The Ex-Wife's Burning Elegance novel Chapter 1123

People who treat con artists like treasure—now that’s a rare sight.

“Stella, if you end up losing everything to this scammer, don’t say your big brother didn’t warn you!”

Stella frowned, her patience wearing thin.

She suspected Jake might be a fraud too, but calling someone out without proof, especially right to their face, was just plain rude.

She quickly turned to Jake and apologized. “Mr. Jake, please don’t mind him. My brother isn’t exactly firing on all cylinders today.”

Israel’s face flushed with anger.

“Stella, did you just call your own brother brainless? With that attitude, who besides a scammer would ever invest in you? Hah! If you can’t manage basic respect, what makes you think you can run a business?”

Stella’s eyes grew cold.

“Oh? You sound so sure, Israel. If you’re going to accuse Jake of being a con artist, do you actually have any evidence? If you do, show us. If not, you’re just slandering him, making things up for your own amusement.”

She leveled her gaze at him. “Before you question my character, maybe get your own head checked first.”

Israel opened his mouth but couldn’t get a word out.

Jake glanced at him, a strange, almost pitying look in his eyes—the kind you’d give someone who just escaped from a mental institution.

Without lingering, Jake turned to Stella. “Ms. Cameron, I’ll take my leave.”

He paused, lifting his chin in smug satisfaction.

“Even if you pooled the resources of all your admirers, you couldn’t scrape together that kind of cash overnight.”

He continued, “Businessmen love leverage—investing as little as possible for the biggest return. As long as there’s money on the books, most will reinvest everything except what’s absolutely necessary, just to maximize profits.”

“The Williams Group only happens to have that much liquidity now because a project just wrapped up and the funds came in. We’re consolidating, haven’t started our next round of investments yet. Otherwise, even our family couldn’t cough up that kind of money all at once. And being able to come up with that sum at all is one thing—actually getting your hands on it in three days is something else entirely.”

“Shawn’s father only agreed to Stella’s proposal so readily—and scheduled the signing for three days from now—because he wants to see if she’s got the chops. If she can’t pull it off, the Pearce family just won’t sell. But if she manages to raise that much, that quickly, it means she’s got real skill. You’d be a fool not to work with her.”

He shook his head. “As for Haynes and Neville’s companies, they’re nowhere near our scale. If they want to grow, they can’t just sit on a billion in spare cash. Even coming up with a few hundred million for Stella is a huge risk—they’d have to be crazy to hand over everything they have.”