Chapter 288: Marry Michel Or You Can Choose To Marry Christian
Rosa tried to chase Timothy after he stormed off, but halfway through the corridor, she turned around and asked Wendy with concern, "What, what should we do now?"
Rosa could tell that Timothy had always treated Wendy with extra respect and care.
She knew that she wouldn’t be able to waver Timothy, but she also hoped that her daughter could lead a less stressful life. After all, she was once forced by her own father to study fashion design, so she knew how painful it was to have to learn stuff that she didn’t like at all.
Luckily for Rosa, her father was much more liberal than Timothy and respected his daughter’s free will.
As for Wendy, she was also at a loss. She foresaw that Timothy would get angry after finding out that Jill quit, but she had never expected him to be that furious.
She looked down at the floor and started pondering another way to help Jill.
After a short while, she looked up at Rosa and said, "Ms. Perrie, could you go to Lake City with Mr. Woods? I’ll call Jill now."
"Of course," Rosa said. She had trust in Wendy as Wendy and Jill had been confidants for years.
Wendy didn’t waste any time calling Jill after Rosa left, yet a message said that Jill wasn’t available for calls. She tried calling her a second time but got the same message.
Then she recalled Jill had told her that the training camp she went to was managed in a closed way, so it was likely that Jill didn’t have the phone with her at the moment.
Wendy pursed her lips and called Michael.
After the call got through, she heard Michael’s drowsy voice, "Wendy... " "Sorry. I forgot that it was nighttime there," Wendy apologized, sounding nervous.
"What’s going on?" Michael sat up on the bed as he tried to clear his mind.
He knew that Wendy had some favor to ask him for because they only do video calls when it was morning in Lake City and evening in Rheinsville City.
There was a twelve-hour time difference between Lake City and Rheinsville City.
This made the arrangement seamless as Wendy could talk to Michael and the kids at night right before they were going to school.
"Mr. Woods found out that Jill quit, which has totally angered him. He’s now going back to Lake City to bring her back home," Wendy said. "I tried to call Jill, but she’s not available, so I bet she’s training at the moment."
She continued, "So, I’m just wondering whether you can find a way to tip her off. If Mr. Woods finds her, he’ll force her to quit the show and to come back to Rheinsville City."
"Of course, I can," Michael said. "She’s training in Lake City, isn’t she? I have a lot of connections here. However, what’s going to be the next step? Do you want her to hide or flee?"
"Well... " Wendy was rendered speechless as she hadn’t thought through the plan yet.
She rubbed her forehead with her hands and walked back and forth in the corridor.
She asked, "What do you reckon then?"
"I think it’s in her best interest to have an adult conversation with Timothy," Michael said. "No matter how long she hides, she’ll have to face Timothy at some point."
"It won’t help. You didn’t see how furious Mr. Woods was. The second he finds Jill, he’ll pull her out of the show."
"Okay, then let’s notify Jill. She’s not a child anymore, and it should be up to her to decide for her future."
"Thanks. Please find a way to get on hold of her." Wendy sighed. Before she could say anything, she heard someone knocking on her door.
It was her assistant reminding her to go to the meeting.
"I need to attend a meeting now. Talk to you later."
"Sure. See you."
***
In the next couple of days, Wendy still devoted herself to her work as usual.
From time to time, Todd would go to Wendy’s office to make sure that she had her meals on time.
Wendy was too busy not to overwork these days, but she would still have every meal punctually.
At least she had avoided fainting from having low blood sugar, which made Todd less worried about her health.
On this day, Wendy took out her phone and started surfing the internet after she finished her drafts. She had been too overwhelmed with her work to follow the news in Lake City, so she took this brief break to catch up with it.
The two groups that made up most of the news stories were MC Enterprise and Collins Group.
MC Enterprise had been growing steadily, so the media had been consistently praising it. As for Collins Group, it was on the verge of bankruptcy.
One of the new headlines about Collins Group was ’Collins Group, Once A Prominent Conglomerate in Lake City, Is Facing Bankruptcy.’ Wendy clicked into the news and scrolled down to the comments section. Most of the people commenting on this piece of news were offering their condolences.
After all, Collins Group used to be one of the ten largest corporations in Lake City when it comes to market value, yet it was now collapsing.
Wendy couldn’t help sighing with regret after reading the news.
She clicked out of the link and started browsing through some other news.
Suddenly, she came across an article from the entertainment section titled ’DR Group and Collins Group Might Unite Through Marriage.’ Wendy couldn’t help frowning after reading the title.
"Heads of those two groups might unite through marriage?" Wendy thought.
"Yonina is the only heir of Collins Group, while Christian is the sole owner of DR Group. Unite through marriage? Are Christian and Yonina marrying each other?"
Wendy was dumbfounded after having this speculation because it was the DR Group that was trying to bring Collins Group to its knees.
Wendy clicked into the article that had hundreds of words.
The article said that Christian wanted to partner with Collins Group by marrying Yonina so that both their companies could be revived.
The comments below the article were much more eye-catching than the article itself.
"What the hell? Why does Christian Lucas want to marry Yonina Collins? Does this man have any shame at all? Wasn’t he the person who was trying to destroy the Collins Group? If it weren’t for his cunning scheme, Collins Group wouldn’t be facing bankruptcy this soon even after their disastrous investment in mineral."
"Is this what Christian has been trying to achieve? So, his whole plan to strike Collins Group is nothing but a ploy? Now I get it. He wanted to push Collins Group to the edge, so they had no choice but to cooperate with him. And they would partner up and go against MC Group together."
"The people in this comments section are so naive. ’Partner up and go against MC Group?’ Are you freaking kidding me? Collins Group and DR Enterprise are scraping the bottom of the barrel to survive these days. Do you really think that these two rivals can somehow revive themselves because of marriage?!"
"I can’t even keep up with what’s going on anymore. You never know what these rich capitalists would do next."
"Did Christian have his eyes on Yonina a long time ago? Maybe his evil plan was to back the woman he loves to a corner, after which she will have no choice but to marry Christian and live happily ever after like in a cheesy romantic movie."
"Haha to the person who said Christian was doing this just to get Yonina to marry him. Get back to reality. Besides, even if it was like a cheesy romantic movie, Yonina wouldn’t be some gullible girl who could get easily tricked."
Wendy pursed her lips as she scrolled through the comments that were speculating the reasons behind that gossip.
"What on earth is he doing?" Wendy thought.
For what it’s worth, the less she could understand Christian’s move, the more anxious and worried she got.
...
A few days ago, Wendy had asked Timothy if he knew anything about Christian’s activities in Rheinsville City.
Timothy had assured her that he would try and find out.
However, since he was still in Lake City, dealing with Jill, he had not had the time to investigate.
Wendy sat quietly, her fingers tapping a melody on the table.
As though in tune with her finger tapping, her thoughts wandered back and forth as she tried to figure things out.
But, try as she might, she could not even get close to working anything out.
...
Meanwhile, in Lake City, at the Collins home.
Yonina and her parents were having a heated discussion in their living room.
She had been staying at a hotel since the last time she left home.
And now, her dad had ordered her mum to summon her home and discuss their response to Christian’s bombshell.
For a few minutes, there was a pregnant pause as tension built up in the room.
Until someone’s phone began to ring, breaking the silence.
It was Yonina’s dad’s phone.
He picked up his phone and looked at the caller ID. Immediately, the thunderous anger on his face was replaced by tentative submissiveness as he uttered, "Mr. Lucas, Yes of course. I will..."
"Don’t worry. I will definitely talk her around."
"That’s right. We agree."
Hearing her dad speaking so meekly, Yonina jumped to her feet, grabbed the phone from her dad’s hand and threw it to the floor.
"What are you doing!" With rage written all over his face, her dad stared at the phone on the floor and raised his hand, intending to hit her.
But Yonina did not budge and looked defiantly at him instead, waiting for him to strike her.
Despite shaking uncontrollably with fury and looking like he was about to crush her, he did not strike her.
"We raised you and gave you everything. It is now time for you to show your gratitude and repay us for raising you," he said, adding, "I’m not asking for anything, other than that you agree to marry him. That will solve everything" "I refuse," Yonina told her dad. Then, in a serious tone, she continued, "I made it very clear on the phone before I came back here. If you intend to force me into this marriage then there’s nothing to talk about."
"Did you really think that you ’d be able to get away, now that you’re back?" Then, Mr. Collins yelled out to the housekeeper, "Lock all the doors and keep her here. And if any of you dares to let her out, you can get out too!"
"There’s no point locking me up," Yonina scoffed, adding, "I knew this would happen if I chose to come back. Listen up, Dad. If you keep me locked up in here, I will kill myself. When that happens, you’d not be able to accomplish your mission either."
"You..." her dad was shaking so violently that he was unstable on his feet as he staggered backwards and uttered, "Are you intent on sending me to an early grave?"
"No, Dad. I’m not trying to send you to your grave," Yonina took a deep breath and replied. In a somewhat conciliatory tone, she said, "Have you even thought about why Christian has been coming at us, trying to bring us down and now, wanting to consolidate through marriage?"
"Indeed, I have been thinking about it and I have yet to find the answer. Of course, I know that this is not as simple as it looks but what else can I do? Since you have flatly refused to cozy up to Winnie or Michael, we have no one else to turn to for help," he replied.
"You have two options. Marry Michel and get him to help the Collins Group out of this dire situation. Or, you can choose to marry Christian. I don’t care what his motive is, as long as the Collins Group can be saved."
"So, you don’t care what happens to me, your daughter, as long as the Collins group is kept intact. Is that right? But then again, I’m sure you realize that this could very well be a trap?" Yonina asked smilingly.
But her smile looked decidedly bitter.
