No More Mrs. Nice Wife (Eleanor) novel Chapter 1397

"Do you remember when I didn't select you during the initial project screening?" Simone asked with a small smile. "Ian had spoken to me beforehand, hoping my team would maintain strict hiring standards. He had already planned to hand the leukemia project to me. You earned your spot back in the group on your own merit."

Eleanor recalled how young and headstrong she had been to make such a bet with Simone. Looking back, it was only two years ago. She smiled faintly. "I remember."

"At the time, he didn't know how capable you were. Later, when he saw your scores from the advanced placement exams, I think he was quite surprised. He called me privately and asked me to mentor you well," Simone said with a laugh. "I could tell. He might seem a bit cold, but he's very good to you."

Eleanor remembered Ian's confession—he had poured money into the lab just to have a professional connection with her. As for profiting from her research, his own biomedical company hadn't even been listed at the time.

And his Neural Interface Project was only just starting to show results, yet the money he'd invested was already close to a hundred billion dollars.

When it came to favors, the debt between them was impossible to calculate.

It had been incalculable from the very beginning, when he gave her father ten billion dollars to build a lab. He knew she might carry the mutated gene for leukemia, yet not only did he not shy away, he was willing to marry her. For that alone, the Suttons were already indebted to him.

"Professor Langley, thank you for telling me all this," Eleanor said gratefully.

"You're both still so young, not even thirty yet, right? The last time I saw Ian, he had a full head of white hair. I wonder if it's from overwork," Simone remarked, a note of sympathy in her voice.

Eleanor lowered her gaze. The night Ian's hair began to silver from the sheer stress and heartbreak was the same night she had been at Mansfield's side—the same day she had agreed to date him.

So his hair turned white because of her?

Eleanor suddenly realized she was so slow to notice things. She really was oblivious.

If the reason his hair turned white overnight was truly her, then—

A complex, heavy ache settled in her chest.

Faye's gaze drifted to Eleanor in the distance. "Not like some people, who have a billionaire ex-husband backing them."

Gwenda followed her gaze to where Eleanor and Simone were chatting. She sighed at Faye. "Faye, shouldn't you let some of these grudges go? Aren't you tired of being jealous of Eleanor all the time?"

Before Faye could speak, Gwenda continued, "Have you ever thought about Eleanor and Mr. Goodwin? They were once lovers who were truly in love. Even if they got married, divorced, and fell in love again, it has nothing to do with us. Why do you have to obsess over it?"

Faye's fists clenched under the table. Gwenda's words had struck a nerve.

But she just couldn't stop herself from being jealous of Eleanor, who had everything she had ever dreamed of—brilliant talent, the admiration of everyone, and the affection of so many exceptional men.

Just then, Eleanor's phone buzzed. It was a text from Ian. [I'll bring Evelyn to pick you up for dinner later.]

Eleanor read it and replied, [Okay.]