Offer To The CEO

Monday, continued …

Just before 3pm in the wings of a small meeting room at the Key Plaza Hotel where they were holding the press conference Anna, using the crutches was standing with Hou Yi, his parents and Du XuXu's family. She knew how uncomfortable she was standing with the aid of the crutches, but she knew that she was going to have to for the purposes of the press conference.

Hou Yi watching Anna observed that standing with the use of crutches was becoming painful for her.

She did not need that, and he was concerned how this might not only affected her but their unborn child. She did not need the stress of worrying about any harm to their child, so he stood beside her and whispered "Do you want a chair to sit on? Should I arrange for a chair near the microphone to rest your leg on? Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Yi calm down. No to the first, yes to the second, and that means a yes to the third question. Now calm down. I know you are so used to being in control in a situation like this, but you need to relax. I can do the job of getting the information you with everyone else there available to answer questions on specific details."

"You do not need to protect me all the time. There will be times that I need to step up and protect you. We have a marriage, and it is a two-way street where we both love each other and want to protect each other."

With that Anna reached up, dropping one of the crutches but giving Hou Yi a kiss. When they broke apart he bent down and picked up the crutch for her, helping Anna put it back under her arm.

Anna then continued "Yi, my training is all about public speaking, in front of strangers. I cannot advocate for my clients if I cannot do that and control my emotions as best I can. I can and I want to do this, so please support me."

"Sweetheart, you should not have to." With that he gentle leaned his head onto Anna's forehead, so they were touching. "This is something from my past, that I should deal with."

"Darling, what have you been doing for the last five weeks for me. We can face whatever we need to, together. As you often hear said 'United we stand, divided we fall'. For us that means that when we work together we will succeed but if we if we try alone we will fail."

Before wither of them could continue they were interrupted by the media adviser who coordinated the conference. Hou Yi stopped her briefly and asked her to have a seat ready for Anna to rest her cast on, while speaking.

Everyone moved to the back of the stage area while the media adviser performed the introductions of everyone on stage.

Anna, when singled to hobbled up on the crutches to the microphone and lectern, and a chair was brought out for her to rest her leg on. The media adviser as they had requested had placed two folders on the lectern, one that contained her speech and the other containing copies of all the documents that will be handed to or sent out to the various press organisations.

Taking a breath, Anna looked out at the assembled media. It was obvious with a glance that they were out there ready to get Hou Yi. They had already made their decision, given that her media adviser was doing everything to ensure that her version of the story, without evidence was the only thing in the media. Hou Yi's denials to date were simply dismissed as him trying to protect himself and denying the truth.

Anna took a few deep breaths before starting to speak "Ladies and Gentlemen of the press, you will have to forgive me, standing and crutches for me have not been going well, I seem to drop them everywhere and become a hopping rabbit."

While a very lame joke, most of the press realised that Anna, was trying to lighten the mood. With that Anna using the chair that was placed on the temporary stage and rested her leg in the case on the chair.

"In all seriousness, I will ask you to bare with me, as despite everything this cast, and my leg does make it difficult to deal with standing. I am likely to have to at some point change to sitting down or some other way to rest my leg." Anna could see that there were no real objections from the press corps. She knew that they were being kind to her at that moment.