“A wealthy man disgraced a woman simply because of her skin color, but nothing could have prepared him for what happened 3 hours later on that sunny day in August. The meeting that Larry had been looking forward to for the better part of 3 months was finally going to happen. It had been a long time coming, and he was ready to get on and be done with it. Still, he also wanted to enjoy every second of it.
He had gone over his plans dozens of times and was confident that it would work. That morning, Larry was hosting a gathering of potential investors who he believed would buy shares of his company and rescue him from immediate destruction. Larry was the CEO of a watch company; their watches were high-end and catered only to the rich and elite in society.
His father had founded the company, and under his tutelage, it had become a global sensation. They had people all over the world striving and toiling just to be able to afford their expensive watches. The company enjoyed this status for decades, but sadly, things began to change after Larry inherited it from his father.
Over the years, the company only grew worse, and now it was looking like it would fold up anytime soon. But Larry couldn’t allow that; this wasn’t just his company, it was his father’s legacy. He couldn’t just let it go like that. He had to do everything within his power to rescue it, and that was when he got the idea to release some of the company shares to the open market. With all the money they used to purchase the shares, he would have enough to clear all outstanding debts the company held and also be able to get it back on its feet.
He had taken a business class the previous year and now knew just how to save his company. The search for other shareholders was only a last-minute resort. He had tried his best to get money elsewhere and failed abysmally. The company lacked funds of its own, and when he asked the banks for a loan, they refused to give it to him because they weren’t sure he could pay it back.
Even when he put up the same company as collateral, the banks were still hesitant to give him the money. This hurt him a lot, but he didn’t despair; he knew that they just didn’t want to see the potential he and his company had. So, he only kept searching for ways to raise the money. But time was going, and things were getting worse for the company. They were laying off staff almost every month, and it was clear as day that they would eventually have to file for bankruptcy.
That was when he came up with his foolproof plan. He was sure that once he managed to convince the investors and showed them just what a gold mine his company would be to invest in, they would all be happy to buy some shares. The stakes were high, but he was willing to do what was necessary to make everyone happy.
When the meeting was about to start, he stood at the entrance of the hall, smiling as he welcomed every one of the investors. He made sure he didn’t skip anyone, so he shook hands with all of them and shared a few words as well. He needed to make sure that even before the meeting started, they were already in good spirits. However, the smile on his face vanished as soon as a black woman approached him. She flashed a quick smile, offered her hand for a handshake, and introduced herself as Annie.
Larry didn’t know who she was, but he surely recognized the high-end brand she was dressed in. Even her earrings looked expensive. The sight made him snort; who was she looking to impress? It was certain those clothes and accessories didn’t belong to her; they must have been rented or lent for the occasion, or maybe some rich guy purchased it for her.
Plastering a fake smile on his face, Larry ignored her hand and blocked the entrance to the conference room, keeping Annie out of it. When she asked him to please step aside, he quietly told her that he wanted to speak to her boss and not some dumb secretary. ‘I’m not a secretary, sir,’ she told him. She looked somewhat hurt but tried to keep her face and voice calm as she added, ‘I’m here to listen to your proposal and decide if your shares are worth buying.’
‘Are you questioning my words?’ Larry thundered, unable to hold himself. He nervously looked around, checking if the other potential investors had heard her speak. Thankfully, they were all sitting inside, chattering between themselves and completely oblivious to the black woman on the threshold.
‘Of course, my share is worth buying. You’d know it if you owned your own company,’ then he raised his voice, catching the other men’s attention. ‘I’m going to need you to leave, miss; this is a meeting for wealthy business people, not phonies trying to find a way in.’
Annie was shocked as she watched Larry insult her in front of everyone. She opened her mouth to reply, but he cut her off before she could even speak. ‘Who sent you here? I specifically invited other business people, not their subordinates.’
Annie’s face was red. Larry mistook her rage for embarrassment and guessed that his assumption of her had been correct. He knew that this black woman was in way over her head; perhaps she was even there to spy on him and report the information back to her boss. The more he thought about it, the angrier he became; this Annie was only at the meeting to jeopardize his plan. He wanted rich men in his meeting so they could make on-the-spot decisions to invest in the company.
With a dumb secretary putting doubts in their minds, that wouldn’t be possible. He considered kicking her out of the venue entirely but held himself back. Instead, he told his assistant to run a check on Annie and find out who she was working for. He had never seen her before, which meant she must work for a boss that didn’t run in the same circles. If her boss lacked the kind of money he needed, he would kick her out at once.
Not wanting people to see him spend too much time with Annie, he turned away from her and resumed greeting other investors, and soon it was time to start. He made his way to the front of the hall, where he had his projector set up for his big speech. He was confident that what he was about to say would sway people in his favor.
However, as he got there, he realized that Annie was sitting in the front seat directly opposite him, and the buried anger resurfaced once more. Larry’s assistant walked over to him and told him that they had done their investigations. Annie wasn’t affiliated with any company or boss; she was at the meeting on her own. This infuriated Larry so much that he stormed over to her and demanded to know what she was doing there.
He didn’t need a dumb black woman undermining the integrity of his meeting, regardless of the fact that she did, in fact, own a company. He imagined her selling soap-scented candles or any other sort of glittery things real business people would never invest in. This was a meeting of the most elite in the city; they all knew each other from the many events they had attended together, and her mere presence was disconcerting.
He demanded that she leave at once, and he promised that he was going to sue her for trespass
ing. She didn’t have what it took to be in a gathering like that. However, to Larry’s shock, the investors requested that she stay. They said that the meeting was for everyone, and he had no idea where his help could come from. Larry was sure that the kind of money he was looking for could not come from a black person, but he said nothing since his investors were sympathetic toward Annie. He decided to do what would make them happy. If he chose to kick her out against their wish, it could affect him when the time came to invest. So against his wish, he agreed to have her stay in the meeting.
But Annie was the only black person in the hall, and she stood out like a sore thumb. No one else seemed to notice it except Larry. Every time his eyes swept the room, he kept seeing her, and it only made him more irritable. However, he had to tolerate it; this meeting was important for him and his company, and he wasn’t going to allow one black woman to ruin it for him.
So he pushed Annie into the furthest reaches of his mind and gave his mind-blowing speech. His presentation was power-packed; he used slides and holographs to show the investors everything he would do once they bought the shares. He was able to project the profits they would make and how it would be split among the investors. Larry was in his element and showed them that he had everything needed to pull the company out of bankruptcy and boost their clientele. He was sure that within the next few months, his watch company would be the talk of the town again.
When the time came to ask questions, the investors asked them, and he gave easy answers. He tried his best to answer them as clearly as he could so that the men would see that he had all his cards on the table and there’s nothing to hide. He had an answer for every question that was thrown at him, and nothing could go wrong.
But then, when Annie tried to ask a question, he completely snubbed her and turned his attention to someone else. She didn’t let that stop her, though, and kept on trying to ask questions. He kept ignoring her until every other person in the hall had asked something except her. By this time, Larry knew that he had to answer her question, or else people would see him as rude. He reluctantly allowed her to ask something and immediately regretted it. Her question was deep, and it was one he hadn’t been ready for at all. She asked him about his plans if everything didn’t go as he wanted because she wanted to know how he would be able to answer the investors if things didn’t go as planned.
Larry couldn’t believe that she would dare question his genius plan. He had gone over it time and again; there was no way it wasn’t going to work. But then he remembered that she was probably trying to sabotage him; she wanted to poke holes in his plan so his investors would want nothing to do with him. Perhaps she worked for a watch company herself and was trying to get rid of her competition.
His face contorted in rage as he stared at her and finally saw her for who she was. He realized why she had come to the meeting to begin with. He stepped closer to her and exposed the truth in front of everybody. She was there just to ruin his meeting and stop his investors from working with him. He told her that he should have seen her for what she was back when she was outside. He should have known that a black woman in a place like that was definitely up to no good. He should have trusted his instincts and kicked her out instead of listening to the other investors. And that was what he was going to do now; he was going to follow his gut and make sure that her plan was going to fail.
At this time, Annie was fed up with his attitude toward her. He had been mean to her ever since she stepped foot in the venue. She was having none of it. She didn’t wait for him to call security on her; she simply picked up her things and left the venue. When she did, there was a deathly silence in her wake, but Larry was undeterred and told his investors that it was a necessary thing to do. Annie didn’t belong in their circle, and her presence there was only a distraction. He told them that he had done them all a favor because what else was a black woman doing in a meeting with the wealthy and elite of the city?
None of the investors said anything, and he continued with his presentation. He answered more questions, and soon his presentation was over. He directed them on how they could easily purchase the shares and decided to give them time to go over it. He then retired to his office, happy that the meeting had gone successfully.
However, about an hour later, he realized that not a single share had been bought. He returned to the hall and saw that many of the investors were actually leaving. When he demanded to know why they weren’t buying, they all said the same thing to him: that they were going to think about it. None of this made sense to Larry; his plan was genius, and they should have been falling over themselves to take part in all this. They should have been rushing over to get as many shares as possible. But somehow, they all seemed hesitant despite the time and patience he had poured into the presentation.
With sorrow in his heart, he watched as all the investors walked out of the hall, got into their cars, and drove off. Not a single share was sold. Larry felt like bursting into tears; it was as if the universe itself was fighting against him. It wasn’t fair at all, and it was also very strange. So he decided to find out what happened.
He began calling them on the phone one after the other. They kept deflecting their calls to their secretaries, and those only said that the bosses were thinking about the proposal. But Larry knew the business; he knew they didn’t want to buy the shares; they were simply lying about it. He demanded to know why, but they were all hesitant to tell him. However, 1 hour later, he received a phone call from a good friend of his. He was a multi-millionaire, and yet he too was refusing to buy his shares. The man was the first one to come clean about what had truly happened.
At that moment, Larry heard a story that shocked him to the bones. Turned out that Annie was not a secretary nor a subordinate but a rich businesswoman in her own right. She was not a naive girl trying to play with the big boys like he had accused her of. Annie had inherited vast wealth from her father, and instead of lavishing it on an extravagant lifestyle, she chose to invest it. She made her living by investing in companies and getting majority shares. She already had a finger in almost every pie in almost every industry in the state. As a result, she had major shares in a lot of companies, and the owners of many of those companies had been at Larry’s meeting thanks to her share.
She had enough power to make their companies suffer or even kick them out if she chose to. So all of them were simply trying not to get on Annie’s bad side by supporting the man who had been rude and extremely racist to her. For a long time after the call was over, Larry was unable to say a word. In his head, he kept replay
ing the instances he had been rude to Annie. They had been doing that to protect him from her wrath. He had foolishly ignored it all.
Larry couldn’t believe just how foolish he was. He also couldn’t believe that a big player like Annie could have skipped his notice. However, when he thought about it, he realized that racism had not been his only problem that day; his arrogance had also played a huge part in his defeat. He had thought that he only needed company CEOs because they would understand his plan better. If he had taken time to do a proper investigation, he would have found out about Annie, and all that ugliness would never have happened.
But by his own hands and tongue, he had destroyed his company and his father’s legacy. Larry shook his head; there was no way he was going to let it all go like that. He was going to do whatever was necessary to save his company, even if it meant apologizing to Annie. He got her number from his assistant and called her. She picked up on the first ring, but the minute he introduced himself as Larry, she cut the call at once. He kept trying to call her, but she refused to answer him and blocked his number.
Larry then resorted to texting. He sent long messages asking for forgiveness and a chance to make it up to her. However, they all went unanswered for about 3 days. After the meeting, he kept trying and trying to reach her, but she ignored everything. At his wits’ end, Larry decided to pay her a visit to the hotel where she was staying. He knew she had a project in town and was staying at one of the most prestigious hotels.
He had his assistant find her room, and he went to visit her. However, Annie refused him entrance and called security when he started thrashing and screaming for her to stop ignoring him. The hotel manager called the police, and he was arrested at once. Annie reported him for stalking her, and she said she was going to sue him for being racist to her. His actions had caused her severe emotional damage, and he was going to pay for that.
Larry wasn’t ready for what was coming. The court ruled in Annie’s favor, and he was obligated to pay her a huge fine. By the time she was done with him, he was so deep in debt that he could barely see a way out of the hole he had thrown himself into. His company had shut down completely, and no one was interested in buying it, not even for chump change. One reason was that people were scared of inheriting his company’s beef with Annie, and that would make buying it a terrible investment. Another reason was the fact that a lot of money would be spent revamping the company to its former glory, which also looked like a terrible investment.
In the end, he had no choice but to accept his loss. He sold the building to clear off his debts, but that wasn’t enough. Life had changed for him in such a short time that he couldn’t still understand how it had all happened. Just one moment, just when he thought he had everything figured out, he allowed his arrogance and racism to destroy the company his father had built. It was the same arrogance that had brought the company down in the first place and required him to find investors, and now it was the final nail in the coffin for him.
He had failed his family, especially his father. He had failed the employees that had been under his care, and for that, he would never forgive himself. From that day on, he swore to always view people as equals because that singular oversight had ended up becoming his undoing.
