"And you mean to tell me that there's nothing that can be done about this?" Cyrus said, glaring furiously at the wall in front of him. The phone was pressed to his ear as he held it tightly "I pay a hefty sum of money to avoid situations like this. I have a business meeting I have to be In New York for in a few hours and this is a delay I really don't appreciate."
He paused to turn to look out the window, watching the light taps of the drizzling rainfall against the windowpane. The only thing he felt was anger and irritation. His mind wasn't on the apologies the person on the phone was sputtering out and once the person finished speaking, he calmly removed the phone from his ear and cut the call. The urge to punch the wall hit him like it always did when his anger was raw, but he held back and turned on his heel to walk out of the room, his suit jacket and briefcase left behind.
Cyrus walked till he found Jonathan, who was in the dining, reading a newspaper. At his arrival, the older man lifted up his eyes and immediately felt the sour mood.
"Is there a problem?" he asked
"Unfortunately, I may have to trouble you till evening. My jet has some faults and the engineers in charge have done the worst possible job of managing it. My flight for this morning will have to be postponed, possibly till later this evening." Cyrus explained, taking a seat
"This evening? Will that be enough time to finish them repairs?" Jonathan asked, very concerned
"It better be. I have no qualms with putting them out of jobs if they don't meet up. There's a conference that begins tomorrow that I have to attend as a speaker and after that, a meeting with the Wan family."
Oh, Jonathan knew about all that. The business articles had been filled with Cyrus' face and his upcoming activities for the past 2 weeks. If the young man was ever stressed out about how his every business move was monitored, criticized and splashed in pages, he didn't show any signs of it. He had to give him credit; the Axton Constructions was in very good hands.
"I have a series of meetings today with various people and now I'm not going to be there." Cyrus said, scowling "I hate it when people don't do their jobs."
He knew that. He had seen it first hand how irritated Cyrus became at incompetence when it came to carrying out job tasks. At the corner of his eye, he saw Wallace walk into the room, whistling as he sorted through the mail in his hand. They both turned to him and he paused on sensing the tense atmosphere.
"Is there a problem?" Wallace asked, his tone of voice matching his father's. If Cyrus was not so upset, he would have commented on it and made a small joke
"Mr Axton won't be able to leave this morning. His flight has been delayed due to some technical difficulties and that means, he's going to have to miss some meetings as a result." Jonathan explained quickly
"Meetings?" Wallace questioned
Cyrus wasn't even in the mood to go into more detail. He had gone to bed with a bruise to his ego and had woken up crankier than usual. He just nodded and kept silent.
"I'm not going to miss, neither am I going to reschedule." He said, standing up
"What are you going to do then?" Wallace asked
"This is the digital age. Conference calls are a thing and although I'm not happy about being there physically, I'm not about to sit down on my ass and not go through with it."
"You sure? The weather is pretty bad and the reception of the WiFi hadn't really been top-notch since the dark clouds rolled in."
Was everything trying to work against him? It felt too much for him to even begin to imagine not having stable Wifi during his business meetings. The night had been hot, but around dusk, thunder had rung through the hair and darkened the place, the gloom matching that of his mood. Not everything had been going according to what he wanted.
The previous night, he had offered Sakura a chance to work with him directly in New York and she had turned him down. Not only that, but she had bluntly reminded him of how she was an employee and it rang in his head that although she didn't work directly under him, it was against the contract to have any sort of relationship with her aside from workplace friendship. Herr subtle but heart-wrenching reminder had dampened his mood and he didn't have the ability to stop her when she stood up to leave. Cyrus had watched her walk away, jaw clenching and mind racing and once she had disappeared out of sight, he had retired to his room for the rest of the night.
It was unlike him to ever go against his ethics and to go against what contracts stated. He had, frankly, forgotten all about the contract and how his legal team had suggested including a clause for no romantic relationships amongst work colleagues. It annoyed him now that he had even agreed to it. Maybe he was getting a little obsessed, but he knew that this part of him was something that had always been there. What was foreign to him feeling it for a woman and not just a woman, but a woman that was trying her possible best to reject him despite the obvious attraction she had towards him. He had practically stayed up most of the night, thinking of how foolish he must have seemed to her and to those around him. There was no problem with shame however, shame encouraged improvement and gave him more of a reason to find solutions.
How to go past his roadblock with her now was what he needed to solve.
Cyrus suddenly lifted his head and grinned, an idea striking him. Wallace and Jonathan watched, confused, as he pulled out his cellphone and dialled a number.
"Hello, Connie. I need you to let all the attendees of my meetings today know that I won't be physically available so we'll have a conference call instead." Cyrus said, knowing that if anyone could make this last-minute demand of his come true, it would be his diligent personal assistant "I'll return this evening and be in the office tomorrow. Everything today holds as planned. Be sure to give me feedback. Thank you."
After ending the call, he stood up and stretched, fixing a sly grin on his face "Would you be so kind as to let me use your office, Jonathan?" Cyrus asked
"Of course, sir, it's all yours." Jonathan replied
"Wonderful." He took a few steps but turned back for a split second "Oh and please inform Miss Guerro that I'll be requiring her expertise for most of today. I'll be in the office waiting."
Cyrus always found solutions to whatever things came his way. Killing two birds with one stone; mixing business with pleasure and not creating an excuse for anything himself and her, was something he intended to do.