Anyone But You [PhayuRain] [Love In The Air]

6: STORM ON THE HORIZON

8 YEARS LATER

Phayu sat back in the supple leather chair at the head of the large conference table made out of Macassar Ebony.

The table was custom-made to impress. It was positioned like a piece of art in the center of a spacious room, on the second to highest floor of the office tower with a multi-million dollar skyline view, also meant to impress.

It was a room that (not-so-subtly) conveyed power and success, meant to imbue confidence, envy even, in the business and its leadership.

Phayu curled his hands around the table's bullnose edge, admiring the pattern of the rich exotic dark wood. The zebra-like stripes and luster made it feel warm and alive under his fingertips. Two things he was having a hard time feeling lately.

He sat up realizing he had slumped in his chair and gotten distracted. It happened more and more these days. Little seemed to hold his interest for long.

A tiredness, and not the kind that came from lack of sleep, but one that came from soul weariness, seemed to be ever-present lately.

He dragged his attention back to what was happening around the table filled with savvy men and women who were in the midst of a meeting.

A very important meeting that he was paying zero attention to. But no one had noticed.

His face was probably set in the stern, serious lines that everyone had gotten used to, his resting bitch face, as his brother, Saifah, liked to tease. So his lack of participation was not overly remarkable. This was nothing new.

The meeting was being run by his extremely capable executive team, people whom he had hand-picked after becoming CEO a little over a year ago when he turned 30.

Phayu had been preparing for this for almost his whole life, being groomed and trained since he learned to read. His brother had also been groomed but not for the top spot. He was currently doing an overseas tour of their Southeast Asian offices to get the inside scoop on the health of those businesses. Something that he could trust his brother to take care of, he was his eyes and ears, his lieutenant.  They always had each other's backs. 

When he had started to see more of the true inner workings before taking over, he had realized that the business wasn't as sturdy as he had thought. The Group was still incredibly powerful and a force to be reckoned with, but some of his father's more desperate, riskier moves started to make sense. He still didn't agree with some of the moves that he had made to grow the company, but at least he better understood the desperation. 

So Phayu spent a lot of time peeling back the strengths and weaknesses of the business to build his own vision and plans to not only solidify it but leapfrog beyond where it was today. 

But one thing that he knew for sure, he couldn't do it alone and he needed people that he trusted that were loyal to him.

It had taken Phayu some time before and after taking over as CEO to move out his father's cronies and build an executive leadership team who shared his vision for how to grow and modernize the company. 

All this had been the main focus of his energy and time over the past few years. But it was worth it, because he now relied on, and most importantly trusted, this small tight group around him.

He needed to. He did this not just for the health of the business but for his own sanity. 

There was no way one person could oversee the varied and vast holdings that were under the Group's umbrella.

He also needed to rely on them to simply have a life. Otherwise, he would become consumed by his career as he had been for the past few years.

His team was more than well prepared to always have the edge, the upper hand. Right now, they were in the midst of negotiations to acquire a highly innovative Technology company.