The Billionaire’s Over 40 Love

Chapter 12

There were hundreds of people lined up on the sidewalk outside of the new Elite Boutique store. The location was one block over from Cal’s office and Faydra had spent the past four weeks in and out of both her and his businesses. Cal’s company and Elite Boutique had signed the contract making Queen’s Media Group the sole designer of all things media related for Elite Boutique.

Queens had helped design an app for the store, had planned events, and used their expertise to place marketing campaigns strategically around the city. They’d done such an amazing job advertising for the new store that in the weeks before its opening the original store had seen almost a two-fold increase in revenue. Candace had been elated but stressed. Given that Faydra wasn’t around she’d had to hire two new employees to help stay on top of the high demand for products and in-store sales. But that in itself was enough to tell Faydra they’d made the right choice.

That morning, Queens had scheduled the Grand Opening for Elite Boutique South Atlanta. Flyers and online events were posted to advertise for the event. Even Queens staff was brought in to help with the influx of traffic to their online store—which was opening at the same time for those that couldn’t or didn’t want to travel to the store.

At 6:45am Cal saw Faydra peeking out the window that overlooked the street and had a great view of the line that was building rapidly outside of the store.

“You alright?” he asked. Her breathing was heavy and she continued to wring her hands in nervousness. “Hey, it’s going to be fine.”

“What if we run out of merchandise, like too soon. I wasn’t expecting two hundred people! And what if the online store crashed like Obama Care did, how horrifying I’m going to look so unprofessional.” She wasn’t talking directly to him, and he started to think she was more likely just airing out all of her concerns.

“First of all, my guys handled the online store—so just trust me that they’ll take care of it. They’re over there right now preparing for anything as we speak. And yeah, you’re going to run out of merchandise but we planned for that too. We’re only letting so many customers into the building at once so that we can make sure they have a good experience but also keep an eye on merchandise levels compared to the line outside. We can call it whenever we want and we have 20% off coupons for everyone that doesn’t make it into the store. Not to mention we wrote on all of the flyers and posts that this would be a limited time event, and whenever we ran out, we ran out. We thought about all that, remember?”

Faydra must remember because the two of them, as well as their teams, had spent hours thinking about everything that could go wrong and planning for it ahead of time. It had ended up being an amazing experience, working with her.

 After the gala, he’d quickly and promptly handled the Sophia situation. Her behavior in the name of Queens Media had been inappropriate and malicious, which was how he’d worded the request for a letter of resignation he handed her the Monday after the gala.

It hadn’t been easy for him to let her go, because of all the history that the two had both had with each other and with the company. But he knew for both himself and the company to grow, she couldn’t be a part of it. And with Sophia gone, Faydra had made herself at home in his life and within the walls of the company. He had let her have an intimate role in the planning of her own project which wasn’t typically necessary but made for a better final product and a much more enjoyable journey.

*****

Faydra had sold her grandmother’s house. And while Cal had mentioned the possibility of her moving in with him, she had politely declined for no reason other than that she wanted to experience their relationship from a safe and separate space until the right time. Her new apartment was only minutes away from his and she found herself still spending a lot of time at his place. She loved where their relationship was, it was in the perfect place and was moving at just the right speed. With Sophia gone and all the feelings out on the table, the two of them could truly be themselves. And as they got to know each other, it became that much easier to work together—turning the grand opening into the most amazing day and exactly what Faydra had imagined.

Sometimes she felt like he could read her mind, or sense what she would worry about before even she did. And though she was nervous about the opening, having Cal standing behind her and reminding her of all the work they’d put into making it the best day, she knew she’d be just fine.

After gathering herself for a moment and glancing at the clock, which read 6:52am, she turned around to face him.

“Cal, thank you. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this. Everything looks so great, and  I can already tell this turnout is amazing, and I won’t even know the online numbers for a while. I mean, what you’ve already done for the other store is more than enough. How can I ever thank you?”

He laughed. “You don’t have to, and that’s the best part of us being together. This is hardly anything compared to what you did for me at the Gala with Above Ground and everyone there.”

Above Ground had revolutionized Queens Media Group. After Cal had the chance to meet with Dwella, they’d signed an official contract and Cal had gotten straight to work building a group of his employees that he was confident would be able to build the best product for them. And in doing so, the Queens logo and phone number was plastered all around Atlanta on every Above Ground town car, every page on the app.

They’d received dozens of inquiries, mostly from small self-employed businesses that wanted to jumpstart their media presence. Cal quickly realized how much he loved working with these small companies. It was the perfect setup where a small store or company could contact them, and within days have a product in their hands. It was a quick turnaround but it also meant that lots of people were hearing about queens media. They began offering a small business package promising two-week output, and guaranteeing a certain percentage increase in traffic. It was Calvin’s dream and Faydra was proud of having played a big role in making it a reality.

“So, we’re indebted to each other forever?” Faydra asked jokingly.

“Not forever, right now we’re business partners and two people in love with each other. But truthfully, I think we lucked out. We found each other when we needed it the most. I needed someone to remind me why I was doing what I was doing, the importance of it. And you needed someone to get you out of your comfort zone and challenge you. But yes, we may always be indebted to each other for that reason. But I’m okay with that,” he smiled and kissed her.

“Me too,” she replied.