Yvette packed her meager belongings into a cardboard box, her face burning with utter humiliation. Being unceremoniously evicted from the executive floor made her feel like a piece of trash that lan had taken one look at and tossed aside.

She had grown up spoiled, pampered by her family, and used to getting what she wanted. No one had ever treated her with such brutal dismissal.

If it had been any other man, she would have thrown a fit and stormed out. But because it was lan Goodwin, she had to swallow her pride and take the hit.

Clutching her box, her eyes brimming with toxic resentment, she stepped into the elevator.

Her aunt's words echoed relentlessly in her mind: "lan has refused to employ female assistants."

Why?

Did lan have some bizarre, paranoid quirk about his staff?

Or was Eleanor just that suffocatingly controlling? Was she forcing him to banish any woman who might possibly enter his orbit?

Yvette gritted her teeth. What kind of dark magic did Eleanor Sutton possess? The woman had given him one daughter and then divorced him, yet she somehow still held a death grip on his life?

But her aunt's intel was that lan had been the one to dump her back in the day!

Yvette bit down hard on her lip. She had to hope there would be another chance to catch lan's eye somewhere in the building. Otherwise, this entire humiliating ordeal would be for absolutely nothing.

Meanwhile, at the research lab.

Eleanor was sitting in the breakroom with her colleague, Callie. They were discussing a revolutionary new piece of neuro-activity testing equipment out of Drexford that could massively accelerate their project.

Callie pushed her glasses up her nose. "Eleanor, I know Aaron Dewitt has been going through a rough patch financially, but our research can't stall. I ran the numbers.

Between the

Between the import tariffs and the

maintenance contracts, the

preliminary budget is easily pushing

hundreds of millions. Plus, the

import channels are locked down tight; we'd need top-tier security clearance just to bid on it."

Eleanor paused, her coffee cup hovering inches from her lips. She had been tracking that specific machine since its prototype debut two years ago. It was the absolute pinnacle of neuroscience tech. Securing it would be a game-changer for their cure.

"Aaron Dewitt isn't the one funding our lab," Eleanor said quietly.

Callie's jaw dropped. "What? I thought it was a private donation from Mr. Dewitt? You're the one who told me that!"

Eleanor shook her head slowly. "I only found out the truth recently myself. The Guild of Commerce fund we pulled from? The phantom backer behind it was lan Goodwin. Aaron was just a proxy. I was wrong."

Obviously, she wasn't about to dive into the messy, complicated reasons why lan had kept her in the dark for so long.

Callie's eyes practically turned into stars. "Oh my god! Mr. Goodwin is bankrolling us again? And he just casually dropped twenty billion dollars in the dark?" Callie gave Eleanor a long, highly suggestive look. "Wow. He is seriously devoted to you. Honestly, you two..."

It was hard to blame Callie for jumping to conclusions. Over the years, it had become an unspoken law of the universe: wherever Eleanor's research went, lan

Goodwin's money secretly followed. If it wasn't his direct cash, it was his corporate partnerships. The man threw unimaginable wealth, resources, and influence at her feet

without a second thought.

Eleanor caught Callie's smirk and took a slow sip of her coffee. "What are you trying to say?"

Callie laughed. "You know exactly what I'm trying to say, so I'll keep my mouth shut. But when it comes to your personal life, you really need to take a hard look at the facts."

Eleanor offered a faint smile. "Thanks."

"I will say this, though: Mr. Goodwin is a man who proves his worth with actions, not empty words. I'll give him that," Callie added, throwing her full support behind the billionaire.