She Quit Her Family and Found Herself novel Chapter 132

Without a doubt, he was confident, successful, respected, and admired.

But now...

The stinging imprint of Mrs. Coleman's slap still burned on his cheek. His clothes, soaked in seawater and rain, reeked of the ocean.

He was Herbert Jewell. He had never been this pathetic in his entire life.

But what tortured him the most was H&J Technologies—the company he had poured his heart and soul into.

This retreat was supposed to boost morale, but instead, it had backfired spectacularly, making everything infinitely worse.

At that moment, Herbert felt as though an invisible hand had abruptly flipped the switch on his life's upward trajectory.

Everything around him was crumbling, and the future only looked bleaker.

But he couldn't understand it. He was still the same man. Nothing had changed!

Just then, a lazy, mocking voice drifted over from a short distance away.

"Dylan, I heard a saying recently that makes perfect sense."

It was Caspian Sterling.

"What's that, boss?" Dylan asked.

Caspian cast a sideways glance at Herbert, who looked like a drenched, pathetic dog slumped on the sofa. "He who wrongs his wife invites ruin."

Catching his drift, Dylan immediately looked over at Herbert, noting the way the man's body visibly stiffened. He had definitely heard them.

Putting on an exaggerated expression of realization, Dylan nodded. "That is profound. A man really needs to treat his wife well!"

Caspian scoffed lightly. "Obviously. I'll treat my wife perfectly."

Dylan pressed his lips together, thinking to himself, *Boss, you should probably win Ms. Atherton over first.*

He hadn't even won the girl yet, let alone married her!

Of course, Dylan didn't dare say that out loud.

Herbert looked up, watching Caspian and his assistant stroll out of the lobby and climb into their waiting car. He stared into space for a long time.

*He who wrongs his wife invites ruin?*

"She's a housewife. What does she know? It was just a coincidence."

He refused to believe Hulda actually understood temperature, wind direction, or tides. It was simply dumb luck that their yacht had sailed straight into a severe storm.

Over the next few days, Justin and Herbert were buried in damage control, trying to mitigate the fallout from the yacht disaster.

External PR, internal pacification. But these were just band-aids on a gaping wound. If they couldn't secure new funding, their only hope was the collaboration with The Conrad Atherton Institute.

Winning that bid was the only way to turn the tide.

For days, Herbert leveraged every connection and pulled every string imaginable just to get a meeting with the director of the research and development center, all to no avail.

With Friday looming closer, H&J Technologies didn't even have an invitation to the press conference.

Herbert and Justin were sinking into absolute despair.

Suddenly, Sylvie burst into Herbert's office. Usually the picture of corporate poise, she was so frantic she didn't even knock.

"Mr. Jewell! Mr. Jameson! Great news! I just got off the phone with a friend who can get us an invitation to the institute's press conference this Friday!"

Sylvie's friend worked at Trident Corporation, a massive enterprise run by the Sterling family. Since Trident partnered with The Conrad Atherton Institute, they could pull strings to secure H&J a spot.