Rift in the perfect picture

Although I was smiling when I looked at Frances, my heart was bleeding. I wondered how she could talk to me with such a sweet tone. Did she ever once think of me as family when she gave me those bowls of herbal tonics?

Frances‘ words immediately caused an uproar in the once–quiet meeting room. It was the noisiest I had ever seen it since I had stepped into the meeting room.

“Mr. Douglas, who are these people? We’re about to start our meeting. Why are they bringing their family members here?”

“Uninvolved persons should leave this meeting room. Don’t disrupt us from having our meeting.”

Frances‘ face grew red with embarrassment. The employees of Hawk Corporation had always treated her with respect when she came to the company with Daniel.All content © N/.ôvel/Dr/ama.Org.

Unfortunately for her, Douglas had established his foothold in Hawk Corporations, and the people under his management weren’t those old employees. Hence, they would not recognize her.

Her face was red, and she was livid. “How can I be considered an uninvolved person? I’m also here for the meeting!”

The employees in the crowd immediately burst into laughter.

“You’re just an old lady. How can you possibly be here for our meeting?”

“Since when did we have such an old lady working with us on our project? Why can’t I remember anything

about that?”

Frances had always taken great care of her appearance. Her face was filled with rage as she heard them call her “old” repeatedly.

I listened to them quietly with a small smile on my face. Once they were almost done with their outburst, I slowly got up from my seat and gently knocked my fingers on the table.

Everyone’s attention was instantly drawn toward me.

We were both strangers to almost everyone in the meeting room. One of us was red from anger, yet the other one was calm and imposed. The difference in power and status was immediately drawn clearly.

“Hello, everyone. Let me introduce myself. I am from the Jones family, and I’m currently the CEO of Jones Corporation.”

Douglas stood up with me and introduced me to the crowd. “Everyone, 1 expect you all to perform well. Ms. Jones has promised to increase her investments from what we had previously agreed on if the proposal is good enough.”

Everyone immediately sat up straight and looked at me with bright eyes.

The collaboration between Hawk Corporation and Jones Corporation was like moving my money from one account to another, but for the employees of Hawk Corporation, it was real work that could increase their profits and wages.

I turned to look at Frances. “Ms. Quirk, I think you should start calling me Ms. Jones when we’re in the

company.”

Then, I turned to everyone else and chucked. “Let’s start.”

Frances‘ expression was flushed with embarrassment. She hadn’t even found a place to sit when someone had already displayed their slides and began with their presentation.

Luckily, someone was kind enough to resolve her embarrassment as they pulled a chair up for her to sit at the back of the room.

I turned to the screen, and the smile on my face Immediately vanished..

Frances had listened Intently throughout the meeting. I wasn’t sure how much of it she understood, but i was sure she had understood that the project had an estimated profit of tens of millions of dollars. Once the meeting ended and everyone had left, Frances came up to me and asked, “Ari, will this project really be able to earn such a high margin of profit?”

I nodded slightly, but Frances looked doubtful. “Can those rude men really do it?”

I sneered in my heart. In truth, Douglas had been the one to arrange the outbursts of those “rude men“. The workers in Hawk Corporation would not be dumb enough to have such outbursts in public.

They were merely instructed to play along as even her seat at the back of the meeting room had been planned. I wanted her to feel the distance between us,

Everything was deliberate. Otherwise, who would be bared enough to cause trouble for no reason?

I was smiling, but there wasn’t an ounce of amusement in my eyes. “I called you here today because I want you to see my determination.

“Since you aren’t able to join Hawk Corporations, I can arrange for you to join Jones Corporation and participate in our projects with Hawk Corporations.

“I’ll help you earn a large sum so that you’ll have the money to buy some shares for Hawk Corporations if you plan to do so in the future.”