No More Mrs. Nice Wife (Eleanor) novel Chapter 1596

The car ride was relatively quiet, with a soft instrumental track playing, carrying the lingering, cozy vibe of late autumn. Whenever Ian 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, Ian dutifully followed Eleanor into her meeting. The company's new project had hit a bottleneck, and since Ian 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, Ian 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, Ian 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," Ian replied, noticing his mother's tired expression. "Mom, have you not been sleeping well?"

Ian 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." Ian 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 say something like that directly to Eleanor. She was just confiding in me..."

Ian 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.