The car ride was relatively quiet, with a soft instrumental track playing, carrying the lingering, cozy vibe of late autumn. Whenever lan shot her one of those deep, smoldering looks, Eleanor felt her ears burn, quickly putting her glasses back on and looking away to hide her fluster.

After lunch at Vesper Joy Hotel, lan dutifully followed Eleanor into her meeting. The company's new project had hit a bottleneck, and since lan had been out of town, Ellington hadn't been able to run it by him. Ellington had mentioned the issue to Eleanor over the phone, but he never expected her to actually bring the boss himself into the boardroom. He was absolutely thrilled.

After listening to Ellington's briefing, lan broke it down from a high-level commercial perspective, quickly firing off a series of sharp, strategic recommendations.

Sitting to the side, Eleanor listened intently, genuinely impressed by the man's razor- sharp insight and visionary thinking.

The questions he raised immediately sparked fresh ideas among the team.

The meeting wrapped up at three o'clock. After dropping Eleanor off at home, lan took her car and drove straight to Goodwin Manor. He planned to pick up their daughter later that evening.

At Goodwin Manor.

Ever since his grandmother had passed, the estate felt noticeably emptier. In a week, Gina and his sister would be moving into Eleanor's gated community, and this historic manor would be preserved as a legacy property.

Seeing her son walk in, Gina snapped out of her daze in the sunroom. She stood up. "You're back. How was the trip?"

"It was good," lan replied, noticing his mother's tired expression. "Mom, have you not been sleeping well?"

Gina sighed, her gaze drifting to the blooming flowers in the courtyard. "I'm getting older, I guess. I need less sleep. I even dreamt of your grandmother... she told me to take good care of her garden."

She turned to look at him. "Oh, by the way, your grandmother was a devout Buddhist. She used to Serenity Chapel every month to

makedonations. Now that si net

gone, why don't you make a donation on behalf of the family? Think of it as fulfilling herfinal wish and earning some good karma."

"Of course. I'll take care of it," lan agreed without hesitation.

Then, Gina remembered something else. "How are things with Eleanor? Have you two talked about... the future?"

lan lowered his eyes, answering honestly. "She's not pushing me away as hard as before, but we still need time."

"When your grandmother passed,

she really wanted to see you two reconcile. She even hoped you guys would have another child... a boy, to carry on the line," Gina sighed heavily. But in the end, I told her that as fong as you and Eleanor got back together, that was enough. She seemed at peace with that."

lan had been listening with his head bowed, but his head snapped up at those words. "Mom, did Grandma say that to you privately, or was Eleanor in the room?" "Say what?" Gina asked, confused.

"The part about wanting us to have a second child, specifically a boy." lan stared intensely at his mother. "Was Eleanor there?"

Gina was a little taken aback by his sudden intensity, but she thought back carefully. "I think Eleanor had already stepped out of the room when your grandmother mentioned it to me. She obviously wouldn't something like that directly to

'n'

Eleanor. She was just confiding in

me..."

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lan stood up, a storm of complex emotions swirling in his dark eyes. The suffocating confusion that had been weighing on his chest for days suddenly cleared, replaced by a jarring realization.