the amber liquid and took a sip before turning around to look at his son again. "You have this character flaw, I'm afraid," he said thoughtfully, looking into the alcohol swirling in his glass before he began walking back to his desk.
"What was that?" Jonathon blinked in surprise, watching his father walk back to the large leather seat behind the desk.
His father looked up at him as he sat down. "Well, to be honest, you have several flaws, but two in particular that are hindering your perspective at the moment."
Jonathon's eyes narrowed slightly. "What might those be?" he asked in a droll tone as he crossed his legs.
He took a sip of his drink and set the glass down on the table. "Well, to begin with, you're impatient. More importantly, you are looking at what is on the surface of this company, like you have done with so many other things in your life; friends, school, women, and unfortunately, business.
You only glance at what's on the outside and you rarely take a look at what's on the inside. You miss the important things that are just beneath the surface and in doing that, you miss out on a better outcome than you can imagine."
The younger man sighed and ran his hand over his forehead. He closed his eyes for a moment and pressed his lips together before drawing in a deep breath and then looking at his father again.
"Alright, what have I missed? " he asked in a short tone. His father looked at him pointedly.
"You miss a great many things a great deal of the time, but this time, you've managed to overlook the fact that this particular company has just hired Sergei Baxter as their Director of Innovation. I can't even think of another company who has a position as a Director of Innovation, to begin with." Phillip watched his son expectantly.
Jonathon shrugged. "So? What is it about position that should catch my attention?"
His father closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head before looking back at him and placed his hands on the desk while he leaned forward toward his son. "It's a different business model, to begin with, which means that this isn't your standard tech company. They are making headway in directions that other companies aren't yet considering. More than that, however, is the fact that Sergei is heading that particular department."
Jonathon shook his head while looking expectantly at his father. "Why does that matter?"
Phillip sighed and watched his son before speaking. "That matters because Sergei is the inventor of the email system that is tied into the most popular search engine on the Internet in the world today. He is innovation incarnate. I can't believe they got him, but they did, and he's contracted with them for the next five years. He's going to take this company through the roof, and they want us on board with them in a controlling capacity."
The old man leaned forward even further. "This is how people become billionaires in less than a decade." He jammed his fingertip down on the papers in front of him as his eyes stayed locked on Jonathon. "If you knew just a little more, if you dug a little deeper, if you looked past the obvious on the outside, you would see that this innocuous looking little company is going to be one of the biggest investment opportunities of your entire life."
Jonathon leaned forward, his eyes just as focused on his father's as his father's were on his. "We're already billionaires." He said simply.
Phillip eyes narrowed into slits. "Any business-savvy mind would never say something like that. We are buying this company, and that's the final word on it." He leaned back and folded his fingers into a pyramid before his chin.
"I wanted you to see the possible opportunities of this company before I did anything with it. I wanted to know how you would look at it, how you would react, and what you would do with it, if the decision were in your hands.
I wanted to know how deeply you would look and what you would value. You've shown me, and I must say, I'm disappointed in what you've given me. It's not what I had hoped to see." He sighed and reached his arm out to the phone on his desk.
Pressing a button, Phillip spoke in a quiet tone. "Margaret, could you please come in?" he asked politely.
"Right away, Sir," came a woman's voice over the speaker. A moment later, the door of the office opened, and neither man looked away from each other or up at her at first, until she reached Phillip's desk.
"Yes, Sir?" she asked helpfully as she closed her fingers in front of her. They both looked up at her then. She was older; in her fifties, slightly rounded and mostly conservative. Her gray brown hair was pulled up into a bun at the back of her head, her dress hung down below her knees, and her shoes were sensible, at best.
"I'll need copies of this file made for all of the board members for tomorrow's meeting, please." He gave her a pleasant smile as he closed the file in front of him and handed it to her.
She nodded and just as she was about to turn away, Jonathon stopped her. "Margaret, make me another copy, please and put all of these on a flash drive for me, then run it over to my office and leave it on my desk with a label on it."
"Certainly." Margaret didn't hesitate, and she took the file from him and then walked out, closing the door softly behind her.
Phillip frowned at Jonathon. "Why don't you have your secretary do that? Margaret is busy taking care of things for me; she can't be running around doing work for you as well."
Jonathon turned to look at his father with a sigh. "I don't happen to have an administrative assistant at the moment." He knew that the subject of this conversation was going to go in a sour direction.
Phillip frowned and leveled his gaze at his son. "Why not? Have you lost another one?"
Jonathon pursed his lips. "She isn't lost. She quit."
His father leaned forward. "Why did she quit, Jonathon?"
Following a loud and deep sigh, Jonathon answered him but avoided his piercing eyes. "She wanted more from me than I am interested in."
Phillip's face grew pink and his dark brow furrowed over his sharp green eyes. "What are you doing screwing around with another secretary? You can't do that!"
Jonathon sat up rigidly and lifted his chin in defiance. "Look, it just happened, okay? She came onto me and I took her up on what she wanted, that was it! She wanted to be more involved and I said no, so she left!"
His father planted his palms down firmly on the desk, "We can't afford for you to keep doing that! You have been through secretary after secretary, and every time you get a new one, you wind up bedding her and then we wind up getting sued! You have a horrible reputation in the business world here, and the rumors are spreading further than Manhattan!"
Jonathon sighed and rubbed his fingers against his forehead, his hands over his face as he rested his elbows on his knees. He knew that the conversation wouldn't go anywhere good.
Phillip continued, his cheeks going from pink to red. "I've lost thousands upon thousands of dollars to your numerous indiscretions, and I'm not about to continue doing it! The last one cost the company a fortune! You're in all the papers and online media all of the time as being a playboy with an attitude; the arrogant bull is what I think they've begun calling you!"
He pushed himself up out of his chair and lifted his glass to his lips, emptying it and then walking over to the bar for a refill.
"Have you no pride? Have you no shame or decency about you at all? No sense of propriety! You are going to inherit this business from me, and you cannot take control of it if you are in danger of losing it, especially to something as tawdry as an affair with a staff member! What are you thinking?" he raged on and Jonathon sighed and said nothing.
"Now you're endangering us again and you have no assistant. What are you doing about that?" his father demanded, returning to his desk.
Jonathon leaned back in his chair and looked at his father with slumped shoulders. "I'm actually having a few new admin assistants interviewed tomorrow. We'll see where it goes from there."
His father glared hotly at him. "You'd better keep it all business, do you hear me? I absolutely forbid you under any circumstance to have any kind of relations other than business with anyone you hire! If you do it again I'm going to mandate that all of your administrative assistants be men! Is that clear? We've had terrible press over this and I'm not about to stand for it happening ever again!"
Jonathon nodded in silence and then answered his father, though his gaze did not reach his father's eyes. "I understand. I will not be engaging in any kind of romantic relations with any of my staff in the future."