Chapter 1034 Brian’s Concerns
The conference room’s air was fraught with tension. Brian was in the main seat, staring at his laptop calmly. He ignored the people in the room and the looks they were giving him, as if they didn’t exist, but that was just a façade. Brian was a lot more nervous than he let on. He was just pretending to be calm. In reality, he was more anxious than anyone in the room.
A middle-aged man in a suit suddenly stood up and broke the eerie silence in the room. “President.”
Everyone looked at him in surprise, including Brian. He knew he had to finally face the music when the guy called out to him. Silence was not a solution. Brian sighed silently and held his mouse, then he looked up at the man calmly. “What is it?”
“Sir, you told us Mr. Fuller will help us out because we helped Miss Reed. You promised he’d make sure we can stay. We trusted you, so we agreed to the loan even though the reserves are drying up. What now? We’ve been waiting since morning, but the Fuller Group isn’t doing anything to help.” The man pointed at Brian angrily, demanding an explanation.
Everyone nodded. They agreed with what the man was saying.
“Yeah, president. You promised that Mr. Fuller is going to help us, but his company is doing nothing until now. How are we supposed to trust you?”
“Yeah,” someone else agreed as well. “If the Fuller Group isn’t helping us, that loan we approved is gonna be the last straw that breaks the camel’s back. Can you handle the repercussions then, sir? You wanted to loan the money out in the first place.”
Everyone gave Brian sharp looks of interrogation.
Brian had many years of working experience under his belt, but even he felt nervous when everyone was looking at him that way. He wondered if he had miscalculated. The main bank had taken a lot of their liquid assets lately, and since they were the main branch, their target for all savings amounts was at least ten times higher than the other branches.
He had to hit that target to keep working as the president. Everyone had to make sure the target was hit, or they would be demoted into the other branches. The problem was all the rich guys were disinclined to put their money in local banks. They preferred overseas banks. Because of that, they still hadn’t hit their target for the year.
It was nearly Christmas, but they were still a long way away from their target. He could feel a mountain of pressure on his shoulders. He would talk to Seafield’s entrepreneurs every day, trying to convince them to put their money in the Bank of Caruna, but they adamantly refused.
He was getting bald from the stress. Just when he was starting to run out of ideas, he got a call from Sonia, the boss of Paradigm Co. as well as Toby’s girlfriend.
When he found out that Sonia was taking out a big loan, he realized Paradigm Co. must be in trouble. That was his chance, so he agreed to see her. He only did that just to confirm if he had a chance to turn things around. He majored in psychology back in college. All he had to do was meet her, and he could confirm his chances of success.
So, he had met with Sonia one fine afternoon, and thanks to his professional knowledge, he could see the kind of woman Sonia was. She was egotistical and stubborn, but she had no self-awareness and was naive. Someone like her was easy to convince and use. The moment he saw her, he knew his plan had mostly succeeded.
Sonia was egotistical and cared too much about what the public thought of her. She was worried the public might call her a useless woman who relied on men for her success. She had self-esteem issues in the first place, and she hid that behind a stubborn façade. She wanted to deal with everything herself, but she forgot she lacked the ability to do that.
In the end, she had to take out a loan. She could have asked Toby for help and everything would be settled, but she didn’t and instead, asked someone else for help. She was practically begging me to use her. She’s a fool for not using the resources available to her.
It was bad for her, but great for him. He wouldn’t have gotten this chance if she hadn’t stubbornly refused to ask Toby for any help. Brian was a guy. He knew how Toby would feel if he found out his girlfriend would rather ask someone else for help instead of him. He wasn’t sure if their relationship was going swimmingly, but men loved their ego.
As long as they were still together, Toby would be upset if Sonia asked someone else for help and neglected him, even if they were fighting. So, he persuaded Sonia to talk with Toby, pretending that he was doing it for the good of their relationship. He was betting it on the chance that Sonia would tell Toby everything, including the fact that he helped her. And Toby will owe me one.
He knew Toby would never owe any favors. He would repay his debt almost right away every time, and his return favor was always generous. What Brian did was a bet. If his plan worked, he could keep his position as president, but if it didn’t…
Brian hadn’t thought about the possibility of his plan failing. He had a good eye for people, after all. He never did fail before either. His plan was perfect, or so he thought. He was starting to doubt himself at this point. Am I going to finally fail this time?
Did Sonia brush my advice off and didn’t talk it out with Toby? If that’s the case, then Toby wouldn’t have known what I did. Or maybe she did tell him, and he knows I helped him out, but he didn’t think it was important enough.
He might get mad that I roped him into this. Heck, he might be on his way to destroy me. I did use his girlfriend to get to him just so I can keep my position.
Toby was a smart man. He could see through Brian’s plan easily, and Brian knew that. Brian did think about the possibility of Toby getting mad after finding out about his plan and getting back at him for this. Nobody liked being roped into someone else’s schemes, after all. He had no choice, however. This was his only chance. He had to throw caution to the wind and see if Toby would get mad about it.
If he did get mad about what Brian did, then Brian would accept his fate. However, if he would brush it aside and take it as a favor, then that would be for the best. The problem was that he had no idea what Toby was thinking. So is he mad about what I did? Or is he gonna repay the favor?
