I Was His Wife, Then His Widow, Then No One's But My Own novel Chapter 59

The grand ballroom dimmed as the MC stepped onto the main stage, wearing a polished, professional smile that barely concealed a flicker of awkward hesitation.

She tapped the microphone, and the ambient chatter quickly died down.

"Esteemed guests, we regret to inform you that Mr. Harrison's scheduled medical funding presentation has been indefinitely canceled for the evening."

The moment the words left her mouth, a shockwave of unrest ripped through the room.

"What does that mean? Canceled?" someone blurted out, their voice dripping with disbelief.

A cacophony of panicked whispers and outraged muttering immediately erupted from every corner.

A middle-aged man slammed his champagne glass onto a table. "How can Xander go back on his word like this? He practically owns the capital's economy, and he thinks he can just pull the plug on a whim?"

Someone nearby chimed in, "Wasn't this whole circus supposed to be in honor of his late wife? And he pulls a stunt like this? What a joke."

That comment caused several faces to drain of color. A man with glasses frantically yanked the speaker's sleeve, hissing a warning, "Do you have a death wish? If Xander hears you talking like that, you're finished."

The middle-aged man slapped his hand away. He had come specifically for that funding. His hospital's cash flow wouldn't survive the next quarter, and without this grant, they were going bankrupt.

He sneered, doubling down out of sheer pride. "Forget it. I don't want his dirty money anyway. I don't need charity from some hypocrite wearing the mask of a grieving widower."

Yanking at his lapels, he spun on his heel and stormed toward the exit.

Someone behind him gasped. "He's lost his mind. Completely lost it."

While Xander's sudden cancellation was certainly ruthless, he hardly deserved to be dragged through the mud like that.

Over the years, he had pumped thousands of massive grants into various institutions, never skimping on funds or top-tier equipment. The one year he held back, he was suddenly the villain of the century.

Standing in the crowd, Nora listened to the toxic whispers, her brow furrowing deeper by the second.

Suddenly, her heart ached for Xander. The crushing isolation she had sensed when he was sitting alone in the dark drinking champagne finally made sense.

On the surface, he was worshipped as a god, but the second the money stopped flowing, they were ready to crucify him.

A woman's voice cut through the noise, attempting to sound empathetic. "Mr. Harrison must have run into some kind of trouble, right?"

Someone instantly fired back with a laugh. "Everyone knows he does this to honor his late wife. If he's stopping now, maybe he finally found someone new and wants to kick-start a second romance."

The theory spread like wildfire. A few people chuckled, and those who had just been desperately plotting to kiss his ring instantly lost their fawning enthusiasm and scattered.

Standing beside Nora, Felix watched the hypocrites disperse, a dark smirk playing on his lips.

Nora blinked in confusion. "Felix, what's so funny?"

He was completely cloaked in darkness, invisible from the ballroom floor below.

He had heard every single word Nora and Felix said.

Xander's lips curled into a predatory smirk.

He was indeed baiting them.

When his assistant brought the financial reports a few days ago, he noticed several glaring discrepancies. Someone within his inner circle was exploiting their position, intercepting grants meant for grassroots hospitals and using them as high-society bribes.

From the moment he conceptualized tonight's event, the goal wasn't to hand out checks—it was to clean house.

And he had just flushed out all the rats. The people who genuinely needed those grants wouldn't violently turn on him over a single delay. Only the entitled parasites who treated his money as their personal slush fund would bare their fangs like that.

From now on, he would personally oversee every single dime.

Xander slid the unlit cigar back into its case, turned, and vanished into the shadows of the corridor.

The next day, at the Vance Institute.

Sitting behind her desk, Zelda listened to Felix's recap of the disastrous banquet, falling silent for a long moment.