First Meeting, First Disaster
On the cool, gleaming mahogany table at the summit of Mahesa Tower, two worlds were at war in the silence.
On one side lay an artifact of precision: a hundred-page proposal, neatly bound in a navy-blue cover and stamped with the silver Mahesa Group logo. Each page was a manifestation of Adrian Mahesa’s logic—graphs, profit-and-loss projections, risk analyses, and an implementation schedule detailed down to the minute. The document smelled of high-quality paper and undeniable authority.
On the other side leaned a large vision board. It was an explosion of organized chaos, the heart of Elara Kencana’s intuition. Swatches of sunset-colored silk, dynamic pencil sketches of flowing dress silhouettes, handwritten quotes from old poets, and a color palette inspired by the spices of the Archipelago. The board smelled faintly of fixative and overflowing passion.
Between these two poles, the air felt heavy and ionized, as if lightning was about to strike inside the glass-walled room that offered a view of the Jakarta skyline.
Adrian sat bolt upright, his back not touching the expensive leather of his chair. He was an extension of his proposal: his white shirt was flawlessly starched, his silver tie knotted perfectly, and his jaw set in a hard line. Beside him, Baskara, his COO, appeared more relaxed, but his watchful eyes never left Elara.
Elara, in contrast, was leaning forward, as if ready to pounce. Her fuchsia blazer was the only splash of bright color in the boardroom's sea of monochrome. Her fingers tapped an agitated rhythm on the tabletop. Next to her, Rina, her head designer, clutched an iPad nervously, trying to project a calm she did not feel.
The silence was broken by a sharp, rhythmic click. Adrian’s Montblanc pen was tapping the first page of his proposal. One. Two. Three.
“Right,” Adrian’s voice cut through the room, as cold as newly forged steel. “Since we are all here, wasting precious time, let’s begin. I trust you’ve read the executive summary I sent last night, Miss Kencana.”
Elara raised an eyebrow. A faint smile that didn't reach her eyes played on her lips. “Oh, the one as thick as a war novel? I read it, Mr. Mahesa. It was very… thorough. I nearly fell asleep during the demographic analysis of upper-quartile target donors.”
Baskara coughed softly, trying to hide a smile. Adrian remained impassive.
“Efficiency isn’t entertainment, Elara. Even a charity project is a business. There are targets, there are success metrics, and there is a brand image at stake. Primarily, the Mahesa image.” He stressed the last word, as if the Kencana name were an unimportant footnote.
“Brand image?” Elara gave a small laugh, like the sound of a cracked crystal bell. “A charity project is about heart, Adrian. About stories. About connecting with people, not just moving numbers from one account to another. People donate because they feel a connection, not because they’ve seen a good ROI projection graph.”
She gestured toward Adrian’s proposal with a sharp jerk of her chin. “Your document has no soul. It’s the autopsy of an idea, not its birth.”
Adrian spun the pen between his long fingers. “Soul doesn’t pay the vendor bills, Elara. Soul doesn’t organize logistics for a fundraising gala. Soul doesn’t ensure every rupiah raised can be audited and accounted for to the board of directors. My proposal is the framework. The backbone. Something you appear to lack.”
The barb hit its mark. In her mind, Elara saw herself, that night, building Kencana Mode from scratch with sketches and dreams, always accused of lacking structure, of being too impulsive. She clenched her fists under the table.
Rina touched her arm gently. “Elara, maybe we should show them the vision board?”
Elara took a deep breath, channeling her anger into creative energy. “Of course. Since Mr. Mahesa is so fond of structure, let’s start at the beginning. With the name.” She stood and walked over to her vision board, her fingers tracing a logo sketch. “I propose: ‘Threads of Hope’.”
Adrian stared at her, his expression blank. “Too poetic. Unclear. It lacks corporate weight.”
“It’s supposed to!” Elara retorted, her voice rising an octave. “‘Threads of Hope’ implies weaving, collaboration, a noble purpose. It’s memorable, it’s emotive.”
“My proposal,” Adrian said, flipping to page fifteen with infuriating precision, “suggests ‘The Mahesa-Kencana Legacy Project.’ Dignified, clear, and accommodates both entities fairly. It denotes strength and stability.”
“It sounds like a life insurance company!” Elara scoffed. “No one wants to attend a gala called ‘The Legacy Project.’ It sounds like we’re about to read another will.”
An awkward silence enveloped the room as the unintentional reference hung in the air. The face of Mr. Tirtayasa and his ultimatum seemed to materialize between them.
Baskara cleared his throat. “What about the color palette? Perhaps we can find some common ground there.”
Rina nodded eagerly. “Elara has a brilliant idea.”
Elara smiled for the first time, a genuine smile that lit up her face. She took a swatch of fabric from her board. It was a color between coppery orange and turmeric yellow. Warm, bold, and unexpected.
“Saffron,” she whispered, almost reverently. “The color of dawn. The color of hope. The color of the spice that began our nation's glory. A color that symbolizes something new and precious.”
Adrian looked at the fabric as if it were a strange insect that had landed on his sterile document. He tapped a button on his desk phone. “Display the color analysis from the Marketing Division.”
A large screen on the wall lit up, displaying a series of graphs. A circle of deep, dark blue dominated the screen.
“Mahesa Imperial Blue,” Adrian stated, his tone flat. “Based on five years of market research, this color is consistently associated with trust, luxury, and reliability. It is calming, dependable. Its use will increase the project’s perceived stability by twenty-three percent.”
Elara stared at the screen, then at Adrian, her mouth slightly agape in disbelief. “You… you conducted market research… for the color of a charity project?”
“Of course,” Adrian replied, as if it were the most foolish question he had ever heard. “Every decision must be based on data, not a fleeting sentiment over a spice.”
“Sentiment?” Elara stalked back to her chair, her anger simmering. “Adrian, fashion is sentiment! Generosity is sentiment! Do you want to build a project that feels like an annual report? Stiff, cold, and forgotten five minutes after you’ve read it?”
“I want a project that succeeds,” Adrian cut in, his voice sharpening. “A project that raises the maximum amount of funds with the highest efficiency. Not your personal art exhibition funded by our inheritance.”
The blood drained from Elara’s face. Personal art exhibition. The same words critics had thrown at her early in her career. The same words her own father had whispered when she refused to join the family business. And hearing them from Adrian’s lips—the man who had glimpsed her vulnerability on a night she tried to forget—felt like a slap.
Her mind raced. He sees me like that. Just an impulsive artist playing with money. He doesn’t see my hard work. He doesn’t see the Kencana Mode I built with blood and tears.
“At least my art exhibitions have a heart,” Elara hissed, her voice low and dangerous. “Something you seem to have discarded along with your humanity in favor of numbers on a screen.”
“My humanity is irrelevant in a business context,” Adrian countered, his eyes narrowing. “And your inability to separate emotion from strategic decisions is why Kencana Mode will always be second to Mahesa.”
“Enough!” Rina cried out, then immediately clapped a hand over her mouth, shocked at her own audacity. Baskara gave her a look that was a mixture of warning and sympathy.
But the damage was done. The boardroom was no longer a battlefield of business ideologies; it was now a personal arena. Every word was a weapon, sharpened by years of history and misunderstanding.
Adrian refocused on Elara, ignoring the interruption. “We will use the name ‘The Legacy Project.’ We will use Mahesa Imperial Blue. The collection’s theme will be centered on ‘Classic Elegance,’ in line with our most dominant brand image. That is the final decision.”
Elara laughed. It was not a laugh of amusement but a bitter one, laden with desperation and defiance. She stood slowly, her every movement charged with controlled energy. She walked around the table, stopping directly behind Adrian’s chair.
Adrian could feel the heat radiating from her. He could smell the faint scent of her perfume—jasmine and a hint of pepper—the same scent from that night five years ago that haunted his sleep. His heart beat a little faster. An anomaly he hated.
Elara leaned in, her lips right beside his ear. The room became so quiet that everyone could hear her searing whisper.
“No.”
A single word. Spoken with a deadly calm.
Adrian didn’t turn. He kept staring straight ahead, at his perfect proposal. “I’m not asking for your approval. I am informing you of the decision.”
“And I am informing you,” Elara whispered again, “that you can take your hundred-page proposal, with your boring blue and your miserable name, and file it somewhere very, very structured.”
She straightened up and walked back to her side of the table. Her eyes flashed with defiance.
“This project needs a spark, Adrian. Something people will talk about. Something bold. Something alive. Not something born in a dead boardroom.”
She snatched a sketchbook from her pile of things and flipped it open to a blank page. With a few swift, sure strokes of her charcoal pencil, an image began to form. Sharp, decisive lines merged with soft, sensual curves. The structure of an evening gown emerged—a classic silhouette reminiscent of a Mahesa design, but with a daring, asymmetrical detail and an unexpected neckline that was pure Kencana.
In thirty seconds, an impossible concept had been born on paper. A perfect fusion of logic and passion, structure and chaos.
Elara threw the sketchbook onto the table. It slid across the slick mahogany surface and came to a stop directly in front of Adrian’s proposal. A fragile pencil sketch challenging a hundred-page document.
“That,” Elara said, her voice back to normal but filled with a thrilling conviction, “is collaboration. Not dictatorship.”
Adrian stared at the sketch. His jaw was clenched so tightly a muscle pulsed in his cheek. For a moment, his mask cracked. In his eyes, there was a flicker of something no one else in the room could read—not anger, not annoyance, but something deeper. A grudging acknowledgment. An admiration he forced himself to extinguish. The design was… brilliant. And he hated it. He hated how she could conjure magic from thin air while he needed data and projections.
He hated how it made him feel something.
He lifted his gaze from the sketch, looking directly into Elara’s eyes. The war between them had reached its peak. Baskara and Rina held their breath.
Adrian closed his proposal in one sharp movement, the sound a final, definitive thud.
“Meeting adjourned,” he said, his voice like ice.
He stood, straightened his tie, and walked toward the door without a backward glance. Baskara scrambled to follow.
Elara remained standing, panting slightly, adrenaline flooding her veins. She had won a small battle, but she knew the war had only just begun.
As the boardroom door closed behind Adrian, Rina finally let out a breath. “Oh my God, Elara. I thought you were going to hit him with the vision board.”
“The thought crossed my mind,” Elara admitted, her fingers trembling as she sank back into her chair.
In the corridor, Baskara strode quickly to keep up with Adrian’s long-legged pace. “Adrian, wait. That was a bit…”
“A bit what, Bas?” Adrian cut him off without stopping. “Inefficient? Unproductive? You’re right.”
“I was going to say… intense,” Baskara corrected carefully. “The sketch wasn’t bad. In fact, it was quite good.”
Adrian finally stopped in front of a large window overlooking the city. He stared at the towering skyscrapers, symbols of power and order. His world.
“That’s not the point,” he said quietly, more to himself than to Baskara.
“Then what is the point?”
Adrian was silent for a moment, his reflection cast on the glass, a man in complete control of an empire, yet a storm was brewing inside him. He thought of the energy in that room, of the chaos Elara had brought with her, and how a small part of him—a part he had buried deep five years ago—had felt alive because of it.
Elara wasn’t just challenging his methods. She was challenging the entire foundation of his well-ordered world.
He turned to face Baskara, his eyes dark and determined. A new strategy was forming in his mind, a plan that was cold and ruthless. If Elara wanted to play with fire, he would make sure she got burned.
“Set up a meeting with the legal team,” Adrian commanded, his voice leaving no room for debate. “I want us to review every clause in my grandfather’s will. Every loophole, every ambiguity.”
Baskara frowned, confused. “What for? Mr. Tirtayasa made it clear. Collaborate or nothing.”
Adrian smiled, but it was a smile devoid of warmth. It was the promise of a long and grueling cold war.
“Collaboration has many definitions, Bas,” he said. “I’m going to make sure we’re the ones who define it. If she wants to play with ‘heart’ and ‘soul,’ then I’ll show her the power of a piece of paper, signed and stamped.” He paused, glancing back at the closed boardroom door, as if he could see Elara through it. “Find out everything about Kencana Mode's last project. Their budgets, their suppliers, their profit margins. I want to know every weakness we can exploit.”
Baskara was stunned. “Adrian, this is a charity project. Not a hostile takeover.”
“For her, perhaps,” Adrian replied, turning and resuming his pace. “For me, every boardroom table is a battlefield. And I never intend to lose.”