"It's you and me. Together," he says. "Us against the world."
*****
All my life, I've never trusted men. The image of them planted in my head is the figure of my abusive stepfather who has made my mother and I live in hell.
But then, an encounter w...
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The moment George, Jake, and I step into Mark's office, we start discussing the progress of the project right away.
"Why are they delaying the agreement?" Mark frowns.
"Their government told them that they still have to extend their internal discussion before they can approve our counter-proposal," George says.
"Counter proposal?" Mark asks, his voice raised, and I can already see his disapproval on this. It makes my stomach churn.
"Yes," George says. "We told them that we couldn't accept the gas price that the local industry would pay to us, because it didn't fit into the project's economic limit."
Mark freezes before his face hardens, and I know that we're screwed.
This is a highly anticipated deal between two countries, and sometimes, what the management expects is only for the deal to be executed, while the devil is in the details. I'm itching to explain about this.
"And whose idea is this?" Mark hisses.
George glances at me.
"Well?" Mark asks me. His nostrils flare.
"I've done some research," I say, bracing myself to state my opinion. "Apparently, their government has made new regulations that would be risky for foreign investors. I believe that we have to be more careful in dealing with them."
But Mark doesn't look pleased with my answer. At all.
"Careful? That's not the impression that they would think of us. They know damn well how greedy the investors are. They would see it as a threat. We practically just showed them how uncooperative we are," he says, his voice cold.
And those words hit me hard.
I'm not capable to see it through the political point of view because it just doesn't make sense for me. "But their government kept changing the regulations--"
"When it comes to negotiation, the government is everything!" Mark suddenly hollers at me, and that startles all of us. "This is a long term contract. 20 years. Billions of dollars. There's still so much room for us to improvise later, but you just failed to show them the basic thing they need, that is the willingness to cooperate."
My heart thumps hard against my chest.
"This is my responsibility, Mark," George says, covering up for me. "Our branch office has the same concern, and that's why we looked it up. I asked Lais to do the research."
Mark eyes me with a mixture of emotions that feels so wrong to me -- or maybe I'm just overthinking -- but his gaze pierces right through me.
"Tell me, Lais, how are you going to fix this?" he asks, his voice suddenly low. The way he speaks that question makes me shudder.
And my mind goes blank.
"We can still turn the table around," Jake suddenly speaks, shifting our attention to him. "They don't have our technology. This is a giant discovery of an oil and gas field in their country, and they wouldn't get as much without us."
