Chapter 11
The next day was for the selection of the gala.
Mariana had a great night’s sleep. This morning, her skin looked great, and she was full of vigor.
After doing her makeup, she sat down for breakfast with Natasha on purpose
“Marie, I’ve transferred half of my shares to you. You’re now a member of the Mueller Group’s board.” Natasha paused, then asked, “But once you’re in the company, which area do you plan to take charge of?”
“I wanna lead the development of the new perfume line. I’ll start with the weakest link right now.”
Mariana pulled out the proposal she had been working on and showed it to Natasha. “This is the proposal for the new perfume line I’ve been working on for a while. I’ve had it reviewed by experts. What do you think?”
Natasha flipped through it, and her eyes lit up. “I trust you. With your skills and your natural talent, if you take over the Perfume Department, it’s sure to turn things around.”
With Natasha’s thumbs–up, Mariana smiled, feeling genuinely happy.
After she finished eating, she changed into a long dress that showed off her hot figure, then headed out for the selection.
As soon as she got in the car, she got a message that ten minutes ago, Karlee had posted photos of Sandra meeting a mysterious guy at night, and now it was blowing up online.
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Mariana told the driver to head to the Montoya Edifice. She was holding her phone tight and scrolling through the online comments with a cold look on her face.
“Didn’t Sandra say she has never been in a relationship? She said in the interview that she has never dated. What’s this then? She’ll lie about anything to get money!”
“Who’s this guy?”
“Her cousin’s fiance and also her boss at work. Her cousin is that agent who broke her leg. How shameless!”
Before Mariana could finish checking out the buzz, Ralph’s call came in.
“Marie.”
“Yeah.”
“Let me explain.”
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Hearing she was still ticked off, Ralph got anxious. “You know, seeing isn’t always believing. I got pretty wasted last night, but I swear, nothing happened between me and Sandra.”
“How am I supposed to believe that?” she shot back calmly.
“I…”
Ralph hesitated for a second, then turned on the bossy CEO charm. “If other people don’t trust me, whatever. But we’ve been together for so long. Don’t you know how much I care about you? I couldn’t fall for someone else!”
Mariana pursed her lips. He couldn’t even make a solid promise. Was he scared of some kind of cosmic payback or something? What a total loser!
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Swallowing the gross feeling in her gut, she said, “I get it. Right now, we gotta deal with the public reaction.”
“You’re right.”
Ralph thought Mariana was still easy to please and tried to butter her up. “Honey, with you handling the online stuff, I’m not worried at all.”
Mariana glanced coldly at the incoming call and said calmly, “I gotta go. I’ve got another call.”
After she hung up on Ralph, another call came in from her subordinate, who sounded really down. “Mariana, what do we do now? A few of Sandra’s brands and shows are getting trashed, and they want us to come up with a solution.”
“Got any ideas?” Mariana asked in a slow and deliberate way.
“We could say these are just Sandra’s drama stills, and the guy is her acting partner. That way, we can divert the attention.”
Mariana’s eyes narrowed a bit. Over the past two years at the company, she had been handling everything–agent work, legal stuff, and publicity. She had the final say in everything. Because of that, Ralph had kept a lot of idle hands. Such a flawed solution could easily get them slammed by the netizens.
But that made her feel relieved. She smiled, “Alright, go ahead and do it your way.”
Before she hung up, she heard a burst of excitement on the other end of the line.
Her useless subordinates, who she had been yelling at for the past two years, finally got some praise and felt pretty good about themselves. She thought, “Hmph, let Ralph see how hard it is for the company to run
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without me.”
Mariana put her phone away and stopped worrying about the gossip. She headed straight to the Montoya Edifice for the selection.
The elevator doors opened.
People waiting outside glanced over. They were gonna take a quick look, but then they couldn’t help but think Mariana was stunning.
And she looked classy.
It wasn’t because she was wearing designer clothes or diamond jewelry. It was her one–of–a–kind presence.
Then, they noticed the cane in her hand. So, she had got a limp?
“A nobody with a limp, and she thinks she can be selected? What a joke!”
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