Perfect Match: Irresistible Desire For You
Chapter 46

Joseph didn’t take Zachary’s teasing seriously. Instead, his response reminded Zachary of his own problems again. Despite this, Zachary just couldn’t believe that a cold-hearted man such as Joseph had really fallen for someone, so he went on and said, “Since even your frozen heart has started to melt, I have faith that my spring will come as well.”

Joseph and Zachary had been friends for so many years, so he knew just how persistent Zachary could be. Most importantly, he believed that Zachary was more than capable of dealing with his problems on his own, so he decided not to poke his nose into it.

After that, everyone went back to having a good time at the party. As Joseph and Zachary walked around the dance floor, there were a lot of turning heads. A few seasoned politicians and business tycoons took the opportunity to strike up a conversation with them. As a result, they ended up spending the rest of the evening rubbing elbows with the other guests. As for Ashley and Mike, they talked mostly with the other high-ranking officials, and their time also flew by so quickly.

When the grand business party came to a close, Ashley’s weekend ended as well, and she had to go back to work on Monday. However, she was completely clueless of the fact that the Synder Group was currently facing a financial crisis. Rumor had it that because the negotiations with the Empire Group ended up falling through, they couldn’t get enough raw materials to produce the goods. It was for this very reason that they failed to accomplish a large international order before the deadline. As a result, the company had to pay a huge amount of liquidated damages.

Word was going around about this among the employees of the company, and they were starting to have some doubts. Considering how much the stock price of the Synder Group had plummeted in the past two days, the senior executives had to do something to address the employees’ doubts and concerns. James, who was Charlie’s father as well as the CEO of the Synder Group, had to step forward to deal with the troublesome situation. Since the Synder Group was in hot water, the company’s higher-ups had to come to the table at once. They held a staff meeting to address the issue regarding the huge amount of compensation they had to pay the other party because of the breach of contract. Taking this into consideration, the senior executives analyzed the state of the company’s current finances from all aspects in order to assure the staff that, in spite of the huge amount that had to be settled, the situation was still under control, and they had nothing to worry about.

Having said that, only the senior managers and the CEO were privy to the information that the Synder Group had been caught in a tight spot because of the state of its finances. In the past couple of years, the Synder Group had managed to maintain a steady profit margin. However, saying that the company was raking in a lot of profits would be a bit of a stretch. When he was the acting head of the company, Charlie had heard that a well-known foreign company had made such a large order. So, in hopes of potentially increasing the company’s profit and making a name for himself, he struck a deal with the other party and established a long-term partnership. What was more, he even guaranteed that the goods would be delivered on time. In order to make this partnership official, the two parties agreed to sign a contract. It stated that if Party A (the Synder Group) failed to deliver the goods on time, not only would it have to compensate a huge amount of liquidated damages, but it would also have to take full responsibility for the losses caused to Party B (the ordering party), including the subsequent production losses.

In other words, since the Synder Group failed to provide the goods in time, it ended up causing them a great financial loss to compensate Party B. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the company’s reputation had also been tarnished because of this. Be that as it might, it didn’t really have any significant devastating effect on the company.

After a lengthy discussion, the senior executives concluded that it wouldn’t have come to this if it weren’t for the Empire Group’s refusal to cooperate. As for the reason why, it was anybody’s guess. Although Joseph, the current CEO of the Empire Group, could be so unforgiving when it came to business, he was a shrewd businessman. There was no question that he could make a huge profit from this partnership, but, for some reason, he decided to turn down this opportunity. No matter how anyone looked at it, it just didn’t make sense—unless his goal was to retaliate the Synder Group.

As the CEO of the company, James also took part in the discussion. He couldn’t wrap his mind around why the Empire Group would do such a thing. Could it be possible that Joseph wanted to get even after he found out about what had happened in the past? Although this idea crossed his mind, he brushed it off almost instantly, thinking that it was out of the question. After all, what happened in the past had been kept under wraps. Moreover, Joseph was just a child at that time.

Charlie attended the meeting as well, but he didn’t dare to say a word throughout the discussion. At the end of the day, he was still somewhat responsible for the breach of contract. From time to time, he would glance at James to see his reaction. When he noticed that James seemed to have his head in the clouds, he couldn’t help worrying that his father doubted his decision-making skills. Because of this, he thought it would better for him to just put a sock in it.

When the meeting was wrapped up, James asked Charlie to stay in the conference room and asked him about the company’s state of operations as well as some of the decisions he had made recently. Sitting on pins and needles, Charlie told him about everything that had transpired after his father let him temporarily take over the company.

While Charlie was giving James a detailed report, Lina suddenly opened the door and walked in. After greeting the two of them, she didn’t beat around the bush and said right away, “Sir, I think things only turned out like this because the Empire Group didn’t want to cooperate with us.”

Truth be told, James didn’t like being interrupted in the middle of a conversation. Moreover, he had never really been that fond of his future daughter-in-law. Although she had good looks and was a capable woman, she had no background and wasn’t open-minded enough. Someone like her wouldn’t be able to help in the company’s development. However, now that Lina was carrying his son’s child in her womb, which was what he had been looking forward to the most, he had to pretend to be nicer to his daughter-in-law. Since both of them agreed with what Lina said, James gestured for her to continue.

Taking the hint from his eyes to keep talking, Lina explained to them the reason why she came up with this idea. Lina was the one who took over the third round of negotiation between the Synder Group and the Empire Group after she asked Ashley to step down. Unfortunately for her, when they arrived at the designated meeting place, the representative of Empire Group just kept messing around with them and didn’t take them seriously. Even when they offered to raise the negotiated price by a certain percentage, they still didn’t give them a concrete response. In the end, they simply said that they had to report it to their superior before making a decision. It wasn’t until the next round of negotiation, which happened more than a week later, that the other party informed them that they weren’t willing to cooperate with them anymore. This left Lina at such a loss for words.

Remembering everything she went through, it took all Lina had to hold back her anger. She had thought that as the future Mrs. Synder of the Synder Group, she would receive the same, if not better, treatment as Ashley. But, as it turned out, it was nothing but wishful thinking. When the Empire Group received her and her team for the last time, they remained so casual throughout the negotiation. As much as she hated to admit it, she felt so helpless at that time. Not only were they in the other party’s territory, but her own company was also much inferior to theirs, so she didn’t have enough confidence.

At the thought of this, Lina mentioned one more thing, “Sir, from what I can tell, there are people in our company who have a deep connection with the CEO of the Empire Group. There’s a good chance that they were in cahoots with each other in planning the crisis.”

The moment they heard this, the look on both James’ and Charlie’s faces shifted. Could it really be possible that there was a mole who disclosed confidential information about the company to the Empire Group? Was that person the reason why they had to face the current crisis they were in? The main reason why the two of them believed Lina’s speculation was because they knew that the company’s problems could have easily been dealt with before the public could even replace out about it. Despite that, the news about what happened spread like wildfire, causing the company’s reputation to be damaged and the stock price to plummet. Taking everything that happened into account, it was highly likely that there was a mole inside the company who had leaked the information.

When she saw how the expressions on the two men’s faces had shifted, a smug expression flashed through Lina’s eyes. With that, she went ahead and explained in detail, “The first and second rounds of negotiation between our company and the Empire Group had been led by the manager of the marketing department, Ashley. And on the second round of negotiations, the CEO of the Empire Group came to meet her in person. Everyone in the department knows about it.”

Upon saying this, Lina took out a dozen photos along with a newspaper from her bag and placed them down on the table in front of James and Charlie. She presented to them a few photos of Joseph and Ashley. The newspaper article read, “The CEO of the Empire Group, Joseph Marshall, was seen dancing with a woman at a party. It is rumored that something is going on between the two.” Below this was a picture of Joseph inviting Ashley to dance with him.