Chapter 1 What Exactly Do You Bring to This Company?

I'd barely ended the call when Matthew came back into the conference room to grab the travel documents he'd left on the table.

His eyes dropped to the phone in my hand. "Did you call your family again?"

His expression turned sour before I could even get a word in edgewise.

"If you have a problem with the schedule, take it up with HR. Don't drag personal matters into company business. I'm not bending the rules for you, Elena. So, stop putting me in a position where I have to explain myself to everyone else."

I said nothing.

Matthew picked up the holiday schedule and tossed it onto the table in front of me. "The handover isn't finished. So, where do you think you're going? Three department heads are still waiting for your signature."

He pulled another folder toward him, already moving on as if the conversation were settled.

"Get it done already. And before you leave, send the settlement reports for all three ports to the vendors. If anything comes up while I'm away, deal with it. I don't want them calling me."

That was enough.

I opened the envelope in my hand, pulled out my medical records, and dropped them onto the table.

The room instantly fell silent.

"Matt, I'm being admitted to the hospital tonight. They moved my surgery up, yet you only gave me half a day off."

His eyes flicked toward the papers, but I didn't give him a chance to interrupt.

"I'm going to undergo shoulder surgery, and you're still expecting me to deal with work while I'm recovering. Meanwhile, Bianca somehow gets a whole week off just because she wants to go to Monteluce."

I looked at him.

"You two leave tonight, and no one's even supposed to call you. So, everything is going to fall on me if a client pulls out or something goes wrong at one of the ports, even if I'm lying in a hospital bed. Does that sound reasonable to you?"

Movement near the doorway caught my attention.

The company driver was standing there, waiting for Matthew.

He'd worked for us for years. He was the same man who had driven us to the hospital when I'd collapsed during a business trip years ago.

Our eyes met for a moment before he looked away quietly.

Matthew noticed him as well, and his expression stiffened. He clearly hadn't expected me to say any of this in front of the executives, let alone someone who had known us for years.

His phone rang before he could respond.

Bianca was video calling.

The second Matthew answered, her face appeared on-screen from inside the private jet.

"What's taking you so long? I saved the seat next to me." Her smile faded when she spotted me. "Oh, Elena's there. Is she upset about the picture I posted? I'm sorry. I was just excited."

She paused before adding softly, "Maybe I should get off the plane. I don't want you two fighting because of me."

Matthew's voice softened almost immediately. "Stay on the plane."

"But—"

"Bianca, I promised you seven days, and you're getting all seven."

Then, he turned back to me, but the warmth had vanished from his voice. "Since when do I need your permission to make staffing decisions? Being my wife doesn't give you veto power over every decision I make.

"Bianca's coming because she'll be meeting bankers and clients with me while we're there. And she'll be sitting beside me at the gala. She's earned that spot."

My fingers tightened around the edge of the medical envelope.

I nearly started laughing at his face.

Bianca had been at Westbrook Group for less than a month, but somehow every mistake she made became my problem.

I had to smooth things over after she nearly lost us a client with the wrong figures, cover the shortfall after she sent money to an inactive account, and stay late to fix the books when her numbers wouldn't balance.

Yet, she still earned the private jet and the seat beside Matthew, but me asking for a few days to recover after a bullet was removed from my chest was apparently too much.

"She earned it?" I stared at him. "What exactly did she earn? And how? Did she earn it by quoting the wrong price in a client proposal and costing us the contract? Or sending money to an inactive account and leaving me to cover the shortfall out of my own pocket?"

Matthew's jaw tightened, but I wasn't finished.

"And what about last week's gala? She gave the chairman of Rossi Holdings' seat at the head table to one of his assistants. He was ready to walk out. I had to give up my own seat and spend 20 minutes convincing him to stay."

Bianca's smile vanished on the screen as she glanced nervously at Matthew.

He barely reacted. "She's been here less than a month. Of course, she's going to make mistakes. You know this company better than anyone. If you saw all these problems coming, why didn't you stop them before they happened?"

His voice grew colder. "Instead, you're standing here listing every mistake she's made in front of everyone. What exactly are you trying to prove? Are you actually trying to fix anything, or do you just have a problem with someone else getting a little recognition?"

I stared at him, utterly baffled by his audacity.

The room had gone completely silent, but there was no point defending myself.

Matthew had already decided that Bianca was the victim and I was the jealous wife. I knew that nothing I said would change that.

Apparently, he decided to take my silence as an admission as he pulled a letter from the folder in front of him and placed it on the table.

"Harrington Bank had agreed to extend an 80-million-dollar credit facility for our port expansion," he said. "And we have Bianca to thank for it."

That got everyone's attention.

The CFO immediately reached for the letter, and two department heads leaned over to read it with him. Whispers began moving around the table within seconds.

"So, that's why Bianca's been handling the Harrington paperwork."

"She met with their people last week, didn't she?"

"If Mr. Westbrook says she secured it, then she must have."

I looked at Matthew.

He looked almost satisfied, as though he'd finally found the one thing that proved everything I'd said about Bianca didn't matter.

I saw Bianca's smile slowly return to her face through his phone.

"Just wait for me," he told her. "I'll handle the bank meetings when I get there."

Then, he addressed the HR director, saying, "Put Bianca in charge of the Harrington account from now on, and make sure the full 80 million is credited to her."

The HR director wrote it down immediately.

Matthew pushed the letter of intent across the table toward me.

"One month, Elena." He tapped the letter. "She's been here one month, and she's already brought 80 million dollars into this company."

Then, he looked me straight in the eye. "And you? Other than being the CEO's wife, what exactly do you bring to this company?"

The words hit harder than I expected.

I gave Westbrook Group everything I had for five years—my time, my work, my contacts, and even my own money.

I stayed late to clean up disasters no one else knew about, saved client relationships before they fell apart, and protected both the company and Matthew whenever something went wrong.

Still, I had to practically beg my own husband for a few days to recover after having a bullet removed from my chest, while he couldn't bring himself to cut Bianca's vacation short by even a single day.

And that 80-million-dollar credit line? I was the one who secured it for him. Yet, it had somehow become Bianca's achievement.