International Diplomacy Won The Day

In my early thirties I got my first big assignment. I was sent to integrate an acquisition. This is tougher than it sounds. No book, no idea, just get it done.

I checked into a hotel downtown, walking distance to the offices of the recently acquired company. I should add, the acquisition was a Norwegian company, with it's principal offices in Oslo. Norwegians are proud people and being bought by an American company set badly with them. No cooperation was their motto, unspoken, but certainly acted on.

Weeks passed, pulling teeth to get information. Never complete, not a lie, just ineffective. Frustrations mounted and words were spoken. Replacing a recalcitrant employee was impossible, you had to give them six months notice.

I was at my hotel several weeks into the ordeal, I ate alone and settled in to map out a new strategy. A knock on the door, a beautiful blonde blue eyed girl. She worked at the company and came over to offer herself to me. Anything, she said. Anything. And with that she let her dress fall off her shoulders, before me stood a solid ten, perfect, beautiful. Take me, enjoy me, she seemed to say. I could do nothing, other that stare at perfection.

The next day the atmosphere was warmer, my new personal assistant, was both translator and public relationship champion. My refusal to take her, although it was because I was too scared to act, went over well with her fellow employees. But her mission was to bring us together, only joining in sex could that be accomplished. Once she let her coworkers know we had slept together they were willing to adopt me. And her announcement a couple of months later that she was successful in getting pregnant.

It was a couple of years later that we got married, although she saw no good reason for it. To please me, she said, because I wanted it. Along with this union the company joined our company and demanded that I be their new CEO, the youngest CEO in our organization.

All's well that ends well, I went on to rise to the C Suite in our multinational company. A perfect ten on my arm, with beautiful children, were as much of the reason as any corporate performance. Some twenty years later she told me no woman wanted the assignment, to bring the two parties together. She picked the black marble, and the rest is history.