Tried for Love (TSATD)

Chapter 2

March 9th

Gabriel

  The music filled the air with no effort.. Extravagant sounds effortlessly rushed in and around every person in the room as the lively tempo managed to lift them, elevating their spirits and moving them to dance.. However, me, not so much.

  Publicity mattered for my company, and that was the only reason I attended cocktail and dinner parties, conferences, or any kind of gatherings. To keep fine relations with my partners meant to allow them in your private life. Celebrations were perfect for exactly that, to escape from business, to mingle with the rich and to find more possible partners to pursue.

  Still, I could never understand for what reasons one would be interested in their business-partner's private life, other than to take advantages before signing contracts.. Many put large effort to take my attention and to stand out from others that offered me partnership..

  But my job was far more extended than simply selling and buying. The lands I bought had to be located on a traffic place, and not many could offer that. I could easily say that the magnitude had less value than the localization of the old buildings I bought..

  However, such gatherings seemed like the perfect opportunity for many sellers to try and get under my skin, through fake interest trying to get to the real point, always aiming towards making an offer that they thought the Valentine empire would accept.

  I had my ways on how to avoid such conversations, especially on a cocktail party when everything else deserved far more attention than some old workaholic that was only using the opportunity.

  Paul Rowe however, was my long-term partner that I had worked with for some time now. He was my strongest connection with Europe I had, and being in Paris for the third month, we had made many contracts for the year together.. Winter was the time for the already accepted sellers to sign the contracts so that the actual action could start when summer does.

  Every year, either in February or March, there were celebrations organized by the greater owners and influencers from all around the world, and this time, Paul Rowe himself was one of them. It would be an understatement to say that he was a respected man, because he was far more than that.. It was almost ridiculous how quickly he turned his company into an empire.

  He had considered me a trust-worthy family friend for a few years now, and still managed to keep every part of his private life, his past, a mystery that was hard to solve or understand. He was very much private about his ways, his family and relations with other companies, especially from the media.

  And so was I. But I had reasons. I had a dark past that still haunted me every second of every damned day.. Some choices I had made had definitely changed me from my very core, created a darker side of myself that I never thought would exist.. But also, those exact choices had gotten me where I was.

  My wrongs and sins were for myself only, and I did accept them. I regretted them. That was why the work I focused on kept me sane, and gave me enough forget to past the day..

  Women were a very good distraction as well. I did respect the power of a woman's body, the way they made puzzles out of simple pictures, thinking perhaps way too complicatedly for a man to fully understand. I found it quite fascinating.

  But that interest seemed to come and go from a night to a night. Sometimes I spent even a few weeks with the same woman, but that was as far into commitment I could go, mostly because the things my job required could not exactly be explained to those I was with.. And also because I easily lost that interest.

  I was very much tired of discussing business that night. My eyes constantly roamed around the room and met many, many fascinated gazes, flattering lashes and grins that I had became immune to.. Some of those women were there with their boyfriends, fiancés, some even husbands..