Mr. Villain's Lovely Wife

Chapter 199

lan adjusted his chair and glanced around the table. "Now that introductions are done, let's proceed to the real agenda of the meeting. We'll begin with the most recent quarterly reports."

His assistant, a young man with neat hair and a sharp suit, moved from chair to chair, placing a folder in front of each board member. When he reached Izzy, he hesitated for half a second before setting the file in front of her. She opened it.

Izzy scanned the pages. Profit margins, operational expenses, overseas revenue. She hadn't seen any of these figures yet. As far as she knew, the quarterly meeting was scheduled for the following month. These numbers weren't supposed to be on the table yet.

She glanced at Anna, who was standing near the corner of the room, tablet in hand. Anna shook her head slightly. She didn't know about it either.

lan leaned forward. "This isn't the official quarterly meeting, of course. That's still set for next month. But since you're here, Ms. Rossi, we thought it might be useful to show you what the company's been working on recently. Consider this a preview."

Gregory Vasili flipped open his folder with both hands, scanning the pages. "It's not much of a preview if we're going through the entire report."

"Not the entire report," lan said. "Just the highlights."

Linda Keating adjusted her glasses. "I assume these numbers were reviewed by internal audit?"

lan nodded. "Yes. We had them validated last week."

Izzy continued reading. Some of the projections looked optimistic. Too optimistic. The manufacturing costs for the Munich facility were listed as lower than expected. The Southeast Asia logistics report excluded the delays she had heard about in a private memo two weeks ago.

"Why isn't the supply chain issue in here?" Izzy asked, looking up. Her eyes moved across the table, landing on lan.

lan didn't answer immediately. He looked toward Frank Dorsey, who was already leaning back in his chair.

"You mean the Port of Manila delays?" Frank said. "We didn't think they were material enough to be included in this version."

"They stalled shipments for two and a half weeks," Izzy said. "That's not material?"

Frank shrugged. "That's subjective."

"Not when you're the one covering the penalties," she replied.

her folder. "We also left out the litigation updates. I thought

a courtesy briefing.

a report," Izzy said. She closed her folder.

looked at her, then at lan. "She has

his expression neutral.

away. "Let me know when the real data's ready. I'm not here to read

lan turned to the assistant and gave a

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Chapter 199

room.

lan said. "We'll get the full set of numbers

+58

anything else. Meanwhile Gregory continued watching her, his fingers lightly drumming on the surface of the folder. Across the table, Linda had already returned to her tablet, as if

this.

but the tone had shifted. No one questioned who held the

working tirelessly for another company because of a man," Gregory said, his hands clasped behind his back as

his expression sharp. "But that's not the woman I saw today. Isabella Rossi wasn't afraid to show her potential. She sat in that room and

still. His eyes dropped slightly. "I didn't

actually do something, she's going to take over the entire company. Not

said nothing. The sting in his chest had nothing to

sure she'd be overwhelmed. First time meeting the board. No formal corporate background. The file he read said she had spent the last two years being carted around the globe under Weiss Inc., working long hours for someone else's dream. She was supposed to be burnt out. Distracted. Reeling from her public

have worked in

not only had she kept her composure, she had embarrassed Frank, corrected the reports, and exposed flaws no one else had noticed. Even Gregory hadn't known about the Manila delay. Frederik only found out from the secretary an hour ago,

show it, but Frederik was irritated. She wasn't

outside, he nodded. "I

see a woman with fifty-two percent

kept his voice even. "I'll

said that the last