My Husband Brought His Mistress To A Business Dinner To Humiliate His “Useless” Wife. He Didn’t Know I Speak Eight Languages Or That I’m The One Who Actually Owns Our Mansion. Am I Wrong For Letting Him Ruin Himself?
Dealing the Cards
I didn’t turn to look at them. I only felt disgusted at how they tried to drag me through the mud even as I was saving their company’s hide. I shook off Julian’s grip with a sharp, decisive movement that sent him stumbling backward. I looked directly into Richter’s eyes and continued in German, my voice serene as if the two yelling behind me didn’t exist.
“Please excuse the interruption. As you can see, the situation is a bit tense, but I assure you the integrity of this contract is guaranteed.”
Richter managed a half smile. It was the smile of an old fox who had understood everything. He ignored Julian, walked back to the table, pulled out a chair, and gestured for me to sit opposite him.
“Please have a seat, Madam. I’m listening.”
Richter’s gesture was like a slap across Julian’s face. He stood there petrified, his mouth agape. His most important partner, the one who had been on the verge of leaving, was now respectfully inviting his wife, whom he considered useless, to sit at the negotiating table.
I sat down with a calm and dignified posture. It had been 10 years since I felt this way. The feeling of being where I belonged, the feeling of being guided by my intellect. I glanced at the thick contract on the table. The words, the complex legal clauses, appeared before my eyes as familiar as old friends.
The game had just begun, and this time I was dealing the cards. Julian couldn’t accept it. The false vanity of a chauvinistic man was being severely threatened. He couldn’t stand being sidelined at his own party, much less having his freeloader wife be the savior of the situation.
He approached abruptly, intending to place his hand on my shoulder to force me to stand. He was going to use his authority as a husband to subdue me right there.
“Eleanor, I forbid you. Get up right now. This is no place for women to meddle in business. Go home now.”
His voice was a hiss loud enough for those nearby to hear. The crowd began to whisper more loudly. Chloe, by his side, added fuel to the fire.
“Eleanor, don’t make Julian angrier. Just leave. This is out of your league.”
I took a deep breath. My patience had run out. Ten years of submission was more than enough. Today, here, I would end this farce of a happy family. I turned sharply, my fiery gaze fixed on Julian’s face.
“Shut your mouth.”
Three short words, sharp as a knife on marble. My voice echoed clear and firm in English, leaving Julian and Chloe stunned. Julian seemed to freeze. His half-raised hand stopped midair. Never in 10 years had he heard me raise my voice to him, much less yell at him in public.
“If you want to lose this contract, if you want your company to be bankrupt tomorrow, drowning in debt and being the laughingstock of the business world, then keep talking. But if you want to hold on to what little pride you have left, shut your mouth and step aside. Don’t make me repeat myself.”
The authority emanating from me made Julian recoil. He looked at me as if I were a stranger. The docile caged canary had suddenly transformed into a phoenix, and its heat terrified him. He stammered, trying to say something, but the words wouldn’t come.
I gave him no chance to react. I turned back to Richter, instantly switching to German with a 180-degree turn in my demeanor that became professional and astonishingly calm.
“Let’s discuss the technical details, Mr. Richter. I’ve heard your concerns about the production capacity of the Charleston factory.”
I began to analyze. I spoke of the production line output capacity, the ISO standards Julian’s factory applied or claimed to apply. This was knowledge Julian hadn’t taught me; I had acquired it by secretly reading the documents he left scattered around his home office.
Added to that was my prior understanding of industrial processes from my time as an interpreter for development projects. I highlighted the strengths Julian didn’t know how to present and skillfully downplayed the weaknesses with promises of an improvement plan. I used technical terminology with absolute precision: throughput, yield, quality control.
Richter nodded continuously. He took out a pen and began to take notes in his agenda.
“Interesting. Very interesting. Your husband never explained it to me with such clarity.”
Julian beside me looked like a statue with a dumbfounded expression. He didn’t understand what I was saying, but he could see Richter’s attitude changing. He knew I was achieving what his entire team had failed to do.
Chloe, for her part, had an ashen face. She slowly backed away, trying to go unnoticed. I was in control of the game. I was like an orchestra conductor, guiding the emotions and thoughts of my interlocutor at will. Every word I spoke carried the weight of a thousand pounds.
This feeling of power was wonderful. It compensated for 10 years lived as a parasite, 10 years of contempt. I glanced at Julian. He was trembling, not from cold, but from fear. He feared the truth unfolding before his eyes. His wife, whom he had always dismissed as ignorant, was in fact infinitely more competent than him, and my shadow was growing, swallowing his small, pathetic ego.
The atmosphere at the negotiating table had warmed up thanks to my intervention. However, not everyone in Richter’s entourage was so easily convinced. To Richter’s right sat Mr. Dubois, the lead logistics adviser, a middle-aged Frenchman with small eyes and a mocking smile.
From the beginning, he had maintained a skeptical attitude. He believed I was simply a lucky wife who had picked up some German somewhere, thrown in as a last resort to save face. He didn’t believe a woman, the wife of a director as mediocre as Julian, could deeply understand the international transport system.
Just as Richter finished praising me, Dubois interjected sharply. He used neither German nor English. He used French, speaking at the speed of a machine gun.
“Madame, that all sounds very well, but what about the congestion problem at the Port of New York and New Jersey? Your infrastructure is a nightmare. How can you guarantee our goods won’t be stuck there for weeks without a logistics solution? This contract is worthless.”
He deliberately used maritime transport jargon, speaking quickly and slurring his words, intending to test me. He wanted to see me struggle. He wanted to see me forced to ask Julian, who he was sure wouldn’t understand either. He wanted to unmask what he considered my charade.
Julian beside me looked bewildered. He didn’t understand a word. He looked at me anxiously, sweat breaking out on his forehead again. He feared I had run out of tricks. But Dubois was mistaken. He had picked the wrong opponent.
He didn’t know that French was my second most fluent language after German. I had lived in Paris for 2 years. I had worked with the largest shipping companies in Marseilles. I turned to Dubois, looking directly into his small eyes with a smile even more arrogant than his. I replied immediately in fluent French with a perfect Parisian accent, down to the last detail.
“Monsieur Dubois, your concern about New York is entirely legitimate. It’s a notorious problem, which is precisely why we won’t be going through New York.”
Dubois froze. He didn’t expect such a quick reaction. I continued my attack without giving him time to recover.
“We will use the port complex of Savannah for the large mother ships. As for inland transport, we already have a preliminary agreement to use direct rail routes, thus avoiding the highway congestion around the major hubs. Furthermore, we will apply the green channel customs procedure for priority goods, reducing clearance time from 48 to 6 hours. Does that answer your question, Monsieur?”
I spoke fluently, laying out each solution with clarity and precision. I didn’t just translate; I presented a strategy, a strategy I had secretly researched after seeing Julian’s company constantly fined for delivery delays. I had tried to give him my opinion, but every time I opened my mouth about work he would cut me off: “Women don’t know about these things.” Now the knowledge he had scorned was his only salvation.
Dubois’s face went from arrogance to the deepest astonishment. His mouth hung open and his pen fell from his hand. He turned to Richter, stammering.
“Boss, this lady knows the routes better than I do.”
