True Love Waits

Nadia nodded and then turned to Sidell. "Mr. Xiang, this is Miss Huo, the regional CEO of ZL Group. Miss Huo, this is Mr. Xiang, the president of First General Hospital. And his assistant. And this is..." Nadia recognized the man she was referring to. He wore a slight smile, like he was trying not to smile but losing that battle. But why was he here now? She knew nearly nothing about him.

Sidell's assistant introduced hurriedly, "Miss Huo, this is Dr. Tang, deputy director of the nephrology department in our hospital. The medicine we are to talk about could change the way kidney disorders are handled in this country, and our hospital would be one of the pioneers."

Evelyn and Sidell shook hands.

Sheffield then reached out his right hand towards her. Evelyn looked at it for two seconds and then extended the hand with the Cat's Eye ring. Instead of letting go, he fixed his eyes on Evelyn. With a broad smile, he said, "I've heard a lot about you, Miss Huo. It's an honor to be with so young a CEO, and such a beautiful woman."

She was struggling to maintain her composure. Sheffield's grip was crushing her hand. She had forgotten to place her index finger above his palm to avoid such tricks. With a straight face, she said, "Thank you for your praise, Dr. Tang. You're not bad-looking yourself. Deputy director, huh? And so young. Color me impressed."

He should have been an actor. He did a great job pretending not to know her.

The smile on Sheffield's face widened. He savored her words and said, "Impressed? Thank you for your compliment, Miss Huo." But he didn't know whether she meant it or not.

Evelyn tried her best to break free from his grip. She quickly looked away and said to Sidell, "Mr. Xiang, shall we have a seat and talk about it?"

Sidell withdrew his eyes from their hands and smiled, "Sure." He said to his assistant, "Since Miss Huo has arrived, we can probably start on lunch. Have them bring the food out."

"Yes, sir."

sat down. Evelyn sat in the seat of honor, with Sidell and Nadia on either side. Sheffield sat opposite her. Sidell had intended to ask him to sit next to him. But Sheffield looked at Evelyn and said jokingly, "I'll sit here and watch the wait staff. After, I'd be remiss in my duties if I didn't

said,

a word. He just figured that Sheffield was working hard to schmooze with her. He did have a monetary stake in this,

bottle of liquor and poured a glass

agreed on. It hasn't changed since we began this venture. Last time, it was the vice general manager of your company who

before..." From what Evelyn had said, Sidell's face changed. He knew what she meant. She was thinking more from the patients' angle. He retorted, "Miss Huo, you should also think about our staff." "This shouldn't be my problem. You guys get a lot of kickbacks for the prescriptions you write. Take that into account, and you won't think the price is so high. I think you know what I mean, right?" Sheffield sat in the chair, propping his chin up with his hand, elbow resting on one of the armrests. He looked at Evelyn, who was in the middle of negotiations. Evelyn was like a queen in business, and she had a laser focus. All eyes were drawn to her while she did

his head and took a sip of liquor to conceal his emotions. Evelyn had ruined

He had a bad feeling that he had to sell

this, he smiled and asked half jokingly, "Miss Huo,

the business you do there. But your doctors couldn't cure diseases without medicine, right? The fees for the patent of our new medicine alone cost us over one billion dollars. Of course a billion was not the point. The point is that its potency is worth more than a billion. Mr. Xiang,

at the man who was observing the woman silently,

Sheffield took his eyes off

What do you think of the price?" Sheffield was a gifted man in the industry. He was a good surgeon and had gotten himself involved in some high-profile projects. Sidell

is quite right. There are too many people taking kickbacks in our hospital. Instead

sidelong glance at him. He still had that trademark smile.