Chapter 58 Board meeting

Chapter 58 Board meeting
Richard’s POV

The boardroom was everything I had expected, grand, cold, and filled with the kind of quiet power that only old money and older ambition could produce.

Floor-to-ceiling glass panels overlooked the heart of Abuja, the city stretching wide and golden beneath the afternoon sun. The long mahogany table seated sixteen, and every chair was occupied by a man whose name alone could move markets. Translators sat discreetly at the corners. Moderators in crisp suits flanked the projector screen at the front. The air was thick with cologne, careful words, and competition.

We had barely settled into the first presentation when my phone buzzed against my thigh.

Jocelyn.

I stared at the screen for a moment. The presenter, a sharp-eyed man from South Korea, was mid-sentence. I silenced the call and slid the phone back into my pocket.

It buzzed again.

Jocelyn.

I exhaled quietly. Something about the persistence of it unsettled me. I raised my hand gently, offered a polite nod to the moderator, and excused myself from the table.

Every eye in the room followed me to the door.

I felt them.

The call turned out to be a false alarm  she had seen something on the news and panicked. Her voice was shaky at first, then flooded with relief when she heard mine. I stayed on the line longer than I should have, just to hear her breathe normally again. Then I straightened my tie, composed myself, and walked back into the boardroom.

The presenter had continued in my absence. Fifteen of the most influential and wealthy businessmen from across the globe sat around that table  French, Korean, American, British, Emirati  each one a giant in his own right. Several had arrived in private jets that gleamed on the tarmac like declarations of wealth. I had arrived on a charity flight.

I noticed the expressions when I first walked in earlier that morning. Subtle, but present. A raised brow here, a quiet exchange of glances there. The shock on their faces had been difficult to decode at first. Was it disbelief? Amusement? Judgment?

My confidence had dipped for a brief moment.

But then something settled deep within me, a quiet and firm voice that cut through the noise.

It is not the means of transportation that wins the contract. It is the plan.

I held onto that thought. This contract was not about appearance. It was about vision  a proposal to build infrastructure and social amenities across an entire nation, to touch the lives of the common people of Nigeria. And I had arrived on a charity flight, shoulder to shoulder with those very common people. If anything, that was not a weakness. That was a statement.

Jocelyn had said it first. Every disappointment is a blessing.

I took my seat quietly and turned my attention back to the presenter.

“Seems like the call was important,” a voice murmured close to my ear. I turned slightly. It was the Frenchman seated beside me, lean, silver-haired, with sharp grey eyes and the kind of easy confidence that came from decades in boardrooms like this one. He wore a faint smile.

“My wife called,” I said.

The words came out louder than I intended.

The room turned.

Fifteen pairs of eyes landed on me at once. A few brows arched. The presenter paused, his expression caught somewhere between professionalism and irritation.

Heat crept up the back of my neck.

“I apologize,” I said, and slowly the heads turned back to the front.

I stared down at the table for a moment, quietly willing the embarrassment away. Of all the things I had prepared for  the pitch, the questions, the competition  I had not prepared for this. Standing up to answer a phone call in a room full of the world’s most composed businessmen had been, by every measure, unprofessional.

I pressed my hands flat against the table and straightened in my chair.

The presenter resumed. He was Mr. Lee Ho, Korean, compact in frame, with narrow eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses, a small precise mouth, and a broad nose centered on a face that held no expression whatsoever. He spoke in clipped, confident sentences, each word chosen deliberately. His proposal was disciplined and thorough.

But the longer I sat there, the less I saw him.

Jocelyn’s face filled the space in front of me instead. Her voice still echoed  that shaky exhale she let out when she realized I was safe. The way she said my name.

“Richard’s composure is one of the most important characteristics of a businessman.”

The phrase drifted into my consciousness like a warning. I was the only man in that room who had stood up mid-session to answer a personal call. In a boardroom of fifteen, that was not a small thing. My confidence wavered again.

Then, without explanation, something shifted.

A quiet current moved through my chest  steady and warm, like a slow release. It was not logic. It was not strategy. It was simply the thought of her, and somehow it was enough. My shoulders dropped half an inch. My jaw unclenched. I picked up my pen.

A gentle tap on my arm pulled me fully back.

“Mr. Asher,” the moderator’s voice rang across the room, louder than before.

I stood immediately.

The room looked at me. It was my turn, and I had not been tracking the time.

I rose from my seat, gathered myself with a single breath, and walked to the front of the room. Fifteen faces watched me. I set my notes on the podium, looked up, and began.

“Thank you, Mr. Lee Ho, for your insightful contributions,” I said, and the Korean man adjusted his glasses without expression.

“Alleviating poverty in Nigeria does not simply mean erecting infrastructural buildings and social amenities. The real question is this  how do we engage the youth? How do we make them active participants in their own development, rather than passive recipients of it?”

One of the moderators gave a slow, almost imperceptible nod. I continued.

“Mr. Lee Ho centered his proposal on local skills plumbing, welding, tailoring, bakery, and a range of trades that carry enormous potential when developed with intention. That is a commendable foundation, and I mean that sincerely. However, we must also reckon with a generation that has shifted. Today’s Nigerian youth, like youth across the developing world, is drawn toward opportunity that does not require them to trade sweat for pennies. They want returns. They want efficiency. They want to build something from the comfort of wherever they are. And that brings me to the cornerstone of my proposal.”

I clicked to my first slide.

“Technology.”

The word landed quietly in the room, but the effect was immediate. Heads lifted. Pens that had been still began to move. Mr. Lee Ho, who had been stone-faced since I stepped forward, leaned back in his chair with the particular posture of a man who was now paying close attention.

“Specifically, I am proposing a dual investment physical infrastructure paired with a national digital skills programme. We build the roads, yes. We build the hospitals and schools. But simultaneously, we build a technology ecosystem that gives Nigerian youth access to remote work, digital entrepreneurship, software development, and global markets. We are not asking them to choose between their ambitions and their country. We are giving them the tools to pursue both.”

I watched the room shift. A British delegate who had barely moved since the session began turned a fresh page in his notebook. The Emirati businessman to my left set down his phone. Two of the moderators exchanged a glance that I recognized the look of people who had just heard something they had not expected.

I moved through the rest of the presentation with a steadiness I had not felt when I first walked to that podium. By the time I reached my final slide, three delegates were still writing. One had quietly requested a copy of my materials. The Korean presenter, Mr. Lee Ho, gave me the smallest nod when I returned to my seat the kind that costs a proud man something to give.

The session ran for several more hours.

By the time the moderator called the formal close of proceedings, the room was worn at the edges. Jackets had been loosened. Water glasses refilled more times than anyone had counted. The polished composure of the morning had softened into the quiet fatigue of men who had spent themselves fully.

I gathered my documents slowly, my body heavy with a tiredness that felt earned.

Mike was waiting just outside the boardroom doors. He stepped forward the moment he saw me and took my briefcase without a word.

“You look exhausted, sir,” he said, falling into step beside me.

“I am,” I replied. “But it was worth it. I will say that much.”

We walked through the wide corridor of the convention center, our footsteps echoing on the polished floor. The evening air that drifted through the open atrium carried the city’s warmth the dry, dusty heat of Abuja at dusk, alive with distant traffic and the smell of suya drifting from somewhere nearby.

The hotel was a short drive away, and when we arrived, the lobby greeted us with cool air and the low murmur of other delegates filtering in from the day. We rode the elevator in silence. When the doors opened on my floor, I stepped out and immediately heard a familiar voice behind me.

“Mr. Asher.”

I turned.

It was the Frenchman from the boardroom. Up close, he was older than I had first assumed perhaps mid-sixties, with silver hair swept back from a face that was all sharp angles and easy charm. He extended a hand.

“Armand Leclerc,” he said. “It appears we are neighbors.”

I shook his hand. “Richard Asher. Small world.”

“A well-organized one,” he said with a light laugh, gesturing to the doors that sat side by side along the corridor.

We stood for a moment in the way strangers do when they discover an unexpected common ground. He commented on the session  said my proposal had caught him off guard in the best way possible, that he had not expected the technology angle and found it the most compelling pitch of the day. I thanked him and returned the compliment genuinely. His own contribution had been measured and precise, the kind of proposal that betrayed decades of experience.

“You left the room to answer a call,” he said, his tone light but curious. “In the middle of Lee Ho’s presentation. I thought that was bold.”

“It was reckless,” I said honestly.

He smiled. “Perhaps, But the way you walked back in that was the interesting part. You sat down like a man who had just been reminded of something important.” He studied me for a moment. “Your wife?”

“Yes”

He nodded slowly, something shifting behind his eyes. “I have been in this industry for thirty-one years, Mr. Asher. I have attended more boardrooms than I can count, and I have watched men leave their families on the altar of ambition without a second thought.” He paused. “It is refreshing to meet one who still picks up the call.”

Before I could respond, he straightened and smiled again.

“There is a gathering tonight. Some of the delegates, a few local contacts, good food and better conversation. You should come.”

“I appreciate the invitation,” I said. “But I need to call my wife first.”

Armand raised a brow. Mike, standing slightly behind me, cleared his throat.

“Sir,” Mike said carefully, “I have been informed that there will be quite a number of ladies at this gathering. Trust me, you would love the women from this side of the world.” He left the rest unsaid, the implication hanging in the air between us.

I looked at him.

“Mike,” I said, “I have a woman at home who is my everything. There is nothing at that party that interests me.”

The silence that followed was brief but telling. Mike blinked. Armand’s expression opened into something between surprise and admiration. He studied me for a long moment, then let out a quiet laugh  not mocking, but genuine.

“Your wife is a fortunate woman,” he said.

“I am the fortunate one,” I replied, and meant it entirely.

“Hope she loves you like this too” I heard Armand whisper 

We said our goodnights. I stepped into my room, set my jacket over the chair, and sat at the edge of the bed. The city hummed faintly beyond the curtains. I loosened my tie and reached for my phone.

She picked up before the second ring.

“Richard.” Just my name, but the warmth in it reached through the line and settled somewhere in my chest.

“I told you I would call,” I said.

“I know. I was just waiting.” A pause. “How did it go?”

“Better than I expected,” I said. “Though I may have embarrassed myself in front of fifteen of the most powerful men in the world because I stood up to answer your earlier call.”

She laughed. The sound of it undid something in me.

“I’m sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry at all.

“Don’t be,” I said. “It reminded me of something I needed to remember.”

“What’s that?”

I leaned back against the headboard, the city lights bleeding softly through the curtain’s edge.

“That none of this means anything if I don’t have you to come home to,” I said quietly.

The line went still for a moment.

“Come home soon,” she whispered.

“Soon,” I promised. “Now tell me everything I missed.”

And she did  her voice soft and unhurried, filling the quiet of a hotel room thousands of miles from home, making it feel, somehow, a little less far.

“Just pray for me that I nah this contract” I whispered slowly

“I’ll do that every minute I breathe” she replied

“Sleep tight baby, I love you”

“I love you more”