Chapter 294 How Is a Week Possible?
The night faded as dawn approached.
The alarm beside the bed kept on ringing but even after Courtney reached her hand out from the blanket to turn it off, it just didn’t seem to stop. She squinted and realized that it was still dark outside. Then, she turned toward the clock and realized that it was just past three in the morning.
Finally, she realized that it wasn’t her alarm clock going off—it was her phone.
“President Hunter, something has happened to the warehouse.”
Bill’s voice echoed in her ears as Alexander drove her straight to the warehouse. The moment they arrived, all they saw was an ocean of flames in front of them. After the two fire trucks arrived, a huge hose with high water pressure was used to suppress the fire but it didn’t work.
How can this happen?” Courtney saw Bill as soon as she got out of the car. Seeing the ashes on his face, it seemed as though he just escaped from the fire.
“At eight o’clock, I left after checking all the products. I asked Bobby and a few others to check the products again tonight. An hour ago, I received a call from Bobby saying the warehouse was on fire so I rushed over here. Right now, we can’t figure out the cause of the fire but we are definitely not the ones responsible for it.”
“Does it matter who is responsible for this?” Courtney held her forehead, feeling out of breath. Under the pressure, she started to speak carelessly. “There’s only one week until the deadline to hand in the products. At first, I wanted to hand in the products today so that we won’t have anymore problems, but you insisted on sending it to the warehouse first! I’m afraid it makes you look really suspicious.”
Meanwhile, Bill’s eyes were bloodshot. After getting embarrassingly yelled at in the face, he remained silent with his head down.
Even Alexander couldn’t stand it anymore so he tugged at Courtney’s sleeve. “Stay calm. The fire hasn’t been put out yet so we still don’t know what happened. It’s useless to blame anyone. Now, we need to think of a solution.”
“What solution do we have?”
She roared at Alexander in frustration before angrily kicking at a cardboard box beside her.
This is Citron’s first order but there have been twists and turns from the very start. Finally, we managed to reach the end with just a small step away from completing it but then, the fire started. It’s hard for me to believe that this isn’t caused by someone.
At first, Courtney was worried that more problems might arise so she proposed to send out the finished products to the Sakura Group first, but Bill insisted on sending it all out at once, which ended in this mess.
After hearing the news, Natasha rushed over and exchanged looks with Alexander before splitting Courtney and Bill far apart so that they would have some space to calm down.
Although Bill remained silent, his current mood wouldn’t be much better than Courtney’s.
In his previous job, he quit the job in anger because the leaders didn’t trust him and tried to put all the blame on him. Now, he was facing an almost similar situation, so no one could understand how complicated his emotions were right now.
“You need to calm down.” Alexander pulled Courtney back to the car. Then, he took off his jacket to cover her shoulder. “The situation isn’t as bad as you think.”
“Isn’t it bad enough?” She was now in a sorrowful state as she buried her head between her knees and murmured, “I think the situation is awful. I simply don’t have the capabilities to run an entire enterprise. I should have just managed Citron properly in the first place instead of leaving everything to Bill. After all, he isn’t some superhuman who can handle everything.”
Looking at her right now, Alexander took a deep breath and said seriously, “Listen to me. There are now two solutions for this. One, we can spend some money to buy another’s trust. We’ll try to negotiate with the Sakura Group to extend the deadline for half a month but for this, we need to pay them a 50% compensation fee at the very least. Compared to this order, we still lose money.”
“I’m afraid that even if we lose money, we still can’t buy back their trust.” Courtney clenched her fists. “James is just waiting for me to lose my money and credit so that he can acquire the company when it can’t continue to operate.”
“There’s a second solution,” Alexander explained to her unhurriedly with a calm expression. “We can use money to buy their trust. There’s still a week left and Bill said that he only placed half the products here, which means that there is another half in the factory. We can think of a way to hire all the factories in Melrose City with a high price so that they can finish the rest of the products in one week.”
“How can they finish it all in one week?”
“How can they not? It all depends on our effort.” The moment Courtney saw Alexander’s determined eyes, the frustration she originally had inside her gradually calmed down.
The fire went on for a whole night and when it was finally put out, dawn had arrived. Alexander took charge and stationed two people from the technical department at the scene to wait for more news while everyone one else left.
Early in the morning, Courtney held an emergency meeting in the company. After that, she was so busy with sending people to Melrose City’s major factories to talk about the order that she couldn’t find the chance to speak to Bill even though she saw him a few times.
“Bill, President Hunter is just anxious. She doesn’t actually blame you for this. You don’t need to take it to heart.” In the pantry, Natasha stood by Bill’s side as she tried to comfort him carefully.
At the moment, his expression was so dark that there weren’t any clear signs of emotions.
Just as he was about to leave, he could hear a conversation outside. “I think that the fire is probably caused by someone in the company. Isn’t there a rumor lately saying that our company is being acquired by Sunhill Enterprise? President Hunter refused to sell, so they are now going against her.”
“Someone in the company? Who is it? You better not talk nonsense.”
“I think it’s the first person who showed up at the scene last night.”
As soon as the person finished his words, Natasha looked toward Bill nervously but she was held back by him when she tried to walk out.
“I don’t think that’s possible. Can it really be Mr. Dawson?” Sounds of a loud discussion came from outside.
“How is it not possible? Don’t you guys know his background? In the past, he did a similar betrayal before so he quit his previous job. Otherwise, why didn’t President Hunter treat him better even though he has been living in the company every day while working hard? She didn’t even arrange a place for him to stay.” The person speaking looked excited, as if he knew everything. “Don’t you know about this? Bill sleeps in the company every day. The lounge in the design room is actually his home and it is no bigger than a matchbox. With this kind of treatment, he’ll definitely run away if Sunhill Enterprise gives him a little more benefit.”
“I’m afraid that Sunhill Enterprise can’t even provide me with the treatment I want.” Bill’s voice was loud and filled with disdain as it came from the pantry. Suddenly, everyone felt a thump in their hearts and they flinched. “I’m staying in the company because I’m working on a design competition lately. As for President Hunter’s bad treatment toward me, I’m quite curious about the treatment of all top designers in Melrose City at the moment.”
He then looked at everyone one by one with his sharp eyes and said loudly, “Peony Mansion on Lotus Road is a villa given to me by President Hunter. You all can check out the price per square meter of the house by yourselves. I believe that Sunhill Enterprise can afford that, but I’m afraid that the current new president doesn’t have the right to approve such a huge sum of money.”
Suddenly, everyone went silent.
They all knew that Lotus Road was now a place in Melrose City where housing prices were off the roof because it housed many mansions that couldn’t even be bought by money.
“Why are you all surrounding Bill?” A clear voice was heard from behind everyone. Courtney was wearing a dark green suede trench coat along with a white blouse and wide leg-pants, making her look imposing. As she stood straight, she said casually, “In my company, no one gets to live in a villa just by doing nothing and gossiping.”
