Chapter 15 - THE WOMAN THEY CALLED JEALOUS
Reporters waited outside Grupo Ibarra.
One shouted, “Mrs. Ibarra, did you freeze financing because your husband cheated?”
Another asked whether she planned to take the company in the divorce.
Renata stopped at the microphone line.
Daniel advised her to keep walking.
She turned toward the cameras.
“My marriage and the company investigation involve some of the same people,” she said. “They do not involve the same legal questions.”
“Did the affair influence your decision?”
“Yes.”
The honesty surprised everyone.
“It revealed an undisclosed conflict between Grupo Ibarra’s chief executive and an assistant receiving millions through a related vendor.”
A reporter asked whether she wanted revenge.
Renata looked directly into the camera.
“Revenge would be allowing the company to collapse so the people who humiliated me lose everything.”
The crowd became quiet.
“I am doing the opposite. I am protecting employees, creditors, and investors from executives who believed personal access placed them above oversight.”
Inside the emergency court hearing, Mercer Ridge argued that the repayment trigger was valid.
Their lawyer portrayed Rodrigo as an experienced chief executive who understood what he signed.
Renata’s team played the recovered meeting audio.
The court heard Valeria assure Rodrigo that he was “not going anywhere.”
It heard his question removed from the transcript.
Then Daniel introduced the private takeover agreement promising Valeria equity after default.
The judge froze enforcement until a full fraud hearing.
Grupo Ibarra gained time.
But victory brought another revelation.
A forensic accountant traced Orion’s first payment.
It had not gone to Valeria.
It went to a private investigator.
The investigator had spent months collecting information about Renata.
Travel records.
Committee schedules.
Medical appointments.
Private messages.
Valeria studied when Renata was most likely to approve financing.
She also studied the marriage.
One report described Rodrigo’s resentment whenever Renata received public recognition.
Another documented his drinking after arguments about money.
Valeria did not accidentally enter his life during a crisis.
She selected him.
Mercer Ridge hired her two years earlier to gain influence inside Grupo Ibarra.
The assistant position, the affair, Orion, and the hidden loan clauses were all parts of the same operation.
Rodrigo read the reports in silence.
“She targeted me.”
Renata stood across the room.
“Yes.”
He looked almost relieved.
Then she added, “And you opened every door.”
His relief disappeared.
Valeria had manipulated him.
But manipulation worked because it offered him something he wanted.
Admiration without accountability.
Power without questions.
May you like
A wife he could use privately while diminishing publicly.
👉 Rodrigo finally understood that Valeria never loved him, but Renata was about to discover the conspiracy began even before Valeria joined his office.
