The Bird in a Cage
Summary: Howl, a wealthy CEO of a multi-billion dollar company, is threatened by anonymous letters. Bodyguards are all the rage and Howl hires only the best… ending up saddled with the infamous Mad Hatter. Sophie and Howl, AU.
WARNING: Near-invisible clues.
Chapter Twenty-seven
So they were
Howl had always considered meetings with rival companies to be quite tedious. Into the second day of the week, it was difficult to slither out of the predicament his Vice-CEO gleefully placed him in. Calcifer hated meetings just as much as he did, but due to the nature of their job, it became half of the fun trying to dump the obligatory board meetings and conferences on each other. The younger, prouder businessmen associated of Pendragon and Co. took great offense to their games. The older board members had actually found their game to be quite amusing, looking forward to their more creative ways of ducking around the unpleasant factors of being two very successful entrepreneurs.
Today he was being forced to attend a meeting with a company that dealt in furniture, a field he and Calcifer had been exploring recently, using Calcifer's knowledge of wood to propel it and Howl's artistic talents to draw up lovely designs to decorate their customer's homes with. Apparently, the quaint and somewhat bizarre furniture had drawn more eyes than Calcifer had initially calculated, taking the whole industry by storm and spreading like wild-fire within the first months of its creation.
Obviously, their competitors were aggravated and more than a little annoyed at being overtaken by a pair of young men not quite yet into their thirties. Some had tried to cut them off, some had threatened, only one company had tentatively reached out, trying to lasso Pendragon and Co. into a mutually beneficial contract. Calcifer had been setting the meetings back for months now, due to the fact he and Howl had no plans to come to Cardiff. Forced by Sophie's schedule, they'd accepted the trip to the city and the meeting with Starr Inc.
The two men who greeted them with cheery handshakes were bores and Howl hardly listened to the first man introduce himself, then his partner. "Hello, gentlemen! My name is Justin Price and this is my second-in-command, Lyle Angorian," Calcifer greeted both with a great, polite smile and showed them to their seats. Before talks began, he offered them something to drink.
Both men refused and the men of Pendragon and Co. sat down with aplomb, ready to face the music and try to wiggle out of whatever negotiations Starr Inc. had planned. The meeting was a simple formality.
"So, Mr. Price, how may we help you?" said Calcifer.
To be Continued…
I suck at suspense. And names… and OCs…
I should just stick to watching paint dry.
Words: 400
