The Escort's Secrets

Chapter 1. She, He & Business

Marylou Davis is the brilliant daughter of the family. She was always the stable well balanced sensible young woman. She always dreamed of building her own business in fashionable women garment. Her beautiful taste and high dedication made her young firm become one of the highest sales in the previous year depending only on online orders during COVID.
At the end of the day, people needed to still make shopping and her vision enabled her products to reach the needy customers during their quarantine periods.
Marylou or Lilly as everyone in her close circle called her, was the middle daughter between an older sister Mary-Anne who was so close to her and a younger brother Paul who was helping her with her brand.
Her father and mother Josef & Mary were beautiful parents. Their love and affection were gluing the family till her mother died in a year's time of cancer. Her father was never the same ever again, even with his three children, he was never the warm amazing fun person he always was.
Lilly felt that she needed to be the adult in the family when everyone broke to pieces at her mother's passing away.
By the time she was in her last year of college, she had to take over the family's affairs; the small and big ones, everyone totally depended on her.
Her older sister Mary-Anne decided to leave the country and accept her job's reallocation to the amazing Egyptian capital Cairo. She needed to find her way on her own and was doing great with her job as a senior manager in a multinational Pharma company.
Paul not finding his way suggested to assist Lilly with her company when he graduated three years after her, which she happily accepted.

During high school Lilly's best friend Hannah, who was a real sweetheart fell for the bad boy of their class Jackson and no matter how Lilly tried to warn her, Hannah was getting so involved with him while he sexually and psychologically controlled her making her give up all her dreams and even dropped college.
Hannah was so dear to Lilly, but she was so blinded with her love to Jackson who completely manipulated her and little by little sent every single person away from Hannah, specially Lilly.
Lilly was so broken over losing her childhood best friend that she skipped her schools' Prom and never allowed herself to fall to any of the men in her life whether good or bad! No one was allowed to be given the chance to destroy her dreams like Hannah and Jackson.
She didn't care that she was still a virgin or that she didn't have boyfriends or that she was called a cold heartless businesswoman.
On top, when her company and her work were blossoming in a very short time; she decided to remove all her photos from all social media and no one from the awful paparazzi and yellow papers ever found anything about her news not even one photo after the high school & collage yearbooks.
Lilly was the school nerd with the typical thick glasses and braces, no one would ever relate to her appearance now after her eyesight correction Lasik operation and her teeth having the perfect Hollywood smile. It's almost five very successful years since her Uni's graduation.
Men? Still no, big no. She was becoming anxious if she will ever meet the man who will force her to open up and let him in.

He
Andrew Johnson the Business tycoon who had a terrible pleasure in buying small to medium businesses and taking them to his own world standard brand.
His inheritance was a family huge business which was already going great and on a successful "carryover mode" with the least interference from his side. He had an amazing economic experience and skills that he would know if this company's business can gain multiple digits growth rate or it's a matter of time before it sinks deep.
His younger brother David was his right arm and they cared greatly for each other.
Andrew was known to be a fierce heartless businessman; he was feared by his staff as well as his partners. Once he's spoken his orders no one had the courage to object or change a word.
Their father Edward was steel-made, and his heartless personality drove their mother to leave the two sons when they were both only children under ten years old.
The three men grew harsher ever since.
Andrew and David must have had hundreds of women in their lives. The longest would be for couple of weeks.
For them, specially Andrew, no woman deserved the time of thinking about her. They are all deceitful materialistic creatures, he believed.
David's personality was softer, and he was much more amicable than Andrew. He believed and wished that one day he will find the woman who will steal his heart and was dreaming of having at least two beautiful children even though he was badly manipulated by his first wife who deceived him in every possible way.
He never shared his thoughts with his father or even brother who didn't believe in any of that. Andrew have once told him that if he had to marry, he will pick a woman who's genetically good to have healthy children, but he will not commit to her! They both laughed at the idea but even when Andrew turned thirty-two; this woman was not yet found.
Andrew had little faith that he would find a woman who's good enough to be the mother of his children and who'd never leave them or him like his own mother. In reality, he never forgave his mother or understood her reasons.

Business
Lilly's business was booming, and she and her brother were working so hard to make sure all deliveries were done on time. She was sleeping only four hours a day to ensure that all logistics and supplies needed were arranged for.
On that evening she was still working late in the living room when her brother Paul woke up for a glass of water
Paul: Hey Lilly; you're still working?
Lilly: Yeah, seems we have a cash flow issue that no one brought to my attention guys! It's frustrating that the Finance Manager made huge down payments without telling me!
Paul looked so puzzled: What, when? He surely didn't?!
Lilly was still looking at the sheets in disbelief that her Finance Manager made these huge decisions away from her. Even Paul didn't know.
Lilly: The worst part is that we need at least three months to retrieve these amounts which can easily expose me in the market. I'm furious. How could he? I'm positive; I only gave him the authority to pay our suppliers a small portion in advance to ensure that our supply chain would go uninterrupted. He used almost all available cash to pay for the biggest few suppliers only! My head will explode
Paul: But why would he do something like that? And worse, why didn't he consult with you or even me before spending the available cash in this manner?
Lilly: Jesus! If it wasn't 2.30 in the morning, I would have called him to the office now!

What Lilly and Paul didn't know is that Andrew's attention was brought to check Lilly's company after the huge successes she made out of nothing in five years! Immediately Andrew ordered his brother David to reach to any of her senior staff and buys him off to follow Andrew's plan to trap the company in a way that she would have to accept his proposal to buy her off.
Lilly's Finance Manager unfortunately was bought, and he executed Andrew's plan in the most unexpected manner with great speed.
Andrew was happy to receive the confirmation from the Finance Manager that they are now in a critical position and she will have to sell, or the company could be bankrupted for lack of resources.
Andrew was so excited with this small company, after all this was his most exciting game. He even told David that he might think of keeping this Marylou as the CEO if he was convinced that he can guarantee her loyalty to him.

Lilly couldn't close her eyes for a second that evening. Her head was banging with all possibilities including if she should apply for a loan. But she hated bank loans. She didn't even use that option at the very beginning of starting her business.

In the morning, and upon meeting her Finance Manager he gave her all stupid excuses in an attempt to justify his actions and that she should actually thank him for ensuring that her major suppliers were able to guarantee their shipments and she should stop promoting the rest of the products.
Lilly was listening very carefully while trying to find the real reasons and could swear that there's a hidden agenda behind her Finance Manager's unjustified actions. She was dying to fire him, but she believed in keeping her enemies nearby!
Her doubts were confirmed two days later when her Finance Manager came with the offer of the Business Tycoon Andrew Johnson who's interested to buy off the company. Lilly was so shocked that he was so stupid and immediately exposed himself.
Paul was furious when his sister who's always so self-contained was still able to reply her Finance Manager very calmly that she wasn't selling but can think of a partnership with an equal percentage.
When she dismissed him from her office, Paul burst out: That son of a xxxxx .
Lilly snapped: Don't. You know how I feel about swearing! It's not decent and I hate it!
Paul looked angry at her: even now Lilly!!?
Lilly: Specially now! I want to stay focused, and I don't care if I was the only one on the planet who doesn't swear! And hates it!
Paul tried to imitate his sister's contained anger: Can you really accept that the Johnsons buy some of your shares?
Lilly: I hate it! I already have 5% of our shares in the stock market and I need to ensure that they will not interfere in management
Paul: He's a heartless businessman. I've never heard he left the management out of his hands!
Lilly: I didn't want to tell you Paul, but the bank initially refused my request for loan due to COVID economic stress!
Paul looked so worried when his sister read his eyes and needed to comfort him despite her own broken heart over her company's future. This heartless Andrew Johnson cannot buy her life's work and dream. He cannot buy her past five years of dedication and hardworking!
She smiled at Paul calmly: I need to know everything about this man Paul. I have to study him, and I want to understand his reasons of wanting to buy my company.

In less than two days, Lilly had a full file about the famous family, she studied every piece of info about him and checked his photos with the unbelievable number of girlfriends, Andrew was doing exactly that the same thing; reading every detail about Marylou and was amazed at what dark secrets she was hiding including her total disappearance from all social media and was frustrated that he couldn't find any photos for her, no news of her personal relationships, very little about her family. He wanted to ask her Finance Manager and other sources to find photos and news of her, but he got so taken by his brother's car accident that night.
Thank Goodness, David was fine. Only his car was badly damaged.