Hazel was convinced Joshua had always made exceptions for her. Though it would be considered innocent even if the directors really knew about them talking, she had really confused her enemies and her friends.
"You're right," She nodded earnestly. "I was really impulsive with my ideas. In fact, I only have three months. I have not considered whether I have enough time to develop new flavors and whether the new flavors would meet the market."
After that, she continued to put the coffee into the shopping cart.
"... Are you still going to try it?" He looked at her helplessly.
"Yes, I should at least know something about them," she said seriously.
"All right. Just take a sip. Don't drink too much," he spoke in a deep voice.
He wasn't even going to try and compromise with her. He knew that Hazel would taste them secretly if she had to. If she did that, he wouldn't be able to stop her from having too much; he thought it would be better for him to watch her tasting it and slow her down if need be.
"Mmm!" Her eyebrows curved happily.
After they got home, Joshua stared at Hazel and gave her a sip of each kind of coffee.
Hazel had just wanted to have a taste, so she didn't care much. After trying them, some ideas came to her mind, but they were not quite perfect.
Even with only trying a sip of each, she could not sleep and got up late the next day as expected. She quickly got dressed, had breakfast, and left to go directly to the coffee factory. On the way, she called Mandy, who arrived first, asking her to prepare for the meeting.
She only had three months, so she had to work fast. When she got to the conference room door, she saw all the people were quarreling noisily.
"What's the matter?" Hazel pushed open the door and strode in.
The whole conference room was silent in an instant, and everyone was looking at her, but most people's eyes were filled with a little scorn and contempt.
Hazel's identity had not been revealed by the directors only because it was to their advantage, the fewer people who know it, the better.
Therefore, the branch executives did not know who she actually was, and they only heard rumors that Hazel got a promotion because she slept with a senior in the company. The man she was sleeping with was so strong that he let her go through the motions, letting her be a manager for fun, and after a while, he would send her back to headquarters for another promotion.
Such gossip naturally made the executives unimpressed, and they looked down upon her with intensity. As if completely oblivious to the gaze, Hazel calmly sat at the head position of the conference table.
There was even more dissatisfaction on the faces of all the people.
Mandy hastened to come to her, explaining in a low tone with the objection, "Manager Crowe, I asked the directors to come to the conference room for a meeting at your request. But they asked me about your plan and then accidentally stole my marketing plan. They misunderstood it as your idea, so they became very angry and stirred up trouble…"
"You made a plan?" asked Hazel curiously.
"I tried to make one last night," Mandy looked very shy. "Maybe my plan was really bad. Sorry that I got you into trouble…"
"Nothing." Hazel waved her hand.
Seeing them chatting quietly as if there were nobody else, without caring about them at all, one man coldly dumped a pile of papers in front of Hazel. He looked gentle, with a pair of glasses.
"Manager Crowe," He pushed his glasses up on the nose angrily. "No matter who your backer is, if you're going to use our coffee factory as a springboard, please behave yourself! Do you know how many disasters a layman can bring us? You can just walk away at that time, but what about us? You should throw a plan like this into the trash can, don't make a fool of yourself!"
Seeing he said the plan was so worthless, Hazel opened the doc.u.ment curiously. Mandy's idea was similar to her original one, which was to develop a new series, then advertise it and occupy the market.
"Sit down first." Hazel went through it roughly.
Everyone thought Hazel was going to leave in a fit of rage, but they became angrier to see she was completely unmoved.
The gentleman snorted. "Manager Crowe, we call your manager, so do you really think you are the manager? You are a woman. If you're unqualified, you should help your man well. How could it be possible for you to increase sales by 10%? Your thoughts are nonsense. Do you know the situation? How could you talk so big? Do you really think you have the talent to do that?"
She looked a little cold and said quietly, "Since you don't like to sit, stand up, all of you."
"Chris Livingston, you're the marketing director, am I right?" she spoke coolly. "But I really doubt whether you were promoted to be a marketing director because of your abilities."
The man's body suddenly shook, and he stared at Hazel in disbelief. It was only the second time Hazel had been there, and she hadn't met them the first time. He wondered how she knew his name and position?
A sudden chill rose in his heart. Was Hazel threatening him?
"Yes, what's the matter? I certainly did get promoted to the position where I am today because of my abilities," Chris said, raising his neck. "Are you going to get back at me because I told the truth?"
"You think too much. Don't make up scenarios on your own, big man," she said quietly. "You say you have skills, why do you think that Mandy's plan is worthless? Her plan was ill-conceived, but there are bright spots. You couldn't even spot them. How can people believe in your abilities?"
Everyone around the table was shocked. Hazel's expression was cold, but she had a fierce and capable manner, which made her more convincing.
It was true that the plan wasn't completely worthless, and, as Hazel said, it had good points. But they thought it's worthless because they had presumptions about Hazel. But... it wasn't actually written by Hazel?
"Do you want to make your assistant a scapegoat because you saw our attitude?" Chris was outraged from embarrassment. "Would she have done it without your request? This is clearly your idea!"
"No, it's not…" Mandy said in a panic. But her innocent looks were clearly unconvincing.
Hazel slowly let out a long sigh.
She was really annoyed by the situation, so she said quietly, "Well, I can guess what you're thinking. Let's battle to see who is better and whoever wins will have a say, okay?"