Chapter 197: Loss of Power

The sound of running water rang for a while before Eric, who was taking a shower, walked out of the bathroom.

The sunlight coming in through the gaps in the curtains already signaled a sunny morning.

On an early September morning in Los Angeles, the temperature was just about 72 degrees which was the so-called “golden temperature” that the human body loved.

Eric found his clothes and put them before looking at the young beauty who was still lying in bed, asleep. Her nude body was unreservedly displayed in front of Eric's eyes because of the blankets being scattered to the side. Due to her Asian ancestry, Gabrielle had a small, yet exquisite physique with skin that was smoother and more delicate than Caucasian women. The soft curve in her back moved all the way down, forming a slender arc on her waist, and then quickly bulging at the hip, forming two tiny mountains, full of feminine temptations. The round thighs underneath were together, but it was difficult to hide the secret garden in between.

Even after Eric put on his tie and jacket, Gabrielle showed no sign of waking up.

Eric looked at the young woman sleeping like a baby with her right thumb in her mouth. Seeing her mouth, he couldn't help remembering last night’s events and feel a little excited as he sat beside her on the bed, reached out and pulled her fingers out of her mouth, and gently pushed his index finger inside.

Suddenly, Eric felt the two wet lips unconsciously sucking on his finger. As he slowly pushed his finger further inside, the two rows of tiny teeth gently bit on it. Then, as if suddenly feeling a difference between the new finger and the previous finger, her soft tongue began to push up with dissatisfaction as if it wanted to drive out the strange intruder.

Unfortunately, the strength behind her tiny, soft tongue was not comparable to Eric’s finger, and after a bit of a tug of war, Gabrielle suddenly opened her eyes.

"Woah!" After quickly sitting up and pulling the blanket to cover her nude body, she saw Eric and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Morning… good morning, Eric," possibly embarrassed by her gaffe, Gabrielle smiled and greeted him quickly.

"Morning," Eric smiled and shook his wet index finger in front of her as he said, "Unexpectedly, you still suck on fingers while you sleep."

"Ah, I... did I?" Gabrielle lowered her head with shame. The moment she had opened her eyes, she saw the movements of Eric's fingers, so she recalled some scenes from last night.

Eric smiled and nodded, "Of course, this is the first time I have seen a girl who likes to suck on her fingers while sleeping."

"I didn't even know I did that," Gabrielle still had her eyelids drooping as she glanced around, seemingly looking for something.

Eric understood what she was looking for as he passed her bra and panties from the floor to her, "It’s not a big deal. In fact, many people don’t even know that they snore while sleeping, and even after waking up still refuses to acknowledge it..."

Just as she was about to put on her tiny panties, Gabrielle raised his head in horror and asked, "I... I didn't snore, did I?"

"Of course not," Eric shook his head quickly, "I'm just giving an example."

"Oh," she sighed in relief.

After she put on her bra and panties and walked barefoot to her closet, Eric said, "Baby, I have to go."

Standing by the closet, thinking about what to wear today, Gabrielle stiffened for a second before she turned her head and asked, "Won’t you have breakfast?"

Eric looked at his watch and replied, "It's almost half past eight, and there may be traffic jams on the road. I don't know if I can get to the company by nine o'clock. Since I have to fly to Venice at two o'clock in the afternoon, there are some things that I need to deal with this morning. At ten o'clock, I have a meeting with Bob and Jeffrey to discuss the merger of Firefly and New Line. My new movie’s shooting schedule has also been determined and I need to see it myself... In short, I have to deal with a lot of things in the next five hours."

However, seeing the disappointment on her face, his tone softened, and possibly due to feeling guilty, he said, "Hmm… is there a breakfast restaurant nearby? Maybe, I can afford to spend ten minutes on breakfast together."

"Of course, can I wash up first?" Gabrielle raised her face in surprise and asked.

Now that he has decided to have breakfast with her Eric doesn’t mind spending some time, so he replied, "Take a shower, but do it quickly, if possible."

"Wait just a minute!" Gabrielle said and excitedly picked out a few clothes before rushing into the bathroom. In less than fifteen minutes, she was ready in a light blue shoulder bag hip skirt, black stockings tightened around her slender legs and her hair tied into a small bun. After putting on her only pair of high heels from the side shoe rack, she stood up and said to Eric, "Alright, let's go. The restaurant is just a few minutes from here."

***

"Eric, it's almost half past nine! What's going on with you today? Your phone was also turned off, don't you know how tight the time is today?" When Eric appeared at the company, Jeffrey anxiously questioned him.

Facing the anxious and worried old man, Eric felt slightly embarrassed as he explained, "Sorry, Jeffrey, there was a traffic jam on the road."

"Impossible. There was no traffic jam from your house to here."

"Actually, I came from West Hollywood," Eric immediately raised his hands and said honestly.

"Uh..." Jeffrey was stunned and soon understood what Eric was implying. At the same time, he realized that he had overstepped his bounds; after all, Eric is his boss, not the other way around. Although he knows that Eric won’t mind his stern tone, he is not Eric's family. If he occasionally reprimands Eric, Eric won’t say anything out of respect for him, but over time, anyone would feel dissatisfied.

"Anyways, there are a few documents that you need to sign. I have asked Alan to sort them and put them on your desk. You have half an hour to process them. Bob has already brought someone over. I'm going to the conference room to prepare."

"I'll take care of it," Eric nodded to Jeffrey and walked quickly to his office. Jeffrey also went to prepare his own business.

Although the M&A agreement has been signed, for the two companies to be truly merged, they need to deal with a large number of issues such as business integration, management organization, company structure adjustment and personnel integration and abolition. Therefore, it will take at least a month for the two companies to be truly integrated. During that time, the business of neither companies can be stopped, so there will be a period of parallel operation.

While he was quickly reviewing a few documents, Alan came and knocked on his door, so Eric put down the folder and walked to the conference room.

***

In the conference room, besides Robert Shaye, there were six or seven executives from New Line. Among the people from Firefly, everyone except Eric and Jeffrey could be ignored. As a result, the comparison made Firefly seem very weak.

Although the profitability of New Line was far inferior to Firefly, its various businesses were very sound with complete production, copyright, publicity, and distribution departments. On the other hand, other than its terrifying profitability, Firefly was more like a tiny workshop. Jeffrey was responsible for the management and also served as the producer for Eric's films. Although sometimes he ended up very busy, most of the time he was more than capable of taking care of the company.

In fact, not much was agreed upon during the two-hour meeting except a quick agreement that they needed to find another office space to move the two companies together as soon as possible. The main dispute was regarding who would have power over production.

Of course, Eric hoped that Robert Shaye would completely let go of production and concentrate on film distribution. So long as the film distribution could grow stronger, coupled with his film vision, Firefly could leapfrog to the position of a movie giant in just a few years.

Not surprisingly, his proposal was directly rejected by Robert Shaye. A member of the board of directors of a film company having no say over production? Could there be a funnier joke?

Eric immediately proposed that Robert Shaye could be responsible for the production of some low-cost horror movies. After all, this could barely be considered his “strong suit”.

But surprisingly, Robert Shaye still refused. Not only did he want production power over the low-cost movies, he also hoped to be able to personally operate several of the company’s major productions in the future. 

Back when he was in-charge of New Line, Robert Shaye did not dare dabble in big investment since a single flop could lead to the studio going bankrupt. But with Firefly's funds backing him, his ambitions were inflated. He knew that with the proceeds from Eric’s next few films, Firefly would be flush with cash for investment. After all, there were few dark horse movies that had a low budget but earned big at the box office, otherwise Eric's success would not be so amazing. Generally, to obtain a stable and high return, big investment and big production were a necessity.

Of course, Eric couldn't agree to Robert Shaye's demand easily. Even if Firefly had money, it wasn't filthy rich. Not to mention, he didn't have much confidence in Robert Shaye's film vision. Although during his previous life, New Line had had great success in The Lord of the Rings series, there was also the fiasco of The Golden Compass. Altogether, Robert Shaye’s career had been dependent on his luck.

However, in the face of his insistence, Eric had to make concessions. After all, what he most urgently needed was New Line’s distribution channel. Therefore, quickly integrating with New Line was the priority with a slight loss in power being an inevitable outcome.

In the end, Eric reluctantly agreed to give the New Line label two major productions with a total cost of just under $50 million in the next year and complete authority to Robert Shaye regarding those two films. After the two-hour meeting, Robert Shaye and his party left with satisfaction.

Eric was eating a simple lunch while continuing to look through the documents. He was about to set off directly to the airport later, but he had to finish reading and sign the last few documents as soon as possible.