Chapter 433: Tension In The Air Again
Wendy drove as fast as she could, so fast that a ten-minute drive took her only five minutes.
Leah felt tired after singing two songs.
"Mummy, can I stop singing?" she asked. "I’m feeling a little tired. If you still want to listen to me sing, can I do that after you’re home?"
"Ok," Wendy replied. She had already reached home and was parking her car.
However, Wendy did not hang up.
She heard through her phone Leah’s voice saying, "Grandpa, Grandma, are you here to visit Jake and me today?"
Timothy looked at Leah’s smiling face but did not acknowledge her.
Because he was very angry with Wendy.
Rosa stooped down beside Leah and said, "That’s right. Do you like us to be here to visit?"
"Yes!" And then Leah took out her test paper from her school bag again. "Grandma, look! I scored full marks today, and my teacher also praised me!"
Rosa patted Leah’s head and praised her, "Leah, you’re so smart."
On the other hand, Jake still had his guard up while looking at this so-called Grandpa and Grandma.
He did not say a word. Instead, he observed the situation silently.
Almost immediately after, Wendy pushed open the door and entered the house breathlessly.
She saw Timothy standing in her house, and her face darkened. She quickly grabbed Jake and Leah and pushed them behind her. "Mr. Woods, aren’t you going too far today?" she said, sounding and looking angry.
"What have I done that is too far?" Timothy tilted his head up slightly to look at Wendy. He was equally angry. "What I have done is nothing compared to what you have done!"
"Mummy, what are you two talking about?" Leah was frightened by their raised voices.
Though she was still too young to fully grasp the situation, she could still tell from their voices that they were both unhappy.
Wendy took a deep breath and said, "Aren’t you here for me? Let’s talk outside."
Wendy did not want her children to be affected.
Wendy passed the children over to Zess, saying, "Please look after them. I’ll be back soon."
Timothy had not intended any harm toward the children. All he wanted was to talk to Wendy.
Now that Wendy was home and was willing to talk to him, he had no objections.
And so, Timothy and Rosa followed Wendy outside.
"Mummy... " Leah cried out loudly in fear.
Wendy did not turn around but clenched her fist and answered, "Leah, stay at home, be good and listen to Zess and Jake. I’ll be back soon. Don’t worry."
After saying that, Wendy walked out of the house in long strides.
She brought Timothy and Rosa to a cafe on the first floor.
She requested the cafe’s private room.
Once the door was closed, the noise from the outside was completely shut out.
Wendy stood in front of Timothy and asked in a composed voice, "What on earth do you want?"
"I should be asking you that!" Timothy raised his voice several notches. "You! What on earth do you want?"
"Mr. Woods, you wanted me to return to HG without giving me a reason. When I did not go, you sent people to pick up my children to threaten me. Isn’t it obvious that you have a reason to look for me?" Wendy said.
She continued, "Stop beating around the bush and get straight to the point. You should know that my children are where I draw the line. By touching them today, you have crossed that line. Which means that we’re no longer friendly."
...
"Corrine, how could you say that? Timothy missed the children and so asked his men to pick them up. He didn’t mean any harm," Rosa said, still trying to ease the tension.
She did not like seeing Timothy and Wendy argue like this.
"Mrs. Woods, I am not stupid. There is no need for any more cordiality," Wendy turned to face Rosa. She continued sternly, "Mr. Woods had always been suspicious of me. But it was ok as long as it did not affect others; I could still bear with how he treated me. But today, I am making it very clear that my children, Leah and Jake, are my limit. Nobody touches my children. Or else, don’t blame me for being nasty!"
"Nasty?" Timothy scoffed. "Haven’t you already turned nasty? Corrine, ask your conscience. Haven’t I been good to you?
"I saved you, groomed you. If not for me, you wouldn’t be where you are today.
"I don’t care if you aren’t grateful. But you actually stabbed me in the back."
"What did I do?" Now was still not the time for Wendy to admit the truth. On top of that, Timothy had touched Wendy’s children, so she was definitely not going to admit to anything.
The moment she admitted, she had no idea what Timothy and Christian would do.
"You still have the cheek to ask!" Timothy threw the contract in his hand at Wendy and said, "Give me a good explanation. What is going on with the payout deadline on the contract?"
Wendy suddenly felt relieved at what Timothy said.
She had thought Timothy had gotten his hands on some evidence.
But it was actually about the payout deadline.
When Wendy had deliberately chosen this path, she had foreseen that this would happen.
Wendy picked up the contract Timothy had thrown at her and took a serious look at it again. "What do you want me to explain?" she asked. "What’s wrong with the payout deadline?"
"The deadline is today!" Timothy fumed.
"And so?" Wendy asked again.
"And so... " Timothy was suddenly stumped by Wendy’s question. He had no answer.
Wendy saw Timothy’s silence and took the chance to continue, "Is there something wrong with the deadline? We had talked about this and set it as within a week. You had also agreed to the terms on the contract."
"Yes, I did agree to the terms of the contract but the payout deadline, how could it be within a week?" Timothy yelled.
"Why not?" Wendy shrugged her shoulders, pretending not to understand. "This time, it was indeed HG’s fault. We took the initiative to offer our clients compensation. Isn’t a week enough? I know that HG is very busy now, but there should still be time to handle all the payouts, right?"
Wendy had said the same thing as Rosa had earlier.
Rosa also did not understand why Timothy was so worked up. She helped defend Wendy, "That’s right, Timothy. Corrine is right. What is the problem with the deadline?"
"The problem is that we are unable to fork out so much money within a week, but Corrine had rashly decided on her own and caused this problem. This is forcing HG to breach the contract and go into debt!" Timothy was so angry that the veins on his forehead were throbbing.
"Wait a minute, Mr. Woods." Wendy held out her hand to indicate to him to stop, and then she said, "Why can’t HG fork out the money? Didn’t HG earn quite a lot from the pre-orders? If HG really cannot afford to pay, then why did you agree to the terms on the contract when I had first shown you the draft? Or were you using me to meet and retain the clients but had no intention of paying them any compensation?"
...
After Wendy had finished talking, the entire room became extremely quiet.
Timothy’s face had turned an angry red, but he refused to say anything.
The problem Wendy had pointed out was also what Rosa had felt was rather strange.
She, too, wanted to know where HG’s money went.
"Mr. Woods, let’s put aside the pre-orders for now. Let’s talk about the profits HG had been earning over the past few years," said Wendy. "I don’t know how HG was before, but for at least the past three years, HG has been making money, am I right?
"Just the Moonlight project’s first collection alone should have pulled in at least a billion dollars.
"And that is just net profit.
"Of course, I don’t know what the exact figure is. I’ve never seen HG’s financial report.
"Because according to you, these internal figures are shown only to the board of directors.
"Though I am also part of the board, I still haven’t seen any actual figures on HG’s status.
"Maybe you know what the exact situation is. Could you tell me where all of HG’s money went?"
"Of course, the money has been used for HG. Don’t just look at how much net profit HG has. There are so many other large expenses such as all sorts of advertisements, the cost of clothing, and more than ten thousand employees’ salaries," replied Timothy. But he did not dare look at Wendy in the eye.
He lowered his head to avoid her gaze. "Which company would have such a huge amount of liquid assets? When you agreed to pay out to clients within a week, did you consider HG’s financial status?"
"I did consider it. I thought HG had the money to pay out all the compensation," Wendy declared righteously. "I didn’t know that HG had spent all its profits."
"Is it that strange for such a large company to not have any spare cash?" That was the only retort Timothy could think of after being silent for a while. He did not know how else to refute Wendy.
"Really?" Wendy laughed. "Now that I am a member of the board, may I request to look at HG’s accounts? If HG really doesn’t have any money, then I had indeed not thought it through carefully."
Wendy pondered for a while before continuing, "That’s not right. Even after I’d checked the accounts and there isn’t any money, it’s you who never told me about HG’s financial status. If you had told me that HG’s finances weren’t doing well, then I would have thought of a way to buy us more time. I had set the deadline for a week with the clients because, one, I thought HG had the money, and two, we had to show our sincerity. I had already tried my best to keep the compensation sum as low as possible. But if we were to keep dragging our feet, which client would think that we are being sincere?"
Wendy’s words had once again made Timothy speechless.
There was tension in the air again.
Wendy continued with more, "And so, I have full reason to suspect that you were merely using me, making use of my relationships with the clients but you had no intention of paying. Or you had not thought of paying out within such a short time."
"That’s not what I meant," Timothy finally said something after a long pause.
"Then could you please explain what you mean?" Wendy kept pressing him.
"HG’s expenses are very high, and so we don’t have any spare cash. That contract was done in such a hurry that I did not have enough time to look through it. I thought that you would know... "
"Wait a minute, Mr. Woods," Wendy raised her hand again to cut Timothy off mid-sentence. "So, are you saying that it is my fault now? What do you mean by I should know? You know all the nitty-gritty about HG’s internal documents, but you did not take note of the terms of the contract. I know nothing about HG’s internal matters, and you thought that I should have known?"
...
Timothy was indeed very angry about the current situation.
However, he had not looked through the contract carefully.
Or it would be more accurate to say that when HG had first run into trouble, there were too many things to handle that Timothy had not noticed details like the payout deadline.
He had only looked at the payout figure.
Wendy had also made use of that, and had placed all her emphasis on the payout figure and had not mentioned the deadline at all.
She knew that Christian would need a large sum of money soon.
And according to HG’s plan, she had to retain a portion of the clients to not blow her cover.
After stabilizing this portion of clients, the only way to make HG unable to manage Christian’s demands and HG’s clients was through paying out compensation.
All this was well within Wendy’s plan.
If Timothy had noticed the deadline, Wendy would then have to lower the success rate of negotiating with the clients.
If the compensation were low and the payout period too long, the clients would have enough reason to request to end their contracts.
Timothy’s eyes met with Wendy’s, and he took a deep breath.
He had always suspected that Wendy had teamed up with Michael to snatch HG’s clients.
He did not have any solid evidence, so he did not dare to confront her as he wanted Wendy to stay and continue working for HG.
He had even humbled himself and apologized a few times.
However, there were simply too many coincidences.
When too many coincidences were put together, then it would no longer be a coincidence.
If Wendy teamed up with Michael against HG, then she would most certainly not help HG anymore.
In that case, Timothy was no longer afraid to confront her.
His eyes darkened as he squinted, carefully observing Wendy’s expression for any changes as he asked, "Corrine, are you working together with Michael Lucas?"
"Mr. Woods, so you really have been suspicious of me working together with Michael Lucas against HG all along," Wendy said, looking rather disappointed. "There has got to be a reason for me to work with Michael, right? Yonina Collins is several months pregnant with their baby. What do I gain from working with Michael? For him, Yonina, and their baby to sit back and enjoy the gains from HG’s collapse?"
"Do you... " Timothy had a burning question but did not dare to ask because he had no evidence.
But now, he could no longer hold it back. "Do you know about him and me?" Timothy asked carefully.
"Who are you talking about?" Wendy pretended to not understand. "What about you and who?"
Of course, Wendy knew.
Timothy suspected that she knew everything, and that was why she ganged up with Michael against Christian and Timothy.
But of course, Wendy would not admit to that at this juncture.
However, though Wendy knew, Rosa did not.
Rosa frowned and asked, "Timothy, what are you talking about? Who did you do what with?"
Because Rosa had been silent the whole time, Timothy had almost forgotten that she was present.
He could not let Rosa find out about this.
He turned and lowered his head a little towards Rosa, his eyes flickering as if he were deep in thought.
He had made use of Wendy’s children to meet her today.
He might not have another chance to have a good talk with Wendy.
Timothy looked up and said to Rosa very seriously, "Rosa, wait outside for us. There are some things that I want to talk to Wendy about in private."
