Our Love Story: Hard to Guard Against the Sudden Love Strike-Chapter 456 - 434: Clues

It seemed like Harrison Rowe was worried his sister might have some misguided thoughts about Simon Forrester. After laughing, he seriously said, "Faye, let me tell you first, don’t get any ideas about Chairman Forrester! He’s going to marry Director Thorne after the New Year. Don’t think Director Thorne looks harmless, that’s just an act! She once managed to kick out the previous executive president from The Forresters in just three months without even making a fuss. If you dare have any intentions and she finds out, I might not be able to protect you..."

Harrison said a whole bunch over the phone, but Faye didn’t want to hear it. She coldly replied, "I got it," and hung up.

She realized she had spent too much time and attention on this matter, to the point that she started overthinking things that had nothing to do with her, making them even more complicated.

Harrison’s clarification only left her more confused.

Initially, she thought Simon Forrester was just someone who looked serious on the outside but was actually a womanizer. She imagined that maybe one day he might turn his attention to her. As long as she performed well at work, making herself indispensable to him in his career, with life being so long, staying by his side might eventually lead to an opportunity.

Being with a man like Simon Forrester, even if it didn’t lead to marriage, would be worthwhile.

But now, reality seemed to tell her that Simon Forrester wasn’t the kind of person she imagined. Maybe she needed to make other plans...

.

After Faye left, Simon Forrester locked the office door and walked over to sit next to Sienna Thornton.

He raised his hand to loosen his tie, turned to hug Sienna, kissed her on the temple, and asked, "Where did you go to have fun all day yesterday?"

Sienna laughed, "Went to Eastern Paradise!"

Eastern Paradise is a place for women’s entertainment, with many young male attendants. Simon knew she was joking around, so he pinched her waist and playfully scolded, "Stop joking around!"

Sienna giggled and wrapped her arms around his as she asked, "Seriously, when I’m in my forties or fifties and get tired of you, if I really go play at Eastern Paradise, what would you do?"

Simon glanced at her and said, "Get tired of me? I don’t think that’s likely, I’m pretty confident about that."

Quite narcissistic indeed. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

Sienna laughed heartily, wrapping her arms around his neck. After laughing, she took out a voice recorder from her bag and said, "Actually, I went to T-City yesterday. There are some clues about the material fracture issue from July."

She immediately switched to her work mode.

Hearing that there were clues about this matter, Simon was somewhat surprised and asked, "What’s the situation?"

Sienna connected the voice recorder to her phone and played the recording.

The outline of the situation based on the recording was roughly as follows —

The batches of carbon steel raw materials purchased at the end of June were found to be qualified after flaw detection, so the logistics department accepted them into the warehouse, and the production department arranged for processing accordingly. After several procedures, the materials became finished products.

When the finished products were completed and entered into storage, cracks were found during sampling inspections. The production director of the department then ordered the remaining raw materials to be processed into scrap shapes, and sold as regular scrap by the logistics manager to scrap dealers.

"The whole process is as such. From this process, it can be roughly determined which departments were involved, or at least were aware but didn’t report it." Sienna took out an A4 paper from her bag; it was the department’s organizational chart, and she marked it up.

"Raw material procurement personnel, raw material inspection personnel, finished product inspection personnel, production director, logistics director, cashier, and..." She drew a side line next to the division general manager’s name and wrote three names: Faye Lucas, Nolan Kramer, and Ryan Chase.

Simon was surprised, "Purchasing and production are not under Nolan Kramer’s management, how is he related to this matter?"

Sienna replied, "This supplier has been in contact since Nolan was in charge of procurement and finance. And there’s something unusual about it — for all suppliers, payment is made 180 days after the goods are accepted into the warehouse with inspection certificates, but not for this one."

Simon asked, "How is this one different then?"

"I heard that this supplier’s rule is to prepay the full amount before the materials are even admitted. That’s why despite the discovery of issues with the materials in June, they couldn’t be returned, and had to be secretly processed as scrap," she explained.

Stunned, Simon stood up, opened the office door, and shouted at Gavin Gale, "Gavin! Ask Faye to come up!"

After shouting, he went back into the office, looking furious.

Sienna looked at him and calmly said, "The Forresters’ current organizational structure is too loose, and departments have too much independence, lacking effective supervision and constraints. Although any amount over ten thousand dollars needs your signature to be paid, loopholes could exist between steps. For instance, with this problematic material, despite the paperwork and invoices being in order, would you know that there actually was an issue with the material? Certainly not. If it followed the normal payment process, with the materials entering in June and the payment made in December, there would have been enough time to discover the material issue and take actions like returning or refusing the payment."

Simon looked displeased but said nothing, contemplating the amount involved in the case.

Sienna, seeing his look, didn’t speak further, accompanying him in silence.

After a while, Faye came in.

Seeing both Simon and Sienna with solemn expressions, she guessed something was wrong and cautiously asked, "Chairman Forrester, what can I do for you?"

Simon went over to his desk, sat upright, and seriously instructed three things: "First, print out all transaction details with XXX; second, provide copies of all payment settlement applications for XXX; third, organize and itemize the sale details of scrap materials for the whole year by month!"

Faye’s face stiffened, and she asked, "Why suddenly investigate these?"

Simon didn’t answer, thinking she might be involved, and looked at her with sternness and impatience.

Being proficient in reading others, Faye didn’t question further and exited the office.

Once the door was closed, Sienna walked from the sofa to sit before Simon.

She looked at Simon.

His jaw muscles were tense, as if he was grinding his back teeth, with an extremely grim expression.

She tentatively asked, "Do you have any idea how much that problematic batch of materials cost?"

Simon didn’t immediately answer. After quickly estimating, he said, "It should be around ten or twenty million."

Sienna breathed a sigh of relief and reassured, "Compared to what happened with your aunt, this doesn’t seem much, luckily it was discovered early!"

Simon didn’t dismiss the seriousness of the event due to the smaller amount, instead noting, "This situation involves not only taking kickbacks and financial violations but even collusion between the production and inspection departments, making it more severe!"

Sienna nodded, "Yeah."

She got up, walked around to Simon, and sat on the armrest of his office chair, patting his shoulder reassuringly, "Handle it well! If you need my assistance, just let me know."