Chapter 288: Chapter 288: Vincent Grant, Trampling Her Dignity Underfoot
"I’ll change!"
Vincent Grant said firmly.
He was Vincent Grant. Nothing could stop him once he set his mind to it.
"I won’t give up just because I feel I owe her. That’s not my style!"
His style was to correct his mistakes and get everything back on track.
That applied to his work, and it applied to his relationships!
Jenson Forrest looked at him intently. "Vincent, I don’t deny your capabilities, but... do you even have a chance anymore?"
"There’s something you still don’t know, isn’t there? You and Faye have already di—"
"President Grant, Ms. Sherman is being swarmed by reporters outside!"
The rest of the word "divorced" never left his lips as Joel Hale rushed in.
"What’s going on?" Vincent Grant asked.
Joel Hale hesitated for a moment before saying, "The two of you were in the parking garage... someone took pictures."
He held out his phone.
On the screen were several photos of Vincent Grant and Joanna Sherman in the parking garage.
There was one of Joanna hugging him from behind, one of him holding her hand, and one of her taking off her clothes in front of him.
Whether it was intentional or not, the photos were out of order, making it look as though Joanna had professed her love for him and he had accepted.
For years, Vincent Grant had always appeared alone, so most people didn’t know much about his marital status. When these risqué photos of him and Joanna Sherman suddenly surfaced, the internet erupted.
Some claimed he was cheating.
Others rumored he had long been divorced and was now dating Joanna normally.
Someone even dug up photos of his wedding to Sophia Shaw from six years ago.
Vincent Grant’s first reaction was to call Sophia Shaw.
She didn’t pick up.
Sophia had also seen the photos online.
The images were so intimate they could make one’s face flush and heart race.
Soon, someone posted a video related to the incident.
In the video, Joanna Sherman was crying pitifully for the camera. "Vincent and I were always meant to be. He proposed to me six years ago, and we were just one step away from walking down the aisle."
"The one who interfered is the shameless one, isn’t she?"
’The one who interfered?’
’Joanna Sherman personally orchestrated that whole scheme to get into his bed. If it hadn’t been her, it would have been someone else. And now she’s playing the victim?’
’*I’m* the one who should be complaining.’
Sophia smiled faintly. She had no time to waste on such convoluted nonsense.
She quickly typed out a sentence and sent it.
Then she turned off her phone.
Vincent couldn’t get through to Sophia, so Jenson held out his own phone to him. "Sophia has responded."
He quickly looked down and saw Sophia’s verified comment in the comments section.
Congratulations.
’Congratulations...’
’So, when his wife found out about this, her response was to congratulate him?’
A sharp pain stabbed through Vincent’s chest.
Cedric Grant’s call came through. "Dad, I just saw the news about you and Auntie Joanna. You’re not really planning to get together with her, are you?"
"I want Mom!"
Vincent suppressed the overwhelming disappointment and stinging pain, his voice low. "Cedric, don’t worry. It’s just a misunderstanding."
"Dad loves Mom."
As Joel Hale listened to Vincent’s words, his heart sank lower and lower.
After a long moment, he said, "President Grant, your wife has already made her stance clear. The best course of action right now is to let things cool down."
Vincent took out his phone, personally recorded a video, and sent it to Joel Hale. "Have the PR department post this on all the company’s official accounts."
Hearing this, Joel’s face went as white as a sheet.
It took him a long time to whisper, "Yes, sir."
Jenson Forrest watched silently as Vincent did all this, his lips suddenly tightening.
At that moment, he didn’t feel anger toward Vincent, but pity.
Vincent had no time to talk with Jenson. He strode out of the room.
Joanna Sherman didn’t wipe the tears from her face until after she got in the car.
Her assistant looked at her uneasily. "Ms. Sherman, what you just said... could it have a negative impact?"
"What impact could it have?" Joanna’s expression was icy. "I wasn’t the one who leaked the photos. I just told a little bit of the truth."
The assistant didn’t dare say more and focused on driving.
Joanna opened her phone and, just as she expected, saw many sympathetic comments, with quite a few people asking what really happened back then.
A slight smile touched Joanna’s lips.
’Back then, all anyone saw was Sophia Shaw pushing me aside and climbing into Vincent Grant’s bed.’
’People only care about the surface-level drama. As for who drugged whom, or who sent whom into which room... no one would believe any of that.’
She scrolled with her finger and easily found Sophia’s comment, which had been pushed to the top by countless replies.
It was a single word: "Congratulations."
Joanna’s smile was triumphant. "Good, you know your place!"
She knew Sophia was a smart woman. The smarter you were, the more you understood that any explanation would just sound like an excuse.
For a divorced woman, the most dignified comment to leave for her ex-husband was exactly that: "Congratulations."
However, as she kept scrolling, her smile vanished.
Vincent had posted a video of himself across all of the Grant Group and Zenith’s platforms:
"My wife, Sophia Shaw, and I have been happily married for many years. My relationship with Miss Joanna Sherman is strictly professional. When Miss Sherman had an incident and I escorted her home, my assistant was present, and I also informed my wife, Sophia."
Vincent even showed a screenshot of his chat history with Sophia.
"However, I will learn from this lesson. Should a similar situation arise in the future, I will ensure my wife and I are both present, out of respect for her."
’So, after all her pitiful complaints, Vincent just brushed everything aside with a few casual words?’
’He kept insisting Sophia was his wife and that he had to respect her. What did that make *her*?’
Joanna had thought Vincent would, at most, confront her privately. Instead, he said all this in front of everyone!
’My reputation... was utterly trampled!’
Joanna couldn’t take it and quickly called Vincent. "Vincent, why would you do this to me! Do you have any idea how many people will condemn me after a video like that gets out?"
"Miss Sherman, this is Assistant Hale." Joel Hale’s voice on the other end was devoid of warmth. "President Grant left his phone with me. He’s gone to find Sophia Shaw to explain things to her in person."
Joanna: "..."
For the first time in her life, she understood what it felt like to be treated like dirt!
’Vincent... just to appease Sophia, he didn’t care that he was humiliating me so publicly!’
"Miss Sherman, if I were you, I would lie low and hide, not keep causing trouble endlessly."
Once her halo was removed, Joel realized Joanna Sherman was unbelievably foolish.
"If you keep this up, the truth about the divorce won’t be kept under wraps for much longer!"
"Have you figured out how you’re going to explain yourself to President Grant?"
While Vincent was searching high and low for Sophia, she was already on a plane.
「Dozens of hours later」
The setting sun painted the sky a vibrant orange. A tiny figure appeared beneath the colossal NANS launch tower.
Although Sophia wasn’t exactly slender, she still looked pitifully small under the launch tower.
Wearing a cap, she was personally operating a welding torch, joining parts of a new model of booster.
Two days earlier, she had received an invitation from Old Master Sloan to collaborate with Lead Aerospace on a deep space exploration project.
Deep space exploration had always been a weak point for Lead Aerospace, and for Cathan as a whole. Sophia was extremely interested in the project, so when she got the call from Old Master Sloan, she flew over that very night without a second thought.
Old Master Sloan walked over, looking with feigned disgust at Sophia, whose face was flushed from the sparks of the welder. "Is NASA short on people? Did you really have to run over here and play welder the moment you got off the plane?"
Sophia put down the welding torch, her smile as radiant as a peach blossom, and linked her arm with Old Master Sloan’s. "I’m helping you with your work, and you’re not happy about it?"
Old Master Sloan glanced at her. "Who doesn’t know you’re eyeing NASA’s new materials again?"
NASA’s new materials had always been at the forefront of international standards. Lead Aerospace, on the other hand, followed a low-cost strategy and didn’t use such high-end materials.
But every time she came, she would meticulously study NASA’s new materials, hoping to find something that could be adapted for Lead Aerospace’s use.
Of course, she would also propose some improvements for the materials.
It was for this very reason that Old Master Sloan never stopped her from wandering around the base.
"Alright, spit it out. What brilliant insights do you have about my new materials this time?"
Old Master Sloan placed a plate of watermelon in her hands.
While eating the watermelon, Sophia went through the pros and cons of each new material at Old Master Sloan’s facility one by one.
No matter how hard Old Master Sloan tried to maintain his stern expression, his face couldn’t help but soften.
Of all the students he had taught, only Sophia could understand all the materials completely after just a single glance.
She was born for this line of work.
Old Master Sloan was secretly glad that he hadn’t listened to those people back then and rejected her simply because she was a girl.
After they finished talking, Sophia turned on her phone.
The moment it powered on, a call from Vincent Grant came through.
