Looking around the room in my haze, I notice that I forgot to close my blinds before going to bed last night. It happens whenever I’m too tired to function properly. The sun is starting to paint the space around me with its light. But I don’t feel like getting up yet. It’s been another restless night. I don’t know how many I can take before I lose my mind.
I still haven’t heard from Rose after our fight. I did call her roommate Timmy, who told me that she left town for a bit and hasn’t replied to their messages either. It worries me, but I’m sure she went to visit her family and Helen would contact me if something happened.
I rub my eyes and glance at my alarm clock, trying to focus on something else than her. Thank fuck, it’s only seven in the morning. If I closed the blinds and my eyes now, I could catch another hour of sleep before getting up for my first meeting of the day.
Seeing my phone light up on my nightstand, I take a quick look at it. I regret my decision right away.
What the hell has happenedagain?
Since last night, there have been over twenty missed calls and many more text messages. This morning isn’t going as I planned a minute ago. I scroll down the names on my phone screen and soon realize it has something to do with my company. What other reason would my board members have for calling me at six-thirty in the morning?
I count to ten before listening to my first voice mail while scratching my scalp and neck. After I finished listening to it, I wished I hadn’t.
It’s time to do next-level damage control—again.
Lopez is going to be such a happy fellow today. I can only imagine his glee when I call him. Before doing so, I need to find a physical copy of the Bridgeway magazine that published my interview with Rose. I have to see it with my own eyes before believing she did something like that.
Calling reception, Mandy says the copies were delivered just a moment ago. She’ll have someone bring one up. While I wait, I make myself a chocolate-flavored protein shake as I’m sure I don’t have time for anything else after reading that damn article.
The elevator doors ping as they open. I see a young guy who must be working shifts during the school holidays. He looks nervous being face to face with me. I offer him a reassuring smile, and he relaxes in front of my eyes. Handing me the magazine, he tells me that he’s studying coding after seeing one of my Tedtalks. It makes me happy to hear that.
Giving him a generous tip, I thank him, tell him to continue learning, and watch as the elevator doors close.
I open the magazine looking for my article, as I reach my couch. I spot my second portrait first. It isn’t my best, but not the worst either—still a suitable portrait for a CEO of a multimillion company. The bigger portrait is my favorite, which we picked with Rose and Marianne.
So that’s not what’s wrong here. But what then?
Before studying the rest of the article, my mind goes back to what happened after the photo shoot; how I took Rose against the desk in her friend’s office. How she felt under my hands, enjoying it as much as I did. Her screams and moans.
Fuck. I was supposed to see what was wrong with the article, not fantasize about her fantastic body.
As I take another look, I finally see the headlineThe Secret Life of Elijah Theodore Daltonand its subheading.
Fuming, I start reading the article when one question repeats in my head.
How could she do this to me?
* * *
Bridgeway magazine
Rags to Riches - How They Got Here Series
The Secret Life of Elijah Theodore Dalton
One of the brightest minds dominating the technology field has a hidden past that makes us wonder, who is Elijah Dalton behind his mask? Continue reading to find out more about the secretive CEO of Dalton Enterprises.
Mr. Dalton, a successful young soon-to-be tech billionaire, is known for his ruthless attitude in the boardroom, private personal life, and philanthropy work with underprivileged youth in New York City. He rarely gives interviews and only speaks in public events if asked to be a keynote speaker.
As a result, there isn’t much public information about Mr. Dalton’s life before he moved to the city after dropping out of his computer science degree program at Heartland University. It made us wonder—who is Elijah Dalton, and where did he come from?
Originally named Elijah Peter Ramirez, Mr. Dalton was born to a young unmarried mother. The family constantly moved around Omaha and the surrounding area as Mr. Dalton’s birth mother couldn’t hold a job as a single mother with a cocaine addiction.
At age three, Mr. Dalton entered the care of social welfare authorities in his home state of Nebraska after the officers found him wandering near the local shopping mall. When they asked the scared boy why he was there, young Elijah replied that he was looking for his mother. The records show that his mother searched for her next hit at the local crack house that night.
Our Rags to Riches story of the month described his childhood as something he isn’t too pleased to share with the world during his first interview. It was hard to get him to open more before the connection between Mr. Dalton and one of our interns got discovered by our team. Based on what Mr. Dalton has told her during their long friendship, we gathered the following about his mystery childhood.
Shortly after the state took him in, Robert and Opal Parker adopted Mr. Dalton to be a part of their family. His last name changed from Ramirez to Parker to match his new family after the adoption. When the Parkers died in a tragic car accident, Elijah Peter Parker, aged fourteen, moved to the Browns, the all-boys foster family one town over from where Mr. Dalton lived with his adoptive parents and older sister Claire before the accident.
