40 A storm came

I would like to say that Mother's birthday went without a hitch, but the truth is that because of the visual impact of the dress I was chased relentlessly for the whole night.

The next day I receive many letters with either requests for my help in organization of parties or dates. Ignoring the date letters I started to wonder if I should open an store that focus or oganizing parties, I could be in charge of the store and leave Leo like the active CEO of IP.

This way I could have fun, get the money and don't have the headaches of having to manage my beautiful empire.

Alas, is too early to think about this right now. We barely started and everyone is still unused to the stores operations. Furthermore IP didn't pass through any big storms, if I'm not inside the boat with everyone else, won't I be an incompetent captain?

Since I don't have too much time to spare, I decided to organize the parties of those who were very close to our family, whereas the ones that I was not familiar with I declined to organize, but said I could give them suggestions if they wrote to me their ideas/wishes.

'This way I won't offend nobody and I won't close the doors to event organization business'

-

Do you know when I said that IP didn't passed through any storms?

Welcome sailor! We are now on board of the ship Imperium Pacem. We suggest that you grab tightly the rails since we are about to enter a furious storm!

I really do have a crow's mouth *sigh*

What storm can possibly shake me this much, you ask?

Let me give a run down of the situation.

A week ago stores similar to Temone, Fame and Pontus started to open. It's normal that popular things to be reproduce by other sources besides its original one, and we always knew that if the stores succeeded we would probably have similar types opening after. The stores offered the same concept with a cheaper price. The 'imitation' stores made our clientele drop significantly, leaving only our regulars as a stable client. However I was not to worried about. The price we charge is based on the food and service offered, if they could reproduce the same standards in a cheaper price and still get profit, I will certainly bow down to the evil forces. As such, I reassure my employees to not worry and offer the same type of service they always have.

'We shall see who is the best'

Said and done. After 2 weeks of the new stores boom, their heat died down and some clients that went to the new stores came back complaining how inferior they were. Cheap food and horrible service. The thing about copycats is that they will never be as good as the original. It's a fact.

Our food was developed with so much care for so long and most of our staff was trained personally by me, when I needed partners to suffer the hell training together with me, so having them serving is like having trained nobles serving you. It's impossible that stores that barely opened could offer the same quality. Maybe one or two can come close but again, originals are always better.

When we thought that the storm went down, another huge wave hit the our ship. 15 of our 20 partners on Asters asked to be release for contract.

This time I panicked a little. I couldn't understand why partners that only gain with our deal would suddenly withdraw. But because it was always a possibility to, there was a term on the contract stating that the side that wanted to break the contract to need to pay for the other side the whole value of loss that would cause based on the sales made and the time left on the contract.

Although I lost money on a long term, I was not to bother by it, we should just recontact the other stores and re-offered the deal. Since Asters has grew in popularity, I was sure it would be an easy task. However, to my surprise most of the stores denied to sell their goods on our store. At the end of a tiring week only 5 brands accepted to work with us. From 20 brands, now we only have 10.

"To many things are happening at almost the same time"

"You are right, I barely had any sleep yesterday"

"Don't you think is weird? The stores were expected to open only a month or so for now. Besides, the sales from our partners were good, but not good enough for them to go solo again"

"Hmm... now that you said makes sense. Leo, ask someone to investigate if there is someone moving strings from behind. The faster the better, I think that the mastermind will still attempt something"

Thinking about it, I wonder what was the next step of our opponent.

If I wanted to destroy a company what would I do?

Hmm...

I would discredit their products and do a equal or better version of their products after the fall in the company's reputation.

Think so I quickly went to the Royal Palace.

'It's time to use my connections'