Charles, who was peeling apples at the side, saw Sonia’s expression and came over to express his concern. “Baby, what’s wrong?”
“Look at this.” She proceeded to pass him her phone. “I will make Tina pay for her actions. Tim.” After reading the message out loud, he stared at her wildly. “Baby, this is a text from Tim Lancaster. How did he get your number?”
“It’s easy to get hold of someone’s personal number nowadays. You just need to search around,” she muttered nonchalantly, but her frown deepened. “I’m more concerned about the contents of his text. He said he wanted to make Tina pay. Could he have been telling the truth in the ward? Is he really going to take action on those who hurt me?”
He tightened his lips. “Whatever. If he wants to make her pay, let him be. That might benefit us as well.”
“True.” Sonia nodded.
He returned the phone and said, “Alright now. Don’t reply to him. You shouldn’t forget that we still do not know of his intentions—whether or not he truly wants to take revenge on Tina. If he was lying, that text could be bait to trick us. So, we should just put this aside.”
After his explanation, she concurred. “Don’t worry. I understand.”
Next, she deleted Tim’s text from her phone while Charles munched on his apple. “By the way, I have donated that ring on your behalf.”
Her eyes flickered after she heard the remark, followed by a nod of the head. “Okay.”
“I’ll leave now. I’ll pick you up again two days later for the auction.” Charles threw the apple core into the bin and dusted his hand, after which Sonia smiled at him. “Got it. You should get going now.”
“Bye.” He waved at her and headed toward the entrance.
Now that she was finally alone in the office, she picked up a pen from the penholder and started to bury herself in piles of documents. However, it was right then when someone knocked on the door. “President Reed!” It turned out to be Rebecca, and she did look rather frantic.
“What is it?” Sonia stopped writing and stared at her.
Rebecca scanned the area and found a glass of water on the table. She had no time to ask before she downed all the contents.
“Uh…” Sonia was about to say that the glass of water was hers, but upon hearing the gulping, she held her tongue and shook her head in amusement. “Why are you so thirsty?”
“Don’t get me started! I ran all my way here.” She placed the cup on the table and answered Sonia after catching her breath.
Sonia’s eyes turned round in surprise. “You ran all your way up here? Are you saying that you ran here using the Finance Department’s fire exit staircase?”
“Yeah! I came here from the fire exit staircase. I have something urgent to ask you, so I didn’t bother to wait for the elevator.” Rebecca pulled out a chair across from her and took a seat.
Noticing that Rebecca had a layer of perspiration on the forehead, Sonia beamed and handed the woman a tissue. “Wipe your sweat.”
“Thanks.” Rebecca accepted the tissue.
She stood up and collected a clean blanket. Then, she poured Rebecca a glass of water from the water cooler and placed it in front of the guest. “By the way, you said you had an urgent question for me. What was that about?”
“It’s Paradigm Co.’s debts!” Rebecca threw the crumpled tissue into the bin and put on a serious expression. “President Reed, who’s that Mr. Johann? He went ahead and settled our loans across all the banks. I was so shocked when the banks called to inform me.”
Sonia was confused by the information. “Wait, what are you talking about? Who’s Mr. Johann, and why are our loans settled?”
Seeing Sonia’s reaction, Rebecca blinked. “You don’t know him?”
Sonia shook her head. “I haven’t heard of this Mr. Johann you’re speaking of.”
“That’s odd! If you don’t even know him, why would he settle all our debts? The repayment statement clearly stated that he is a close acquaintance of yours. Obviously, he settled the debts for you. Why wouldn’t you know him then? Could he be your… secret admirer?” At this point, Rebecca looked envious. “If he’s really a secret admirer who forks out such a huge amount for you, I think you should just accept his love.”
“Ugh! What nonsense are you talking about?” Sonia frowned deeply. “Rebecca, are you saying that Mr. Johann has settled all our bank loans? Do I understand it correctly?”
“Yes. From now on, Paradigm Co. is no longer in debt. In the future, our revenue will belong to us instead of the banks,” Rebecca confirmed with joy. However, Sonia did not look happy at all. Her flaming red lips were tightly pursed.
A stranger came out of nowhere and helped to repay all of Paradigm Co.’s loans. This was not a free lunch for Sonia. Instead, she suspected that this was a trap. Who’d be so generous as to give away a billion?
“Is there any information on the repayment?” She scrunched up her eyes.
At the same time, Rebecca slapped her forehead. “Yes! I almost forgot about it. Give me a second. I’ll hand it to you.”
As she spoke, she extracted a stack of papers with the repayment information from the file and gave it to Sonia.
Yet Sonia did not immediately read it. “Did you announce the settlement of bank loans publicly?”
“No. I told you the first thing.” Rebecca shook her head, much to Sonia’s relief.
“Great. You can go back to work now. Keep this a secret for now. Do not announce it loudly. We’ll make a decision after I look into the person behind this.”
“Sure.” Rebecca agreed and left.
Then, Sonia started to flip through the stack of information in the hope of finding some clues about the mysterious man who had settled the loans.
Soon, she got her wish granted when she found the symbols ‘Z-H’ on one of the pages. Immediately, she understood who her benefactor was. Without losing even a second, she searched for the contact named Z-H in her WhatsApp. This time, she did not message him as usual; she made a WhatsApp call to him.
At the Fuller Group, Toby was in the middle of a meeting when a ringtone interrupted the meeting discussion. His eyes narrowed in displeasure. “Whose phone is that?”
No one dared to speak up in the room.
The silence angered him even more, and his tone became icier. “I remember I told you guys to set your phone on silent mode in meetings. Are you ignoring my instruction?”
In the face of his fury, a hand finally shot up in the air. “President Fuller, um, it is not our phones. Your phone is the one that’s ringing.”
Toby was taken aback. “Mine?”
“Yeah.” The brave attendee nodded.
It was then Toby put away the files in his hands and moved to the meeting table from the screen. There, he found his phone ringing.
It was the ringtone he set for in-app calls. Usually, no one would contact him via WhatsApp. He was rather unfamiliar with the ringtone, which was why it took him a while to realize that his phone was ringing.
His expression softened as he picked up the phone to check for the caller. To his shock, he saw that Sonia had contacted him.
Why would she contact me at this time?
“Let’s take five. I need to take a call.” Then, he left the meeting room with the phone in hand, leaving behind a room of attendees who were murmuring.
“Look, that’s how bosses behave. They set the rules for us that they never follow. Didn’t he ask us to set our phones to silent mode during meetings? We all did, except for him.”
“Yeah! He also told us not to pick up calls during meetings, and he’s the only one who breaks the rules. What’s with the double standard?”
“From the looks of it, he must have received a call from Miss Reed.”
“It must be. Just look at the tenderness in his eyes.”
Outside of the meeting room, Toby was oblivious to the gossip behind his back. He strolled to the corridor, staring at the ringing phone with hesitation in his eyes, furiously debating if he should take the call or not.
He was worried that he’d expose himself once he picked up the call.
Yer, in the end, he slid a finger across the screen to pick up the call. “Hello?”
