Chapter Twelve

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The next morning, Gwen made breakfast for Robert and brought it to him in bed.

"Rise and shine sleeping beauty." she put the breakfast on the bedside cabinet and went to open the curtains. The light that was coming from the opened curtains caused Robert to wake up.

"What's going on?" He mumbled as he was waking.

"Don't give me weird looks, it's just breakfast. Now eat, I have to leave and go to work. I'll see you when I knock off okay?"

Robert took a bite out of a slice of toasted bread as he looked at Gwen. His eyes were following her and he just sat there admiring her.

"Speaking of work, when are you going back to the office?"

"I don't know, with everything that's going on I don't want to show my face there besides Zoey has it under control."

"Who's Zoey?"

"She's Lemy's friend."

"What, you put Lemy's friend as CEO?! Are you crazy?" Gwen was so astonished by all of this.

"Not exactly, I didn't put her as CEO she's my personal assistant and trust me she has everything under control. Zoey reports each and everything to me so if my company was collapsing trust me I'd know."

"Wow this is crazy! It's like you don't care about your company at all. You know what, I'm going to pretend you did not just say that. Have you even tried showing your face there? Maybe you should. I'm going to take a shower."

"Should I join you!!?" Robert shouted as she was leaving the room.

He thought about what Gwen said and considered it. After she had left he went to prepare for work but he was not going to be there for the whole day. He just wanted to go and see what has been going on so he wore a black shirt and black jeans with a leather jacket and unbuttoned it on the wrists.

When Robert arrived at the office everyone was looking at him and were all shocked as if they just saw a ghost. Everyone had been relaxed at work since they had no boss present and when Robert showed up they panicked, went up and down and running to their seats like a bunch of high school kids. He got in an elevator going to his office and when he arrived Zoey was already there. She was working very hard to keep the company intact but she was so surprised to see Robert there after a month of not showing up at work.

"Robert, hey." she went straight to him.

"He took off his sunglasses and said "hey, uh I thought I should come to check if everything's okay. How are you holding up?"

"Wow I really did not expect to see you here but I've been okay I really work good under pressure, what about you?"

"I'm hanging in there but I am not ready to come back to work anytime soon. Thank you though, for running my company for me."

"Huh?" Zoey was as confused as to why he just said that.

"Yes, you have been presenting me on board meetings so basically you are running this company."

"Wow now that you put it like that, yeah. No pressure though, please."

"I thought you can handle pressure." after Robert said that they both laughed and he sat on the desk and said "You haven't heard anything from her?"

"No, crazy right? She's  just out there and we don't even have an idea what's happening to her. You know I tried calling her but she changed her number, she's acting like someone who doesn't want to be found."

Robert faced down and said "You know she told me she doesn't love me? Yeah, that's why I've been behaving like this. What did she say to you guys exactly?"

Zoey went to sit next to Robert, she was feeling sorry for him and everything was making sense now, it explained why he has been acting incautious. "I'm sorry I didn't know she said that to you, well she told us that she's going to look for her family and might or might not come back and I was amazed too but it's her decision and I respect it I just hope she's okay wherever she is."

"Well, she's the one that left us. Whatever she deals with it's on her." Robert was over Lemy hurting him, he did not feel sorry for her anymore so he stood up to leave but before he could he said "Thank you for keeping my company together, I owe you one."

     ###

Weeks passed and Robert was still spending time with Gwen, she would come to his mansion, cook for him and make sure that he's okay. They would sometimes go out for dinner, movies, and art museums and travel too. Gwen was the first woman spotted with Robert after he had his meltdown and people noticed some changes in him. He was cleaner, respectful and more decent. People even suspected that they were together and they were really not but Gwen wanted them to be because she has been liking Robert for years now.

Meanwhile Robert was in his study area when Gwen looked for him. She was shouting his name but couldn't find Robert so he texted him to come to the living room. When he did, Gwen looked like she just saw a ghost.

"What's going on with you?"

"Robert, do you remember Paul Smith?"

"Uh the CEO of Telecomm Corp, yeah, what about him?"

"He wants to collaborate with your company on his upcoming project?"

"Are you serious?! Wait, how do you know that?" Paul Smith has always been Robert's role model, he was richer and smarter than him but always respected Robert so working with him would make a lot of money for Stark Corporations.

"I was in a board meeting with him and when it ended I overhead him talking to some of the board members and he mentioned wanting to work with your company, do you know how big this is?!"

"Yes it's big but all of this is boring to me."

Gwen was confused because she thought this was going to be a big issue to Robert, "what do you mean?"

"I mean its great news don't get me wrong but it's boring and I'm tired of it, I have a thousand more businesses to deal with and I don't want to feel like this company is the center of it all. I hate dealing with this, you do it. Yeah exactly, run my company for me."

"What?!" Gwen was surprised, she thought that she was hearing things.

"Yeah, run my company for me. Be an acting CEO until I feel like I'm ready to go back there."

"Are you serious?" Gwen sat down when she heard this, she was overwhelmed.

"I've never been this serious in my life, I'll draft a contract for you for how long I want you to run the company first thing tomorrow morning. You're a business woman so I trust you to do this. You go deal with Mr. Smith and everything plus you already have a personal assistant. Are you up for it, you think you can handle it? You know that you still have your own business to take care of so do you want to take this opportunity?"

"Wow, yes of course, I have a shareholder he'll handle some of the things to keep the weight off my shoulder. Thank you so much! Don't worry Mr. Stark I won't disappoint you." Gwen and Robert celebrated with a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne and he laughed at Gwen for calling him by his last name.

The next morning, as promised, Robert drafted a contract for Gwen, she then signed it and was ready for her first day at Stark Corporations.

***

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