As soon as Hou Yi ended the call, not only did he notice the nursing staff leave the room, but his telephone rang again, this time it was a.s.sistant w.a.n.g on the other end of the line.

"a.s.sistant w.a.n.g, what do you need?"

"A couple of things CEO Hou, I have not been able to finalise the arrangements for Lawyer Mei to visit Madam Hou …"

"Do not worry about that, it has been arranged, and she will be contacted regarding that."

"I have Wu Hai with me, and we want to finalise the press release…"

"Hold on, I need to go in to the room, as my wife has woken up, and I want her to be involved in this press release. Call me back in 5 minutes."

"Yes Sir."

With that Hou Yi ended the call and walked back into Anna's hospital room. He walked over and sat down in the chair he had been sitting in. "How are you?"

"A headache, which they told me would be expected, but they said everything else is OK. They told me, pain will get worse as after tomorrow they will be removing the painkillers through the drip and having me take them orally."

With that Hou Yi, picked up the hand closest to him and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Anna, a.s.sistant w.a.n.g has Wu Hai with him, and they have drafted a press release. Let me just say that Lu Jinhu and his family and their company are trying to a.s.sa.s.sinate your character and chase you out of my life and the country. It is a desperate move, given the backlash from last night. While I hate t.i.t-for-tat press releases we have to quickly respond by a press release. Feel free to add anything you want as we hear it."

"Fine. Yi could you come and sit beside me on the bed. I just need you closer than there at the moment."

Hou Yi could not believe his wife's request. It was a sign that she needed him close, but all he was hoping was that it was not simply that she needed a safety net. Anna, realised that she needed him as close as possible, both to provide comfort but more importantly as she needed as much of a connection that she could have with him at the moment, as there would be little opportunities to be more intimate until at least the cast came off her leg.

As Hou Yi sat down on the bed, his mobile started to ring, and he answered it. "Yes"

"CEO Hou …"

"a.s.sistant w.a.n.g, my wife is awake, but she needs her rest at the moment. Can you hear us Wu Hai?"

"Yes Sir."

"Please read out what you have drafted. My wife and I will interrupt when we need changes or for additional information to be added."

"Sir, we have two separate releases. The first will be from Hou Enterprises and the second from you and Madam Hou personally."

"Get started please"

"Hou Enterprises wishes to announce to the public that for the next two weeks …"

"I am guessing you are about to say how long I will be away. If that is, it will be three weeks as that is when my wife will be get out of hospital."

"OK, starting again. Hou Enterprises wishes to announce to the public that for the next three weeks CEO Hou Yi will be on partial leave from the company. His role, when he is unavailable will be filled by a combination of Vice-CEO Ji Feng and former CEO and Chairman Hou Jang."

"CEO Hou will be taking this leave, as due to an incident that occurred while Madam Hou was at the police station providing information to the police regarding matters. This has resulted in Madam Hou being injured and hospitalised. Hou Enterprises will not comment further on the incident or the reasons that Madam Hou was providing information to the police, as we understand that these are matters subject to ongoing investigations."

Hou Yi interrupted, "We need to add to that. Hou Corporation also announces that it has entered into agreement with XF International to become their equal and sole other partner in the City X Mall development. Further information about this will be released by XF International until such time as a joint project management team is established."

"The other thing, I want added, is Hou Corporation condemns Lu Corporation and its CEO, CEO Lu for failing to condemn former Vice-CEO Lu Jinhu's actions towards Madam Hou last night. Despite former Vice-CEO Lu Jinhu being his son, the utter failure to condemn violence against a woman and victim blame is totally unacceptable. For those two reasons, Hou Corporation will be re-evaluating our involvement in any project where Lu Corporation is involved in any way. Once that is added, please run it by Vice-CEO Ji and have him sign the release for the company."

"Actually, can you add into that release, that I also will be off, but for 6 to 8 weeks, due to suffering a broken leg. People know that I work in the legal department, and it needs to be out there so there is no accusation that I come in and out of the company when it suits me." Anna looked directly at Hou Yi, and continued "It comes back to that honesty you were mentioning."