Everyone in the hall was dumbstruck when Manager Woodsworth agreed with Alex. Did he think that his reasoning made sense and that it was better than Rose had broken the statue because certain patrons might object to its origins?
As manager of the Berkeley Hotel, Sam Woodsworth naturally had a strongly-honed intuition. He could tell that Alex was protecting Rose, so he played along with him and pretended to agree.
"Thank you for bringing that to my attention. You have prevented what could have become a great problem for our hotel!"
"Then do you still want Rose to pay for the damages?" Alex asked deliberately.
"Of course not. It's not necessary. I should be thanking this young lady," Sam said as he smiled and turned to look at Rose. "Miss, please forgive my rudeness just now. Thank you for helping our hotel avoid a loss. On behalf of the hotel, how about I give you a reward of ten thousand dollars?"
Sam thought, Does Mr Ambrose like this girl? Because I might have caused a big problem earlier by offending her.
The other people's jaws dropped. Rose had broken a million-dollar statue, but Sam didn't want to pursue the matter anymore. He even wanted to give her money!
What kind of logic was that? They couldn't understand it at all.
Rose, of course, didn't want to ask for money. She could only stare blankly in disbelief.
"There's no need to pay her. I think this lady doesn't care about the money. All right, it's getting late. Now that the matter has been resolved, let's go back to sleep." Alex said as he smiled.
After he finished speaking, the crowd started to disperse. Before Alex left, he lightly patted Sam's shoulder and smiled at him.
This made Sam happy. He had been worried that he hadn't handled things well enough, but he was very satisfied now to see that Mr Ambrose wasn't angry.
Rose grabbed her clothes from the room she had been planning on sharing with Zane and moved in with Suzan, while Joe went to get another room for himself.
"Rose, if it hadn't been for Alex today, you would be in big trouble!" Suzan said. She and Rose were lying on the bed. Rose still had a lingering fear in her heart as she hugged Suzan tightly.
"It's so strange. A pretty girl like you begged Manager Woodsworth for so long, yet he refused to reason with you. Then Alex came over, said a few words, and everything was suddenly resolved," Suzan pondered. "It's over a million dollars—do you think Alex knows Manager Woodsworth?"
"How could he possibly know him? It's not like you don't know Alex's background. I think it might be that Manager Woodsworth is superstitious," Rose said. "My dad's a businessman, and he's superstitious in everything he does. I think Alex's words fooled Mr Woodsworth and made him feel afraid because of his superstitions. Today's matter has nothing to do with Alex really," she added.
"No matter what, he helped you today. So don't treat him so badly in the future," Suzan replied, as she didn't believe Rose's words. There was a huge flaw in Rose's reasoning. Even she wasn't fooled by Alex, so how could he deceive Manager Woodsworth? she thought.
"Let's talk about it later. He just got lucky this time," Rose said, while she still thought poorly of Alex.
The next day, Rose and Suzan woke up early and got ready to go out to buy her aunt some towels.
As Sam was walking in the corridor, a pair of playful young men hit a clock that was mounted on the wall, which caused all the clock's parts to fall out.
The staff quickly called Sam over. Seeing the clock on the floor, Sam's heart almost broke.
"Did you do this?" he asked them angrily. "Do you know that I spent over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars to buy this antique clock from abroad?"
Sam's staff brought the receipt, which he showed to the young men. Once they saw it, their uneasiness disappeared instantly. One of the men took the document, held it up in his hand, and said, "Manager Woodsworth, I must say that I smashed your clock today!"
Both of them had witnessed yesterday's scene with Alex and Rose, and they thought Sam would fall for the same trick.
One of them said, "I can see on the receipt that you bought this clock in Russia, and it was made by a master clockmaker in the 19th century. Do you know that many of your customers might object to Russian-made objects in your hotel?"
He was using the same argument that Alex had made the day before, and ended proudly with, "You see, I helped your hotel avoid a loss. You can offer me money too."
The young men thought they had gotten away with breaking the clock, but Sam roared!
"You dare to ask me for money! Yesterday, I was helping Mr Ambrose. Who do you think you are to treat me like a fool? Now you need to pay me twice the price; otherwise, don't even think of walking out the door!"
"Hey—how dare you threaten me! Do you know who I am?" The youth pointed at Sam and said arrogantly, "My Dad is one of the heads of the Golden Group. He's ten times richer than you, and he's related to very important people!"
"Oh?" Sam smiled contemptuously. "I'll say it again—if you don't pay me twice the price, don't even think about leaving here today. Let's see how awesome your dad is!"
"Okay, since you want to die, then let me help you. Even if you kneel on the ground and bow to me later, it won't be of any use!" After the young man said those harsh words, he took out his phone and called his father.
"Hey Dad, I got caught breaking a clock at the hotel. The manager wants to make me pay double what it cost him, and he wouldn't even listen to who you are."
"Damn—I think he doesn't want to live anymore. Son, tell me—what's his name? I'll rush over right now!" The young man's father exclaimed.
"His name is Sam. I'm at the Berkeley Hotel right now," the young man said while turning to sneer at Sam.
"Who did you say? Sam from Berkeley?" asked the young man's father.
"What's the matter, Dad?" The young man asked in surprise, wondering why his father sounded so panicked.
"You idiot! Who told you to provoke Mr Woodsworth? Apologize to him now!" his father demanded.
"Dad—what's wrong with you? He wants twice as much money from me to compensate for the clock. This is a scam!" The young man was about to die from anger.
"Pay! Even if it's ten times more—you still have to pay him for it. It's your bad luck to say something to make Mr Woodsworth angry. Now, no matter what, you must ask Mr Woodsworth to forgive you, or you don't need to come back!" demanded his father.
The youth was no fool. He was not someone who could afford to offend a man that even his father was afraid of.
"Mr Woodsworth, I'm sorry. I was in the wrong, and I apologize. Didn't you say that I should compensate you with twice the amount? All right, I will pay," the young man said solemnly as he bowed and walked in front of Sam. He was as humble as he could be.
"Don't embarrass yourself here. Go scram to the first floor and pay up, then leave!" Sam commanded.
Sam's insulting words sounded like heavenly music to the young man. He nodded and quickly left the corridor with his friend.
The crowd gradually dispersed as well. Only then did Sam notice that Rose and Suzan were also there. He cursed silently before greeting them.
"Miss Scott, Miss Ogden—both of you are here too!" he said.
Rose and Suzan were both stunned by what they had just seen.
The young man did the same thing they had done yesterday. But the clock he had broken was worth far less than the statue that Rose had smashed that was worth over a million dollars.
He had said that his dad was a leader of the Golden Group and that he was connected to the management. Even with such a prestigious background, the man had been terrified of Sam. What kind of person was Sam? And what was the real reason for his letting Rose go yesterday?
"Manager Woodsworth, what's going on?" Alex walked over while stretching his back.
"Ah—" Sam was a little tongue-tied. If he described what had just happened, wouldn't that give away that he had been acting with Alex yesterday? Mr Ambrose didn't want Miss Scott and the others to know, thought Sam.
"After listening to what you said yesterday, I've reflected deeply and decided to get rid of all the beautiful things," Sam lied because he couldn't let Alex be exposed in front of Rose. At the most, he could just apologize to him in private.
Rose and Suzan were stunned again when Sam said this, especially Rose. She wanted to convince herself that, regardless of the facts, his actions had nothing to do with Alex.
And now, Sam was lying and helping him.
Rose stared at Alex with her eyes wide open. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't figure out what was going on.
After this little episode, Rose and Suzan quickly left to do their shopping.
"Rose, you saw Manager Woodsworth's attitude just now. He doesn't care about patrons objecting to Russian objects. He let us go yesterday—not because of Alex's words. I think he must know him!" Suzan said as they walked down the street.
"It seems that way now, but I can't believe it. You know how poor Alex is," Rose said as she frowned. "Right now, we're still not sure. We should watch him carefully from now on. If he's hiding something, he'll expose it."
"Okay. But when you see him later, you should just say thank you to him," Suzan advised.
Returning to the hotel, they found that Alex and Joe had already booked a car and were ready to go back to the university. As for Zane, he had snuck away alone some time ago.
In the car, Rose wanted to thank Alex, but he wouldn't even look at her. Plus, she had never been nice to Alex before.
When they got out of the car, Rose's thank you again got stuck in her throat.
"Joe, you go back with Suzan first. I have something to do," Alex said, as he couldn't wait to find Debbie and take her to see the villa.
"Rose—" Suzan whispered, winking at her. Only then did Rose muster up a bit of courage.
"Alex!" Rose shouted.
"What's wrong?" Alex looked at her in confusion.
"That… what happened yesterday… thank you," she stammered.
"It's nothing—you guys go back first. I'm leaving," Alex said quickly as he ran off.
Rose looked at Alex's back as he walked away and felt left out. She was a rich girl and talked to Alex, a poor student, but he didn't seem to care at all. He didn't stop to acknowledge her apology.