A Vengeful Ex-Wife novel Chapter 423

The pen Maria's assistant had given to Ronald to sign the contract was a special pen. The writing would disappear when the document was exposed to heat, leaving the paper blank.

After signing the contract that day, Maria had gotten someone to secretly get their hands on Ronald's copy of the contract and imitate his handwriting to write down the new profit split, as well as forge his signature with a normal pen.

"Maria, if you do use underhanded methods like this, no one will be willing to do business with you," James reminded her.

Maria shrugged, looking completely unbothered. "I wanted to make Ronald suffer in a way that he'll be too embarrassed to tell others about. I won't do this to people who sincerely want to do business with me. When you're dealing with a villain, you have to use means that are even worse than his."

James was rendered speechless. Was it really appropriate for a CEO to behave like a gangster?

Soon, there was a rumor spreading around H City that Maria had tampered with the contract and tricked Tang Group. As a result, all the companies that were cooperating with DS Group hastily checked their contracts to see if they had also been tricked by her.

When someone asked Maria about this, she innocently answered, "Mr. Tang couldn't keep up his end of the deal, so he's putting the blame on me. Since he is my cousin, I promised him that I would allow Tang Group to participate in the H Brocade project as long as he was willing to divide the profits between DS Group and Tang Group at the rate of 9:1. After all, the profit split in all the contracts I signed with James was 9:1. And Ronald agreed to it. Maybe Clayton blamed him, and he didn't want to admit it and even put the blame on me. But what can I do?"

When Clayton heard about Maria's response, his head spun, and he forgot how to breathe.

This contract had made Tang Group suffer a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars. In the end, Tang Group had no choice but to halt the production in their factory, so as to force DS Group to terminate the contract with them.

Now that her goal had been achieved, Maria wouldn't let the reputation of her company be put in jeopardy, so she terminated the contract before the matter escalated.

Sitting in the CEO's office of HL Group, James received a few pictures on his WeChat from Maria.

She had specially gone to Augustine's house to visit the unidentified child.

The two photos that were sent to him were a comparison of the baby that had been found at the park, and Bob when he was only a few months old. The photos were followed by a message saying, "He looks exactly like you. You still don't want to admit that he is your son?"

James opened the photo again and checked the photo again and again, but he couldn't find any similarities between them.

At that moment, he received another message from Maria saying, "Both of you have two eyes, one nose, and one mouth. Doesn't he look exactly like you?"

James couldn't believe his eyes. Didn't everybody have two eyes, one nose and one mouth? He could claim that the baby was her son, since they looked exactly alike, too!

But since he hadn't calmed her down yet, he didn't dare to say anything to upset her. Anyway, the important thing was, she obviously knew that the child wasn't his.

"If you admit that he's your son, then I'll admit that he's mine," he replied.

It was Maria's turn to be dumbstruck. She really hadn't given birth to another baby!

Gary knocked on the door of James' office and walked in. "Mr. Xi, CEOs of seven companies invited you to dinner."

Seven CEOs? James put his phone away and asked, "Did they say why?"

"No."

"I see. Tell them I'll be there. By the way, what happened to Gerald?"

Gerald Zong, the CEO of Zong Group, was the one who had forced Maria to drink and gotten himself to be sent to the hospital in the end.

"Mr. Zong has been transferred to a VIP ward. He is expected to wake up in one or two days," Gary answered.

James took a deep breath. "In that case, carry on our plan. I want to hear good news before he wakes up."

"Yes, sir."

As soon as Gary returned to the secretary area, he announced, "Mr. Xi said that we can start now!"

Everyone sitting at their desk began to take action.

In less than two days, Zong Group declared bankruptcy. When the news of that came out, the notorious Mr. Zong, who was best known for drinking and causing a fuss, hadn't woken up yet.

After finishing his first dinner appointment, James asked Summer to accompany him to the dinner arranged by the CEOs of the seven companies.

When he arrived, everyone just chatted about business affairs, but it was clear that they all had some other purpose for organizing this dinner.

Some of the CEOs even casually inquired James about certain projects and products, which he just gave brief answers to.

Just when he was about to lose his patience, one of them finally came to the point. "Mr. Xi, Mrs. Xi promised us that HL Group would cooperate with us."