After We Said Goodbye

It seemed I had touched a nerve.

“You still have the nerve to ask!” she snapped.

“If it weren’t for you, the Band Corporation would have gone public years ago! You held us back, and now look at us—stuck in this mediocre state!”

“That’s something your nephew told you, isn’t it?” I said calmly.

Her nephew, Hank Mormont, had returned from studying abroad five years ago.

With her connections, Greta secured him a position at Band Corporation.

From the moment he joined, he accused the company of being outdated and called me—its manager—a coward who hindered progress.

He pushed for aggressive financing, expansion, and a fast track to listing the company. But what he never understood was that back then, I was already struggling to keep Band Corporation afloat.

After graduating, I started at Band Corporation as a junior employee and worked my way up to management step by step.

It was during that time that Angela’s father noticed me and arranged for us to be together.

At first, I didn’t want to marry a pampered heiress, but she was lively, open-hearted, full of the sunshine I had always longed for.

Someone like her was irresistibly magnetic to me.

Before I knew it, I had fallen for her.

When we got together, control of the company was handed over to me.

In the beginning, Band Corporation was just a small trading company.

After I took over, I not only brought in new clients but also expanded the supply lines for multiple products. I even built a factory of our own, finally securing a stable source of goods.

But because we started small, both the Band and Mormont families had relatives scattered throughout the company.

The staff network was tangled and complicated, and new hires found it nearly impossible to fit in.

It took me two years to untangle those relationships and assign everyone to roles where they could actually contribute.

That was how we slowly built the company into what it had become.

Then Hank returned and began feeding his aunt nonsense, claiming I lacked vision and courage, saying Band Corporation needed a bold leader willing to take risks.

I couldn’t bear to see all my hard work destroyed, nor could I let down the employees who had trusted me.

So, I suppressed him—and that suppression lasted five years.

For all those years, he stayed as vice director of the sales department. Yet in that time, he failed to bring in new clients and even managed to offend several of the ones I had nurtured.

“If you had just let Hank switch departments, he would have achieved something by now!” Greta scolded me.

I smiled faintly. “Now that I’m gone, nothing stands in his way. He can finally shine.”

“You don’t need to remind me! Hank graduated from a prestigious business school abroad—how could he possibly be worse than you?”

“So, Greta, what brings you here today?” I asked.

Caught off guard, she stammered, and I instantly knew what she was after.

Sure enough, she said, “Where’s that new product proposal you submitted last month?”

I leaned back in my chair. “Didn’t you say the new product was too risky?”

Three months ago, I had noticed a new type of product emerging on the market—one that fit perfectly with the modern lifestyle of young consumers.

I drafted a proposal for it, but Hank and his henchman dismissed it as reckless.

Yet within just a month, that very product flooded the market, and many companies had already begun producing it.

“Well? Are you going to give it to me or not?” she demanded.

“I can’t,” I replied. “I’ve destroyed it.”

In truth, I had kept it until just last week, when I finally fed the entire proposal through the shredder.

I had spent nearly half a month researching the market, analyzing costs, and forecasting industry trends to complete that plan.

It could have taken Band Corporation to a new level—but none of that mattered anymore.

“Fine!” she snapped.

“If that’s how you want to play it, let’s see if you can make it on your own!”