Chapter 431: Keep Calling
Before Timothy could respond, he heard the tone of the phone call that was cut off.
He shouted "Mr. Knox" into the phone several times before placing his phone down on the table resignedly.
He walked over to his office chair and sat down. He pushed the extension button on his phone.
The call had not gone through yet when he heard hurried footsteps outside his office.
Rosa had walked into his office.
Her face looked very anxious as she asked Timothy, "The finance department hasn’t transferred the money to the clients yet? There are already two clients who have called me saying that we did not compensate them according to the contract and they are unhappy."
This was what Timothy had wanted to call Rosa to talk about. Now that she was in his office, his face turned dark, and he put down the phone.
He looked up at Rosa and asked seriously, "I was about to talk to you about this matter."
Rosa did not say anything as she waited for Timothy to continue.
"When you and Corrine signed the compensation contract with the clients - when was the final deadline for the payouts?" Timothy asked.
"Some are today, some are tomorrow," answered Rosa. "All the compensation contracts that we signed were for within a week. So that should be around these two days."
Timothy suddenly slammed his palms on the desk and shouted, "The payout deadline is today?"
Rosa was so shocked by Timothy that she took two steps back.
She drew a sharp breath as her eyes widened in fear and panic. "Is... is there something wrong? This time it was our fault, and we had approached them to discuss the compensation. These clients chose to continue doing business with us because of the long relationship we built with them. We will have to compensate them sooner or later. Isn’t a week enough time for the finance department to process it?"
Rosa did not understand why Timothy had flown into such a rage.
From her point of view, the company’s compensation was a given.
When a mistake was made that caused others to make a loss, it was only right to pay compensation.
Timothy shut his eyes, looked up, and took a deep breath.
He was afraid that he might not be able to breathe.
"Where is Corrine?" Timothy tried his best to maintain a calm tone. "Tell her to see me now."
Rosa nodded.
She took out her phone and dialed Wendy’s number immediately.
Wendy was lounging on her sofa and watching a television program.
She had never had so much free time over the past few years.
She was in such a good mood that she was eating popcorn.
She heard her phone ring and picked it up. She saw Rosa’s name on her screen.
For someone from the company to call her now, Wendy could guess what the call was about.
She put her bowl of popcorn down on the table and answered the call.
"Corrine, where are you?" Rosa asked while looking at Timothy. Rosa still had no idea why her husband was so angry.
"I’m at home. What is it?" Wendy acted as if she did not know what was going on either.
"Well, Timothy wants you to come down to the office," Rosa replied.
"To the office?" Wendy sighed, deliberately making herself sound a little displeased.
"I don’t think I should go to the office. I am now Mr. Woods’ number one suspect. If anything were to happen to HG, wouldn’t I be in trouble for going down to the office now? Also, I have already retained all the clients that I should and settled all the things that I could. I don’t think I am needed there."
...
"Corrine, can you stop fighting with Timothy? He has been very troubled by what has happened to HG recently. He... " Rosa wanted to help Timothy by saying a few nice things about him. But before she could do so, Timothy got up, walked over to Rosa, and snatched her phone away.
"What are you doing?" Rosa asked reflexively when her phone got snatched.
Timothy did not say anything but motioned for Rosa to keep quiet.
Then he spoke into the phone, "Corrine, come to the office. Now!"
His commanding tone made Wendy feel extremely upset, and she got angry too.
"Mr. Woods, I may be your mentee, but this country is a democracy," she retorted. "I believe I have my rights to freedom, don’t I? You don’t have the right to command me on what to do and where to go."
"I am not playing games with you," Timothy sounded more serious than usual.
"I am not playing games with you either," Wendy replied. "You had suspected me, allowed me to join the board, and wanted me to leave. You have always done whatever however you pleased. Don’t I get any freedom to choose? I think I can still choose whether to enter the office or not."
Wendy ended the call when she was done.
Timothy was mad when he heard her end the call.
"She hung up on me!" Timothy’s face twisted with anger. He was so furious that he smashed the phone.
This was the first time Rosa had seen Timothy act like that and was shocked.
"Did she say where she is now?" Timothy’s eyes were red as he looked at Rosa.
"At... home... " Rosa stammered as her breathing became shallow from shock.
"Bring along all the contracts and go to her now," Timothy said. He picked up his phone from the desk and walked out of the office.
Rosa was still in shock and only recovered after Timothy had left the office after a while. She hurried to her office to gather the documents.
She brought them along as she ran after Timothy.
She still had no idea why Timothy was so angry.
There were no problems with the terms for the compensation. He had agreed to them too.
But why was Timothy so mad about the compensation period being a week?
HG should have the money.
They had collected quite a large sum from pre-orders, and the Moonlight project’s first collection had also done very well. There should be enough money for the payouts.
Rosa simply could not wrap her head around it, but she also did not dare to slow down.
This was the first time she had seen Timothy acting like this. She was afraid of what might happen when he met with Wendy later.
Thankfully, Timothy was sitting in the car waiting for Rosa to join him.
Rosa opened the car door, but she dared not sit in the front passenger seat.
She handed the documents to Timothy and said, "Let me drive. I don’t feel safe with you like this."
Timothy was very worked up, and it would be dangerous to let him drive.
It was a good thing that he did not argue. He got out of the driver’s seat and walked over to the front passenger seat.
So, Rosa drove them while Timothy looked through the contract documents.
The documents did not have any problem.
The terms were also acceptable.
The only problem was that the timeframe was within a week.
Timothy closed his eyes and rubbed his temples.
Just when HG needed money, Christian was also demanding money.
Where was Timothy supposed to find the money for compensation?
At the same time, Wendy had turned off the television and gone to her room to change her clothes.
She guessed that Timothy would come to her house to look for her and so she wanted to go shopping.
....
Very soon, Timothy and Rosa arrived at Wendy’s house.
Rosa glanced at Timothy. When he stood at the door without moving, she took a step forward and rang the doorbell.
It was Zess who answered the door.
Zess saw that it was Timothy and Rosa and smiled. "Mr. Woods, Mrs. Woods, you haven’t come here in a while. Will you be staying for dinner?"
"Where is Corrine?" Timothy entered the house sweeping his eyes across the living room, but he did not see Wendy there.
Timothy sounded so fierce that the smile on Zess’ face disappeared.
Rosa saw what happened and pulled at his sleeve to hint at him to be more civil.
"Wendy... " Zess looked at them and said, "Wendy said that she was bored at home and wanted to go shopping."
"Will you look at that!" Timothy turned and vented his anger on Rosa. "First, she hung up on me now she’s not at home! She’s doing this on purpose!"
The more Timothy thought about it, the angrier he got. He was finding it difficult to control his emotions.
"I’m sure she didn’t mean it," said Rosa. Her hand reached into her bag for her phone and said, "I’ll give her a call."
But she could not find her phone and then she recalled that Timothy had smashed it.
"Why don’t you call her?" Rosa asked Timothy tentatively.
"Me? Call her?" Timothy did not want to make the phone call.
He had no good feelings towards Wendy right now.
"Forget it. Give me your phone. I’ll make the call." Rosa was also afraid that Timothy would start arguing over the phone and make matters worse.
Timothy hesitated for a while before handing his phone to Rosa.
Rosa touched the screen but found that the phone was locked. She handed the phone back to Timothy and said, "Unlock it."
As she watched Timothy unlock his phone, she frowned and muttered, "We’ve been married for so many years, and yet you always keep your phone locked and never told me the passcode... " Rosa had muttered softly, but Timothy was still able to catch some of it.
However, he did not say anything.
He had explained himself before. He had told Rosa that there were many documents and files about HG stored in his phone.
There were some documents that she was not supposed to look at, even as the head secretary.
It was the same for everyone, not just Rosa.
However, as his wife, Rosa was not allowed to peek at her husband’s phone.
This was something that had always been a sore point for Rosa.
But she knew that her husband was a workaholic and was more serious about HG than he was about her.
Since she had chosen Timothy Woods, she would have to accept his personality too.
After he had unlocked his phone, Timothy scrolled through his call records and dialed Wendy’s number.
And then passed his phone back to Rosa.
The phone kept ringing, but nobody answered.
Wendy was presently shopping at a mall.
Her phone rang, but she knew who it was from without looking.
So, when she looked at her screen, she was not surprised.
However, she put her phone back into her bag.
She did not answer it.
Wendy had not taken her time to shop at the mall in a while.
Today, she planned to shop to her heart’s content.
As for Timothy, she would let him search for her.
Rosa held the phone tightly, getting more and more anxious with each moment as the phone continued to ring.
"Did she hang up again?" Timothy asked furiously.
...
Rosa shook her head. "No, she’s not answering."
Rosa saw Timothy’s face darken and quickly tried to defend Wendy. "Maybe she didn’t hear her phone. Doesn’t she usually like to switch her phone to silent mode?"
"Didn’t hear her phone?" Timothy did not believe it. "Keep calling!"
Timothy sounded so stern that Rosa’s heart skipped a beat in shock.
Today, there was something not quite right with her husband.
But she did not dare to question him and continued calling again.
She called several times, but Wendy did not answer any of the calls.
Zess was watching from the side. She frowned deeply.
She had no idea what was happening but knew that Timothy had not come in peace today.
She tried to find out by asking, "What happened?"
At the sound of Zess’ voice, Rosa spun around and said, "Zess, why don’t you try calling Corrine?"
"You want me to call her?" Zess asked. "What do I say?"
"Tell her that we are here, ask her to come home and that we have something to talk to her about," Rosa answered.
Zess nodded her head slowly.
She regretted asking her question.
Looking at the situation, she was sure that Wendy would not come home so soon.
When Zess went to get her phone, she took the long route to look outside the door.
She wanted to check if Timothy had brought his bodyguard along.
She felt a little better since he had not.
If he had brought his bodyguard along, then the entire situation would be different.
If Zess were to get through to Wendy, she would tell Wendy to leave and not come home.
Though there was nobody else outside the house, Zess was still worried if the bodyguard might be waiting downstairs instead.
Zess became frightened, and her heart started beating faster.
"I... I’m looking for my phone... " Zess came back from the door. She was afraid that they might get suspicious of her coming from the door, and so she smiled and explained, "I thought I had left it next to the shoe cabinet, but I must have remembered wrong."
She walked around the house but did not find her phone. "It must be in my room," she said. "I’ll go look in there."
Then she immediately went into her room and closed the door.
Her phone had been in her pocket all along.
Taking out her phone, Zess did not call Wendy straightaway. Instead, she sent a text message, "Mr. and Mrs. Woods are here looking for you, but something seems wrong. I think you shouldn’t come home today. They want me to call you. Don’t answer."
After sending the message, Zess said in a loud voice for the guests to hear, "Where on earth did I put my phone?"
Timothy stood in the living room, his eyes staring hard at the entrance, his brows burrowed deep in his forehead.
"Are you still looking for your phone?" Timothy asked, obviously annoyed.
"I’ve found it," Zess answered immediately. "I had left it under my covers. No wonder I looked high and low and couldn’t find it."
Zess took her phone, opened her room door, and walked out.
Then with a smile, she walked up to Timothy and called Wendy in front of him.
When dialing, she deliberately showed Timothy her phone to see for himself that she was calling Wendy.
While the phone rang, Zess kept smiling at Timothy while silently praying for Wendy to not answer her phone.
Zess still had no idea why Timothy was here.
