“He arrived pretty quickly.” Charles spun his chair around with a lazy look on his face.
Closing the document in her hand and setting it aside, Sonia said, “Let him in.”
“Of course,” Daphne answered.
Very quickly, Titus entered the room, thereupon he gave Sonia a sharp stare.
As she was already used to such workplace clashes, Sonia was unbothered and only offered him a faint smile as she gestured at the seat in front of her. “Please have a seat, President Gray.”
“You sure look calm!” he snarled, almost in praise, before pulling out the chair and sitting opposite her.
Meanwhile, Charles sat by her side. With that, she pushed the tea that she had Daphne make gently over to Titus and said, “Thank you for your praise, President Gray. Please have some tea.”
Having no intention of drinking it at all, he merely looked down at the tea before him. Nonetheless, she didn’t mind and only set her hands on the table with her fingers intertwined. “I figure you must have a purpose for coming to Paradigm. Co. today.”
“Since you’re asking, I might as well say it straight. I’m taking back the piece of land in the center of the city.” Titus stared closely at her.
After exchanging glances with Charles out of the corner of her eye, she returned her gaze to Titus with a smile. “Take it back? I’m afraid that’s not possible. After all, it has been transferred and wholly belongs to me now. It’s not yours, so how could you take it back?”
Realizing that he had misspoken, he amended his sentence. “You misunderstood me. When I say ‘take,’ I don’t mean it literally. I wish to buy it back.” Even so, he fumed a little. After all, he could have gotten this land for free, but Tina’s actions resulted in him having to spend money on it. This made him very frustrated.
“Ah, I see. I had, in fact, misunderstood you.” Tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear, she continued, “In that case, how much are you prepared to spend on it?”
“I’m not one to beat around the bush. 100 million,” he proposed, lifting up one finger as he stared at her.
However, Charles rolled his eyes and couldn’t help but reply, “Do you really think you can buy back a plot of land in the city center with 100 million? Are you joking or is Triforce Enterprise so broke that it can’t afford to spend some money?”
Hearing the insults directed at him, Titus scowled. “Be careful I don’t sue you for slander, President Lane.”
Of course, Charles wasn’t afraid of idle threats and only curled his bottom lip. “Am I wrong? Why else would you offer only 100 million? Or do you think we’re simply not worth it?”
Sonia picked up her own cup of tea and gently took a sip before saying with a smile, “I agree with Charles, President Gray. 100 million is too little!”
Since Titus knew that the sum he gave was indeed not enough, he asked after a pause, “How much do you want, then?”
“Take it or leave it—2 billion.” Sonia put down her cup of tea after giving a number.
It wasn’t just Titus, even Charles gaped at her right then.
Slapping the table, Titus complained, “2 billion, President Reed? That’s daylight robbery!”
“I will admit my price is a little on the high side, but it’s not that high. That’s a plot of land in the city center. Its starting estimate is 1.5 billion or so, and the price is only going to skyrocket once its surroundings have been developed. When you take that into account, 2 billion isn’t that much,” she told him with a smile.
Furious, he let out a bitter laugh. “Who knows how long it would take for the land to be worth 2 billion? For you to offer me that price right now means you must have no wish to sell me the land at all.”
She shook her head. “That’s not true. As long as you give me that sum, I will have the deed transferred to you at once. You’re only thinking like that because you don’t wish to give me that much. If that’s the case, I might as well keep it for myself and build a factory there.”
“Well, I’d love to see how smoothly the construction process goes!” he snorted coldly.
Narrowing her eyes, she asked, “Are you threatening us, President Gray?”
Without answering, he turned and left.
As he watched Titus slam the door shut, Charles asked, “You’re not thinking of playing a trick on him, are you, baby?”
“No.” She continued to drink her tea calmly. “I’m being truthful. As long as he gives me that sum of money, I shall give him the plot of land. He can think what he wants, but I can’t do anything about the fact that he can’t afford it.”
Spinning in a circle around her, he tutted, “In such a short amount of time, you’ve become such a fox in the market. 2 billion! Never mind Titus—even Toby wouldn’t have that much working capital on his hands at a moment’s notice.”
“And that’s why I shall have the land to myself,” she summarized with a grin.
Abruptly, the cell phone on her desk rang. Putting down her teacup, she picked up the phone and looked at the caller ID before answering with a frown, “Good afternoon.”
“We’re very sorry, President Reed, but some issues have arisen with our engineering team, and we’re not able to help you build your factory. It’s best that you find someone else.” With that, the person at the other end of the line hung up the phone, not even giving her the chance to speak.
“What’s wrong, baby?” Charles questioned in concern upon seeing the expression on her face.
She opened her mouth, but before she could respond, the phone rang again. This time, it was a call from the machinery company. “Hello, is this Miss Reed?”
“Speaking,” she answered hoarsely, tightening her grip around the phone. She could already guess what the other party was about to say.
“Here’s the thing, Miss Reed. We recently received a large order from overseas at our machinery plant and no longer have the means to assemble your machinery. We’re so sorry and sincerely hope you accept our apologies.” With that, the other person hung up so quickly that it was as if they were afraid she would tear them to shreds like a beast if they took too long.
“What on earth is the matter, baby?” Seeing her expression get uglier and uglier, he became anxious.
Slowly, she put down her phone and said with an ice-cold face, “Titus has messed with the engineering team and machinery company that we found to prevent us from building our factory.”
“What?” Furious, he slammed his fist on the table. “That old dog is too shameless! I can’t believe he would use such methods. This won’t do—I must get into contact with some other companies.”
“I’m afraid there’s no use. Considering Titus really is determined to stop us, he would have gone to the other companies as well.” She clenched her fists.
After a moment of silence, Charles said, “We still have to try no matter what.” With that, he walked out onto the balcony to start making calls.
Tiredly, she rubbed the bridge of her nose and opened her social media to post about her feelings. The moment she published the post and was about to put down her cell phone, a notification flashed across the screen.
It was a message from the mysterious Z-H reading, ‘What’s wrong?’
It’s him! For some reason, her heart skipped a beat, and an indescribable feeling arose when she saw who the message was from. However, she didn’t overthink it, and only typed back after breathing in deeply, ‘What do you mean, what’s wrong?’
Z-H: ‘Your post.’
Only then did she figure out that the other party must have sent the message after seeing her post. As her heart calmed, she replied with a slight smile, ‘Are you concerned about me?’
At the other end of the line, Toby pursed his lips after reading the reply. In truth, he didn’t know why he went to talk to her after reading her activity. By the time he came to his senses and realized what he was doing, he had already sent the message.
By then, it would only look more suspicious if he deleted the message. She would still see that he had sent her a deleted message and ask him what it was about, so he might as well just go with it. ‘If you say so.’
‘I’ll take that as a yes, then,’ she replied.
‘Sure.’
‘So, you want to know what happened?’ she asked.
His eyes flashed. ‘Not necessarily. You can always choose not to tell.’
‘Nah. What’s not to tell?’ Despite not knowing why, she began to treat the other party as a listening ear and detailed her previous encounter with Titus to him in a voice message.
