Building The Perfect Harem With My Heavenly Desire System-Chapter 53: Power Play
Chapter 53
"You have absolutely no right to question whether he is a shareholder or not. And don’t you ever use that tone with me again, Mr Humphrey. Aside from business, you know exactly who I am. So don’t ever forget your place. It’s the only thing keeping you in that seat."
Immediately she said that, the old man who had been full of self-righteous anger a moment ago, instantly deflated like a balloon and sank back into his seat.
Alex watched the exchange, while suppressing a smirk. If it weren’t for the fact that she must have been really mad about his late arrival, and that they were in the presence of others, he might have chosen to kiss her right there, for standing up for him. But he didn’t dare do that, afterall he didn’t want another slap to the cheek. He glanced at the old man and snickered internally.
Did this old geezer really think he was just an inexperienced college kid? If he was inexperienced then everyone in the world was as naive as babies. He was literally a reborn guy with memories of strategies of top companies in the future so he was full of experience, okay.
And what was that crap about bankrupting the company? He could literally make it far above its current level... You know what? There was no need to pay attention to such a delusional old man.
Alex let that thought settle and simply shifted his gaze away. In his eyes, people like that were nothing more than loud, irritating and ultimately irrelevant. Arguing would only lower his own standing, and he absolutely had no intention of doing that.
Instead, he walked forward unhurriedly, without giving a damn about what the other shareholders thought. Even when they flashed him looks filled with disdain and barely concealed ridicule, he just brushed it aside. Soon he reached an empty seat next to Nyx and sat down without a word, mirroring her usually cold and indifferent attitude.
Some of the shareholders frantically exchanged glances at each other, clearly stumped by his composed behavior. For a minute, they had expected a hint of awkwardness or maybe even an apology for coming late, but all they got instead was pure indifference.
Nyx leaned in toward Alex and murmured softly, away from the prying ears of others.
"Care to explain why you are so late, even after my repeated warnings? For your sake, Alex, I hope your explanation is strong, if not..."
Alex nodded casually, but internally, he was sweating bullets. Yeah there was no way he could tell Nyx that he was out there playing guardian angel for another woman, now that would be truly catastrophic. She might even go as far as to get rid of Olivia, but it’s not like he’ll just stand there and watch her harm Olivia, but it was better to just avoid that terrifying situation entirely...
So his only option right now, was telling her that his alarm clock didn’t wake him up in time, though it might get him reprimanded, it was still better than telling her about the Olivia incident.
Nyx, no longer paying attention to him, shifted her attention toward the other shareholders.
"Now that we are all present, we can now proceed with the meeting... So let’s discuss about the upcoming launch of our latest app, which we are about to introduce into the market, due to its high demand."
A man seated three chairs away from Nyx, adjusted his posture slightly. He looked like he was in his early forties, and wore a nice, well-fitted suit that hugged his surprisingly slender body. Unlike the others, he showed no impatience or arrogance, only quiet focus. From the way most of the executives were subtly looking at him, it was obvious that he was the one pulling the strings behind this project.
"As Miss Nyx mentioned," the man began, tapping his tablet to project a sleek interface onto the white board. "The company is planning to release a new app within the next few months. And based on what we’ve seen so far, there’s a strong chance that it will attract a lot of users quickly."
He paused for a minute and lightly tapped on his tablet, before continuing.
"The idea behind the app is simple. Social interaction, posting of photos... All in one place. If we manage to get it right, there’s a huge chance that it could quickly grow fast and dominate the market."
A few people around the table nodded their heads with approval, as they thought about how beneficial such an app could end up becoming. It would totally boost the company’s revenue by a landslide.
"However, there’s still a tiny problem with the app. We’ve tested the prototype and it was okay but a few minor bugs occurred like lagging and some minor UI glitches. But it’s still fixable."
Alex’s gaze casually flashed toward the app design on the screen and his blood ran cold, the moment he saw the app’s name. "Linkex." This was going to be a really bad idea to launch that app. If he remembered correctly, in his previous life after BluePeak launched an app called Linkex.
It started out well at first, but after some time, they faced a lawsuit from Facebuk. It turned out that Linkex was basically a cheap copy of Facebuk. After a long and hefty legal battle, Facebuk officially won, while BluePeak lost a staggering sum of about one hundred and fifty million dollars.
Their reputation took a huge hit and it affected them for nearly a decade, before they finally recovered a bit. So now that he wanted to turn BluePeak to one of the biggest companies in the world, there was no way he was going to let any bad thing happen to it.
"Since everyone is satisfied with the app, then we will move to approve..."
"I object." Alex uttered calmly, while standing up.
Everyone flashed him a face filled with confusion and disdain, the old man from earlier sneered at him. Even Nyx looked surprised by his sudden disagreement. She couldn’t quite comprehend what he was trying to do.
The man with the tablet frowned slightly as he looked at Alex more carefully this time.
"And why is that? Because from what I know there should be no reason to reject such an amazing app with endless possibilities."
Alex met his gaze without hesitation and said plainly.
"Because this app is a cheap knock-off. Sure it looks good and all on the surface, but at the end of the day, It’s just a stolen design of another company’s app."
The moment he said that, everyone gasped in shock. The man with the tablet faltered for a fraction of a second before he quickly regained his calm expression and scoffed.
"Oh a knock-off, is that right? So please sir, can you tell us how exactly our app is a cheap copy? Or are you just wasting our time? Because you clearly don’t understand the meaning between knock-off and original."
Alex almost wanted to scoff at the idiot, the slight falter that the man had quickly covered up, told him that the idiot was clearly involved in copying another company’s app, just to receive a higher pay from someone familiar.
But even knowing about the truth, there was one major issue; he currently couldn’t provide proof that the app was a copy without seeing the full design. And before the design comes out it would take some time... But there was still something that could work.
Alex let out a faint breath, his expression calm as ever and spoke lightly.
"If you’re asking for proof right now, then no, I don’t have it."
A few people immediately sneered at his words, clearly taking it as an admission of defeat, but before anyone could speak, he continued in the same unhurried tone.
"But I don’t need to prove anything to reject a decision that I clearly don’t agree with. Let’s look at the math, shall we?"
He leaned back slightly in his chair and swept his gaze across the table with practiced indifference.
"I own fifty percent of this company," he added, almost casually. "Nyx owns twenty-four, While the rest of you combined own the remaining twenty-six. So if I don’t approve this, then this app won’t move forward."
The room fell into a strange silence the moment Alex made that power move. They couldn’t believe that this inexperienced boy just used his shares to halt a very profitable venture.
For a second no one spoke, still reeling from the shock, that is, until the old man, Mr Humphrey, let out a loud disbelieving laugh, though there was no humor in his eyes.
"This is completely absurd. Do you think you can just walk in here, looking like a riff raff, make baseless accusations, and then hold the entire company hostage simply because of your shares?"
Alex just dismissed him with a single glance and remained seated with one leg crossing the other. Across from him, the man with the tablet narrowed his eyes slightly with a trace of darkness.
"Even if what you’re implying had any weight," he said carefully. "You should know that this project has already consumed a lot of time and resources. So we simply cannot afford to halt everything because of your baseless speculation."
Alex just calmly lifted his head at him, as though he had been expecting that exact response.
"Read my lips, if I don’t agree, it doesn’t go. Maybe unless one of you has an additional share stashed in your pockets to make it fifty-one. Until then, this discussion is over."
