Chapter 185: Chapter 185: A Transaction That Cannot See the Light

With the film project’s funding crisis finally resolved, Jessie Sterling leaned on Victor Morgan’s shoulder and sighed, “How are you people so loaded!”

Who would have thought that Victor Morgan wouldn’t even need to sell off fixed assets as she had? He could just produce the money to fill the gap left by the investors who had pulled out. Jessie was starkly reminded of the gulf between their finances.

“You never asked,” Victor Morgan said. “You can check the balance on any of the cards I gave you.”

If Jessie had wanted to know, she could have gotten a crystal-clear picture of his personal finances.

But clearly, that thought had never crossed Jessie’s mind.

Jessie: “…”

“Want to manage our finances?” Victor Morgan asked.

He was already quite content that Jessie had taken the initiative to ask for his help today.

’This is a good opportunity to have Jessie manage their personal accounts. That would be nice.’

’It wouldn’t be too tiring. After all, they both had professional financial managers. Jessie would only need to give her approval.’

Jessie was about to say ’forget it.’ It wasn’t as if she was ever short on cash. Besides, she had nearly all of Victor’s credit cards. If she wanted to spend money, what could be easier?

But as the words were about to leave her lips, Jessie suddenly had a change of heart.

“Sure!” she said. “But that means from now on, you’ll have to come to me for an allowance if you want to spend money!”

As she said this, Jessie tilted her head up to look at the man beside her.

Just as she expected, a smile couldn’t help but spread across Victor Morgan’s face when he saw her agree.

“Mhm. From now on, I’ll have to get approval from my wife whenever I spend money,” Victor Morgan said.

Jessie burst out laughing with a “Pfft,” then turned and hugged Victor Morgan’s arm. “If your friends found out about this, wouldn’t they make fun of you?”

’The great President Morgan, having his financial lifeline completely cut off.’

’If word of this got out, probably no one would believe it.’

“Make fun of me?” Victor Morgan had initially wanted to tell Jessie to sit up straight, but since his wife had already leaned in, he certainly couldn’t push her away. So, after less than a second of thought, Victor reached out and pulled Jessie into his arms. “They’re a bunch of single dogs. What do they have to laugh at me about?”

The implication was that it was already magnanimous of him not to make fun of Xavier Warren and the others.

Jessie hadn’t expected such a response from Victor Morgan and suddenly burst out laughing.

Once Jessie solved the problem of the production’s broken funding chain, everyone at Apex, from top to bottom, breathed a collective sigh of relief.

They were confident they could handle the public opinion crisis. But as the saying goes, even the cleverest housewife can’t cook without rice. The money in the company’s accounts was simply not enough to cover the production’s funding gap.

Fortunately, their boss had stepped in.

Jessie didn’t realize that this “ordeal” had unexpectedly cemented her status within the company.

It didn’t matter who the boss was, but it was extremely important that the boss had money.

When even the finance department’s hands were tied, the boss with the “superpower of money” had solved the company’s biggest problem with a single wave of her hand. This instantly maxed out Jessie’s popularity within the company.

Jessie had no idea that in the company’s private work chats, employees were all singing her praises.

Because Victor Morgan had been delayed a day dealing with her affairs, their stay in Paris was extended by another day.

After receiving the files her assistant sent over, Jessie sat down in the study to read through them.

As soon as Apex’s contracted artists had publicly declared their relationships with their boss were completely professional, the PR department released the “news” about the Vice President of Thorne Pictures.

It had to be said, the inside information Cheryl Stuart had provided was incredibly useful.

Almost every detail could be verified online, with all the corresponding timestamps matching up perfectly.

Leo Goodman had amassed a great deal of power at Thorne Pictures over the years. He was different from the former owner of Apex. Apex’s old boss gave no face to his artists, preferring to berate and order them around to flaunt his own prestige. Leo Goodman, on the other hand, preferred to manipulate young, up-and-coming artists—especially the ones who were young, had no connections, and dreamed of making it big in the entertainment industry.

By making grand promises, Leo Goodman would arrange for these young, contracted starlets to rotate in as his “assistants” and attend various dinner parties, euphemistically calling it “showing the newly signed talent the ropes.”

In reality, these young women, nominally Leo Goodman’s assistants, were either given away as “gifts” to other people at these parties or kept by Leo Goodman for himself.

This sort of thing was practically an open secret at Thorne Pictures.

Someone like Cheryl Stuart, who had once been heavily promoted as the company’s top actress, was of course well aware of it.

Among the young starlets taken to these dinners, some would reluctantly compromise after Leo Goodman promised them roles in the future. Others who refused were threatened with their contracts until they had no choice but to give in.

The contracts for most up-and-coming artists were no different from indentured servitude, tying them down for ten years at a time.

If the company gave them no resources during those ten years, an artist’s career was basically over.

How many decades does a person get in their lifetime?

Many had been taken by Leo Goodman. Some had already played minor roles in TV shows and had an online presence, while others were complete newcomers who had never left a single trace online.

Those who had appeared in shows might not have had a huge following, but they would have left an impression on a small group of people and been liked.

After their encounters with Leo Goodman, these young starlets wouldn’t necessarily get any new roles. Instead, they would often be put on ice.

After all, Leo Goodman had leverage over them, making it impossible for them to fight back.

Now, Apex was holding nothing back, directly dumping a PowerPoint presentation onto the internet.

The information from Cheryl Stuart was already comprehensive, but after being compiled by Apex’s PR department, it was even more thorough.

It clearly documented Leo Goodman’s acceptance of bribes, as well as evidence of him forcing young starlets to participate in the so-called “dinner party culture.”

The timeline was consistent with all the publicly available information online.

It was safe to say that this single, unified move by Apex sent a massive earthquake through the entire entertainment industry, shaking it to its core.

Apex Films didn’t even bother with the pretense of leaking the compiled presentation through a third-party gossip account. Instead, they posted it directly from their own official social media page.

How could a move like that not attract attention?

It was beyond eye-catching, okay?

Onlookers just there for the drama flocked to Apex’s official page to comment, “What’s going on? Is this a declaration of war? A direct attack!”

The person managing the official account was actually someone Jessie knew—the receptionist hired through connections whom she’d met on her first day.

A nepotism hire she may have been, but she genuinely wanted the company to do well.

Otherwise, if the company failed, what kind of future would a nepotism hire like her have?

So, when Chloe saw people online trying to sling mud at her boss, she was absolutely furious.

Forget the fact that her boss was rich and gorgeous and wouldn’t give a small-time influencer like Liam Lawson the time of day—the tactic itself was just despicable.

Over the past few days, Chloe had lost count of how many flame wars she’d gotten into with people online from her personal account.

’Even if the boss doesn’t know, I have to defend her reputation with everything I’ve got!’

Now that her colleagues in the PR department had compiled all the dirt on the rival company’s VP, Chloe was rubbing her hands together, spoiling for a fight.

After posting it, she saw a comment asking if this was a direct attack, and Chloe immediately started hammering at her keyboard.

’Does that even need to be asked?!’

“That’s our boss! Someone’s slinging mud at her, you think we employees are just going to sit back and take it?! We’re going to take him head-on and destroy him!”

Chloe’s reply was filled with righteous indignation and was exceptionally domineering.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep