Sentenced to Marriage by MadlainQ

Finding the new board

The whole next week turned out to be completely hectic. The scene with the reporters who had enthusiastically greeted us at the entrance was like an introduction to everything that happened later. Three assistants were specially appointed only to answer the calls from the reporters asking for an interview or a comment Aren and I agreed to do two interviews, and both of them were scheduled for the week to come, but that, of course, didn't stop the rest of the press from bothering us each time we decided to walk out on the street.

The attention that our relationship gathered had a huge positive impact on the company's value, completely overshadowing the fact that Lan Diamond Corporation had gotten rid of three major executives in one day. Nonetheless, everyone knew that the company had dodged the bullet, and that kind of luck would never come twice. To avoid a similar situation happening in the future, the recruitment of the new executives was preceded by extremely careful, and not entirely legal research. I let Alan and Norton have fun gathering all sorts of information on our candidates. That allowed us to cut two perverts and one drug addict from our head hunter's list before any interviews began.

Eventually, the group of candidates was narrowed to two, competing for the same position in the company. They all came for the interview from different corners of the world, looking forward to working for Aren Lan. It was clear that it was my husband who had to make the final decision, and yet, he insisted that I be present at all interviews. I couldn't understand why it was so important to him, but I agreed. Finally, three people were talking with the candidates: Aren, Chris, and I.

"Does my wife's presence bother you, Mr. Thomson?" Aren asked the first candidate for the Chief Operating Officer, who constantly avoided my gaze. "Not at all," he said with a forced smile. "I only don't understand why she is here." His interview started less than five minutes ago, and that guy had already managed to make my temple vein throb. He had an outstanding resume, which was probably the reason why his words overflowed with arrogance. I had no right to question his project management abilities,

sending his superior vibes toward me made me want to strangle him. Nevertheless, I forced myself to keep my professional indifference and ignore it. Aren decided otherwise.

"Mrs. Lan is here to test your capabilities, Mr. Thomson. If I were you, I would change my attitude unless you don't value your chance to work for Lan Diamond Corporation," he said curtly

Mr. Thomson leaned forward in his seat, obviously missing the threat in Aren's previous words. "Can I be honest, Mr. Lan? I would rather talk with people who understand what I am talking about." He chuckled before glancing at me. "No offense."

My lips slowly stretched into a thin smile; my eyes were unable to hide my inner fury. I glared at him while my fists clenched to the point my knuckles turned white.

"Honey?" Aren gently covered my fist with his hand, as if he was trying to disarm my rage. Well... It helped a bit.

"May I?" I asked, curving my mouth into a bright grin.

Aren chuckled evilly. "Of course."

I pulled out my tablet and opened every file I had on Mr. Thomas, and then briefly compared it with the resume he had given us. "Have you ever run a project concerning cellphone app development?" I asked him.

He straightened up in his seat, giving me a cocky look. "Naturally, I did a-"

"That's a lie. I've just checked, and the projects you've mentioned in your resume were actually run by someone else," I said, sending him a cold glare. "Have you ever supervised any kind of software or hardware development that was successfully released on the market?" I kept inquiring while typing the information from his resume into my "special" search engines.

He cleared his throat and rolled his eyes at me, trying to diminish the value of my words. "Yes. I was supervising the development of a drone's processor about three years ago, and I was in charge of releasing the "Talk-2-me' app," he tossed nonchalantly

I snorted. "Another lie, Mr. Thomas. I've just checked that the app you mentioned was managed by someone else, and you weren't even on the team. Also, the drone's processor you put in your resume has never appeared on the market because the whole project was canceled."

Mr. Thomas glanced at me fearfully, cold sweat flooding his face. "W-where did you get this information?"

I chuckled and wanted to say something, but Aren was first. "I think we're done here, Mr. Thomas. If you apologize to Mrs. Lan now, you may stop her from finding more compromising information about you," my husband said icily.

The man who had been glancing at me with disdain for the last five minutes was ready to kneel before me and beg for forgiveness. I had to say that I began to enjoy being in control of the situation. "I'm sorry for disrespecting you, Mrs. Lan," Mr. Thomas mumbled, before running out of the room and shutting the door behind him.

Chris burst out laughing. "Seriously, guys?! I've never thought those interviews could be so entertaining!" Then he winked at me. "It's good that Cora found that he lied in his resume though..." Aren shrugged. "I would never hire him anyway, and not because of his lies in the resume; I was aware that he might have added a few false details to make himself look better. Nonetheless, I was willing to ignore it if he proved to be worth it. Unfortunately, he failed three seconds after he walked through that door."

Chris raised his eyebrows. "Really? He didn't even introduce himself then."

"He looked Cora up and down and clicked his tongue. That was when he failed," he stated calmly.

I glanced at him in disbelief. "So, you are going to hire people based on their reaction to me?"

Aren smirked. "Of course, sunshine. What they do not know is that this interview isn't about what they say but how they react to you."

I glared at him. "What am I, a piece of litmus paper?"

He chuckled and kissed my forehead. "You're the most expensive litmus paper in the entire world."

Eventually, Aren decided to hire two men who behaved more or less normally in my presence, and neither of them showed signs of disrespect. The problem was with the second candidate for the COO, Mr. Gemmel, who had given me the kind of interest Aren hadn't been exactly fond of. The way Mr. Gemmel smiled at me answering every question eventually shattered Aren's poker face, making me stifle a laugh through half of the interview. After Chris and I subtly reminded Aren that Mr. Gemmel was the final candidate for this position and, aside from smiling at me, he fit the position perfectly, my husband asked us both to leave the room.

I leaned closer to Aren and whispered, "Are you sure? Chris and I can assist if-"

"Please, do as I said. I want to talk to Mr. Gemmel alone," he said firmly.

I smiled nervously, but then nodded and walked out with Chris just like Aren wanted us to. I stood in the corridor and anxiously stared at the door. A few minutes later, Mr. Gemmel walked out of the room with a ghostly pale face and a faint smile. He bowed down to me rather than look into my eyes, politely said goodbye, and dashed toward the elevator. Aren stepped into the corridor a second later, a smug smirk painting his face. "You didn't hire him?" Chris asked. "I did," Aren said, "I just needed to explain something to him, but I think he understood."

I crossed my arms over my chest. "Why do I get the feeling that this conversation was a threat, and it was about the way he looked at me?"

Aren reached out his hands and pulled me into a hug, and chuckled. "No comment, sunshine." And that basically means I was right.

As much as I would have liked to scold my husband for his unreasonable jealousy, I didn't have time to argue with him. It was already Thursday, and I was too busy preparing for Friday night and the party where I was going to show up wearing the Tian Kong diamond. There were a lot of people who would like to get their hands on that gem, and I was going to parade in front of them wearing more than fifty million dollars worth of bling-bling on my neck. As the week passed, I was more and more anxious, but I didn't realize that I was about to kick the hornet's nest...