Chapter236 Taking On the Vice President
The message was clear as glass.
Whatever Miranda had done, Mrs. Martinez wanted this room to believe she had gotten here through connections, not capability.
The shift was immediate.
Some eyes went cold. A few expressions settled into something close to dismissal.
But most of the guests were too sharp to take the bait outright. They had spent time with Miranda over the past hour. She was precise. Her instincts were good. Her read on the market was frankly better than some of the people already in this room.
Even if she had used a connection to get through the door, she had the goods to back it up.
Most people chose to wait and see.
But that wasn't quite the point.
Mrs. Martinez knew exactly who she was playing to.
The social's vice president had one rule he never bent: no back-door access, no exceptions. He had built his name on the belief that this event existed for people who had genuinely earned it. Favors and nepotism were the one thing he could not stomach.
Right on schedule, his voice cut through the room from across the floor.
"Who? Who used a connection to get into my social?"
He was pushing sixty, silver-haired, built like someone who had never once backed down from a fight. He moved through the crowd with two security people at his back and his face set hard.
Mrs. Martinez barely kept the satisfaction off her face.
Then Harrison stepped forward.
"Sir."
One word. But it landed like a stone dropped in still water.
Several guests turned. Mrs. Martinez felt her confidence stutter for just a moment.
Harrison called the vice president sir? As in, they actually knew each other?
The older man's expression eased slightly when he saw who it was. "Harrison. Tell me what's going on."
Harrison pulled in a slow breath.
"The invitation came from me, sir. I gave it to Miranda."
Clean. Direct. No hesitation.
"Her track record is exceptional. She built a startup from scratch to pre-IPO stage in under a year. Her thinking is original and her instincts are sharp. You've said for years that this community needs new voices with real substance behind them." He held the older man's gaze. "Miranda is exactly that."
It was a solid defense. It owned the facts and immediately pivoted to merit.
Mrs. Martinez had not planned for this. She had expected to walk in, light the fuse, and watch Miranda get escorted out. Harrison stepping up, and with that particular word on his lips, threw a wrench in everything.
The vice president's expression had softened noticeably. He studied Miranda with a different kind of attention now, less like a judge and more like someone taking a second look.
Mrs. Martinez caught herself. She could not let this fall apart.
She turned to Harrison, voice sweet and just loud enough to reach the right ears.
"Mr. Gu, every person in this room tonight runs or chairs a publicly traded company. Some of them have built empires." She let her gaze drift between him and Miranda in a way that made her meaning obvious. "Are you telling us the invitation was about her qualifications? Or is it because she's your ex-wife?" She tilted her head just slightly. "I've heard you've been trying to get her back for a while now."
Harrison's face went to ice. "Be careful with what you say, Mrs. Martinez. Slander has consequences."
She smiled pleasantly and said nothing more.
She didn't need to.
The vice president had already stopped looking at Miranda.
His eyes were on Harrison now. And the warmth in them was gone.
"Harrison." Quiet. Measured. "Is this woman your ex-wife?"
He had been preparing Harrison to take over his seat in the organization for years. The man had everything he looked for.
Except this.
He would not hand over his life's work to someone who bent the rules for personal reasons. That was non-negotiable.
Harrison's throat moved. He said nothing.
Their history wasn't a secret. Half the room already knew.
His silence gave the vice president his answer.
The older man's expression settled into something bleak and cold.
He looked at Harrison the way someone looks at a person they thought they knew.
"I'm disappointed in you, Harrison."
He didn't look at Harrison again. His eyes moved to Miranda, sharp and final.
"You're not welcome here. Please leave."
Mrs. Martinez exhaled quietly through her nose. Nearly there.
Miranda didn't move.
She looked at the vice president for a moment.
Then she spoke.
"Stubborn old man."
The room went completely still.
The vice president stared at her. Like he genuinely wasn't sure he had heard right.
"I'm sorry?"
"I said," Miranda repeated, unhurried, "you're a stubborn old man."
She didn't flinch under his stare. Her voice was even and precise.
"The referral invitation is your own system. You built it. Your student nominated me. Per your own rules, every nominee submits a full company profile and background for review before being approved." She paused for exactly one beat. "I cleared that review. That's why I'm standing here."
She took one step forward.
"So what you're actually saying is that because I happen to be your student's ex-wife, my record means nothing? My work means nothing? Is that genuinely how this organization evaluates people?"
She didn't give him space to answer.
"Because if it is," she said, her voice dropping lower and landing harder, "then this so-called elite social isn't worth nearly as much as you think it is."
The silence that followed had weight to it.
Then the room exhaled all at once.
This social had been running for ten years. Quietly, consistently, it had built more real influence than organizations three times its age. No one talked about it like that. No one questioned it out loud.
Miranda just had.
Without blinking.
Across the room, Mrs. Martinez pressed her lips together to hold back a grin.
Perfect. Absolutely perfect.
She had hoped Miranda would self-destruct tonight.
She just hadn't expected it to be this thorough.