Chapter 3

Eriantha

"Hey workaholic!"

I looked up from my desk and the aroma of my favorite brew of Americano welcomed me from the paper cup which was just now placed on my table. I smiled immediately, for there was no other way it could be someone else other than Viv. My best friend, Vivian Amber. 

We had been friends for the past four years only, but I don't know what my life was before Viv. From the day we met each other we had always been together. Together as in really together, through thick and thin. I looked at my gorgeous bestie. She was five feet eight inches, quite a contrast to my pitiful five'two". Her brown hair was long, naturally straight which hit her waistline, and she always had it sleeked at the back. A slim, oval shaped face, hazel eyes sat perfectly on both the sides of her small yet sharp nose, and her lips were slightly pouted and they had a strange upward curve, which made a smiling appearance. She claimed that this was a fake expression which her sick from the gut, but she had to master it from a very tender age and now it comes out automatically whenever she is around people.

I knew where that was coming from, the Ambers were one of the wealthiest business families, and she was brought up under hard training and extreme surveillance, which had conditioned her in a peculiar way. Vivian always hides her true self behind a mask,a perfect mask. 

I knew her parents disapprove of her association with me, because even if we are a family with a legacy in the perfume industry, there's not much that will come out of her friendship with me. I don't know how much she has been putting up to come and be with me every single day, slogging here for hours. Vivian would never speak about her family, and I never tried to pry across that little fence which she would put up every time the subject came up. We were good that way, maybe meeting up with me helps her feel less burdened. 

Extremely rich people have their own extremely complicated problems, and women mostly have to take a big slack of those fucking complications.

Everything in her life had been weighed and measured in terms of profit and loss by her family, and before a girl could even decide which candy to eat, or which story book to read during bed time, she was engaged at the age of ten to Leonel Karwitz, the heir to the Karwitz hotel industries, he was just seventeen then, he is not old, but the little that I have heard about him from Viv, he is a piece of shit .

The Karwitz were the wealthiest family in the city, they had their hands in every form of business, from food, to real estate, from apparels to cars you just have to name it and you will know a Karwitz is sitting on the top of the game.

Our industry, being the only exception, because the brand which has been monopolising the top spot for years is Cedine , owned by Mr Viktor Cedine. However, I won't be surprised if the Karwitz overpower them soon.

Ever since they stepped into the business three years back, the Karwitz have been the biggest rival brand challenging the mighty Cedines.

Vivian fired up her laptop in her cubicle, the one beside mine. I continued my thoughts to stray a little bit more, as to how I became friends with this angel.

'Well that's because we share a little secret... That's how it all started, but there's more to it now.'

She doesn't need to slog with me in this hellhole. But here she was having my back and saving us with all her business management skills.

It had been a week since our father's cremation. The officer in-charge warned us about loan sharks on the very day father had killed himself, because he considered 'quitting' as a better choice, and then leaving the troubles on my brother to deal with.

The first thing that had come to my mind after everything else was over, is if we still have our family business or has it gone to the sharks already.

Our company was small but we have been producing some of the most popular perfumes for the masses for generations now. In fact, we were the first company to have a production unit of our own, when my Great Great Grandfather Mr. Declan Reux started the company, and we used to produce the best scents in the market at that time. That glory however gleams in the past as his successors had failed to expand his dream, and my father Fredrik Reux was probably the worst of them all, he was greedy, haughty and a big time escapist.

So, at present the Reux Essences aren't exactly those high end brands, although we are respected in the industry for our history for being the oldest brand here, even if we didn't had new launches every year or every season like the top notch brands. However, we were a teenager's most prized possession on her first date. We know our target group and successfully hit the mark for a decent sale, with our most trusted scents getting sold off and getting out of stock right before the festival seasons. Or, should I say we used to, before our father fucked up everything.

Our family lived decently, we had a family home, a car; as children we were sent to good schools. We received gifts on Christmas and ate at restaurants, we even managed a vacation once a year. It all happened until our mother decided to leave.

But now looking at our capsizing boat I realised that he did all that because my father loved maintaining appearances.

 "We were a respectable family. We have a history in the industry. I am CEO of the Reux Perfumes." He would say things like that, but now looking at our accounts I finally understand he did it all at the cost of our family's assets, our company's assets. And when nothing remained he even took loan from the Loan sharks. We still have no idea how much is the sum of money that we have to pay. If at all we will be able to payback or if we have to die in the process.

Fredrik Reux, was selfish till his last breath, he never thought about us, not even Anders. I was never part of his concerns to begin with, but I feel a slight relief when I consider that at least he had sent me to a reputed school. Probably that label was needed as per his standards to marry me off. I never liked my school, because it was infested with kids of wealthy families who breathed money, and I was pseudo-rich, I pretended to be one of them, when I was not, but thankfully the only good thing about my father's choice of school was Vivian.

With father gone, as Anders would say it, while I would love to put it as, with father quitting, I knew I couldn't stay at home pretending to be the miss goody two shoes which I am not. While I had no interest in taking up the company, I wanted to save it all costs. I knew Anders didn't expect anything from me, but for the first time in life I wanted to step up for him, I wanted to be useful for my brother, and to let him know that it wasn't only his responsibility to shoulder all the burden, I am a Reux too, I can protect him as well, and we can lean on each other as we are family, and that's what a family is supposed to do during a tough battle.

It took some real efforts and loads of emotional drama to convince Anders. He was raised by my father after all, though that man couldn't succeed in turning my brother into even half of a trash like him, but some fundamental dents existed, and I can't expect that to go away overnight. My brother was unsure if he should "allow" me to come to the office as women in our family were never a part of any business. "That's a man's job" my father would say, though my brother was just concerned if it would be too much for me.

However, there's something in which his skepticism vanished, and that's because nobody in the family understood perfumes better than I did, and in this whole world only two people knew about my little secret, my brother and Vivian.