Free Web NovelChapter 435: Money Is Still The Most Important Thing
Seeing Timothy Woods remain in silence, Wendy continued to make calls.
She made four to five consecutive calls, but no one was willing to accept the postponement.
Some even refused to pick up.
Unwilling to continue, Wendy heaved a sigh. "Mr. Woods, as you can see, it’s not that I’m unwilling to help HG.
"I’m simply unable to.
"I wish more than anyone else that HG Enterprise can continue its operations.
"If HG had the funds, I hope that you can compensate the clients as promised.
"If HG was really out of funds, I don’t know what to do either."
Timothy’s hand was balled into a fist as he thumped it loudly against the table.
He closed his eyes as his thoughts were in disarray.
"Corrine Swift, watch your back." With that, Timothy opened his eyes and turned to leave.
He threatened Wendy.
Wendy watched as he left and announced loudly, "Mr. Woods, let me remind you, don’t you think of touching my kids or manipulating me or surveilling me.
"Otherwise, HG Enterprise should watch its back too."
Once Wendy was done speaking, Timothy walked out of the room.
On his way out, he heard sounds of a commotion outside.
"Let me in!"
It was Todd Lewis.
"I want to go in!"
Shortly after that, it sounded like a fight had broken out.
"Stop that!" Rosa Perrie urged. "Stop fighting, you two!"
Wendy and Timothy heard the ruckus, and both of them quickly headed out to see what was going on.
Timothy pushed the door of the room open and was greeted by chaos.
Todd was in a fistfight with a bodyguard.
Rosa, who was at the side, was in a flurry to break the two men apart.
The bodyguard did not dare hurt Todd, so he was simply restraining him.
After all, as someone not trained to fight, Todd was powerless against the bodyguard.
"Release him!" Wendy stepped forward and pushed the bodyguard.
The bodyguard looked over at Timothy for instructions.
He remained silent, so he kept Todd under restraint.
When Timothy raised his hand, the bodyguard freed Timothy from under his grip.
"Are you okay?" Wendy examined Todd. Seeing that he was not hurt, she was relieved.
"I’m okay. What about you?" Todd asked Wendy as he got to his feet and looked at Timothy defensively.
"Why are you here?" Timothy glared icily at Todd.
If Timothy could be described as only being about 60 percent suspicious of Wendy, with Todd’s worry at this point, he was at about 80 percent.
Perhaps Todd had mentioned something to Wendy.
Otherwise, he would not be so worriedly waiting at the door outside the room.
Since Timothy was Wendy’s mentor, it was no big deal that they were meeting up privately.
Todd should not be so nervous about it.
Therefore, the more Todd appeared concerned, Timothy’s suspicion towards them grew.
"I called him over," Rose explained upon noticing Timothy’s glare.
The situation seemed off, so Rose was worried about them.
She did not know what Timothy suspected Wendy of, so she thought that bringing Todd in would have made things turn out better.
After all, Timothy was Todd’s mentor too. If anything, he could help ease things off.
But with the way things turned out, Rose’s initiative to involve Todd seemed to be a wrong choice.
"Why did you call him here?" Timothy scowled at Rose. "You’re too nosy!"
"I..." Rose’s forehead creased. She tried to find words to respond to Timothy but ended up stopping short of a response.
....
Timothy had laid out by now everything that should be said.
With Wendy’s vehement denial, there was no point in Timothy interrogating Todd about it again.
Moreover, if Timothy wanted to do so, he would have to find another opportunity to do it.
With that, Timothy took walked forward.
When he got to Rosa’s side, he spoke dryly, "Aren’t you leaving?"
Rosa was upset with Timothy. However, with so many people present, she held back and left.
The bodyguards trailed behind Rosa and Timothy as they walked off.
Seeing that they were out of sight, a concerned Todd asked, "Are you alright, Wendy?"
Wendy nodded and assured him, "I’m fine."
"When I received Mrs. Woods’s call, I was terrified!" Todd blurted. "It looks like Mr.
Woods is growing clearly suspicious of us.
"I will need to increase the security around you and the twins."
Todd knew about everything that was happening and could tell that Timothy had plans to use Leah and Jake to threaten Wendy.
This demonstrated the severity of the matter.
If Timothy and Wendy were truly at odds, Todd was worried that Timothy might do something to Wendy.
"Don’t worry too much," Wendy started as she took a deep breath. "The relationship between Mr. Woods and myself was extremely strained today.
"So I took the opportunity to let him know that if he were to touch Jake or Leah or hire someone to follow me, I would bring HG Enterprise down with me.
"For the time being, Mr. Woods will probably not want HG to be ruined along with us.
"That being said, now that Mr. Woods no longer trusts me, he will definitely not allow me to have more say in matters concerning HG.
"I won’t be able to step into board meetings either, so we need to come up with another way around it.
"It also goes without saying that for the safety of Jake and Leah, even if I am no longer helping HG, I cannot bring more harm to HG.
"Otherwise, Mr. Woods would be pushed to a corner, and, in desperation, he might do something unthinkable."
As Wendy walked, she turned to Todd and said, "By the way, how is your investigation about Clement?"
Clement was one of the few members of the board that Wendy came to know of.
She had previously instructed Todd to look up more about Clement, and it has been some time since she asked him to do so.
Now that Wendy could not sit in the board meeting, she could only rely on looking into Clement for a possible breakthrough.
"I found some useful information. I’ll send you the details when I get back, and you can read through them first," Todd replied.
"Good," Wendy said as she nodded.
...
Rosa trailed behind Timothy.
After leaving the cafe, she was no longer able to hold back.
"Timothy Woods, what are you hiding from me?" she probed.
"What could I keep from you?" Timothy was already having a headache after his interaction with Wendy.
Now, Rosa’s question came as an annoyance to him, and it wore his patience down.
"Can you keep your nose out of my business? I had you waiting outside already, so why did you have to call Todd Lewis over?"
"With how you were today, I was worried that you might fight with Corrine in there if I didn’t ask Todd over!" Rosa explained. "I just want to know, how major is this thing that you’re keeping from me?"
"Rosa, it’s clearly a matter I don’t wish to share with you. So why do you bother pestering me for an answer?" Timothy yelled, "Mind your own business and do your part well! Keep your mouth shut about everything else and stop trying to probe!"
"As your wife, how could you ask me to turn a blind eye when I know you are hiding something big from me?" Rosa tugged at Timothy’s sleeve as she continued, "Do you think it’s possible?"
Before words could come out of Timothy’s mouth again, his phone rang.
It was Christian again.
....
The person that Timothy least wanted to speak to at the moment was Christian. frёewebηovel.cѳm
Christian’s full focus was on the new project.
He definitely cared little about the survival of HG Enterprise.
Sighing, Timothy held his phone and took a few steps forward.
He could not take this call in front of Rosa.
Rosa heard the phone ring and looked at Timothy’s phone screen before asking, "A call from C again?"
Seeing how Timothy ignored her, she hurried to catch up to him. Tugging on his shoulder, she asked, "Where are you going?"
"Go back first," Timothy instructed. "I still have matters to take care of."
"Could it be that you dare not take this call in my presence?" Rosa held on tightly to Timothy, refusing to let him go as she said, "Timothy Woods, what are you up to?
Why can’t I know about it?"
Timothy was not in the mood to explain the matter to her.
He tried to shrug Rosa off, but her grip was firm.
Timothy was concerned that if he shrugged Rosa with too much force, she would fall.
So he turned to his bodyguard and gestured.
Icily, he ordered, "Drag the head secretary away."
"I dare you to!" Rosa hissed.
The bodyguards looked at one another, hesitating to take action.
"Do you not understand my words?" Timothy grew more agitated as he emphasized, "If you don’t realize, I’m the one who pays you.
"Do as I say, now!"
After a short pause, the bodyguards took action.
Rosa was pulled away from Timothy.
She helplessly watched as he stalked off.
"Timothy Woods!" Rosa screamed as she had a bad premonition.
No matter how much she yelled, Timothy did not turn back.
It was only when Timothy was a far way off that the bodyguard released her and apologetically mumbled, "Excuse me, head secretary."
Rosa gazed into the distance and slumped on the ground.
Wendy and Todd had taken their time to leave the cafe as they did not want to bump into Timothy.
They did not expect to still see Rosa when they came out.
"Mrs. Woods...," Wendy called out as she hurried over, seeing Rosa on the ground.
She bent down to help Rosa to her feet.
Tears streamed down Rosa’s cheeks.
She leaned against Wendy’s wrist and looked blearily at Wendy.
With a heavy heart and pain in her voice, Rosa said, "Corrine, what is this all about?
What’s happening to Timothy?"
"I’m not too sure about Mr. Woods’s matters," Wendy responded with a sigh. She was not in the position to elaborate and could only advise, "Mrs. Woods, don’t worry too much about it."
"It’s impossible for me not to worry." Rosa could tell that matters were severe from the way Wendy was avoiding elaborating on it.
For something this major to crop up, Rosa could only imagine that Timothy might have committed some sort of crime.
With tears in her eyes, she probed once more, "Did...Mr Woods commit..."
Rosa stopped for a good while but was not able to utter that word.
Mustering her courage with a deep breath, Rosa pressed on, "...a crime?"
"Mrs. Woods, don’t overthink things. Just take care of yourself," Wendy repeated herself as she could not say more.
This had nothing to do with Rosa, and if she were aware of it, she would be dragged into further complications.
Rosa had a good idea of what could be going on seeing Wendy avoid her question once more.
She straightened herself and hastily wiped her tears with her hands.
Nodding, she asked no further and left.
...
Timothy got into his car and drove away.
While he was in his car, Christian called again.
Solemnly, Timothy took a deep breath as he stuffed a bluetooth earpiece into his ear.
He took the call.
"What on earth are you doing? Why didn’t you pick up?" Christian bellowed from the other end of the receiver as soon as the call got through.
"Just now..." Timothy did not want to bring up Wendy’s name, so he swallowed his words.
He could not inform Christian about these things.
Christian already had his suspicions about Wendy.
If he were informed that she had been doing things against HG secretly, she would be in danger.
Regardless, Wendy was Timothy’s prot.. .
However heated their arguments got, there would not be any further danger.
As for the type of person Christian was, Timothy was clearer than anyone else.
"What happened just now?" Christian asked.
"Just now, a client had called to chase me for the compensation. I had a long talk with him, so I didn’t respond to your call," Timothy replied.
"Was that settled?"
"No." Timothy sighed before continuing, "Christian, HG is out of funds. It’s hard to keep HG afloat now.
"On top of contract termination fees, there’s the compensation to settle.
"Clients are chasing us for the money."
"You can drag out those payments," Christian immediately said. "As for this project, we can’t stop right now. Michael has been keeping an eye on me.
"If I were to stop right now, he would definitely snatch it over to his side.
"Moreover, if the person-in-charge were informed that there are issues with my capital, they would terminate the contract with me."
"But are you leaving HG as it is now?" Timothy questioned.
"I’m not leaving it as it is. I’m just asking you to think of a way to get drag things out with those clients.
"All it needs is to get through these few months before HG Enterprise would enjoy investment returns," Christian explained. "Moreover, as long as you keep Wendy coming up with new designs, there will always be a way."
"It’s impossible for her to ever produce designs for HG Enterprises anymore," Timothy spurted in the heat of the moment.
When he realized what he had done, it was too late.
Christian had caught on and asked, "Why is it impossible?"
Timothy racked his brains for an excuse. "With the chaos that HG is in, she’s too caught up in it and can’t spare more thought to think up new clothing designs.
"You’re not a designer, so probably don’t know that we, designers, are reliant on inspiration.
"If our mood is affected, so is our ability to create."
Timothy’s words seemed reasonable.
Yet, at the other end of the line, Christian’s brows furrowed.
"That can’t be it," Christian said thoughtfully. "What you said must have some other meaning."
"I didn’t mean anything else." Timothy noticed the red traffic light ahead of him and hurriedly stepped on his car brakes.
"Timothy Woods, did you discover something?" Christian was sharp, so it was not possible to mask the problem with such superficial reasons.
"Nothing... There’s really nothing," Timothy tried to assure Christian for fear that he might harm Wendy.
Unfortunately, Christian refused to believe Timothy as he probed, "Could it be that you found evidence of Wendy working against HG?"
"No, if there were evidence, I would have told you about it already," Timothy spoke truthfully about this.
Since there really was no actual evidence, Christian stopped questioning Timothy about this further.
He knew that sorting these details out was not meaningful at this point.
The most important thing at present was still the issue of money.
