Sign the Papers Mr. Langford novel Chapter 235

Lawrence fell silent for several seconds on the other end.

"Wren, have you noticed that you're treating everything like a calculated schedule now?"

She didn't understand what he was getting at.

Lawrence's voice dropped. "What time he eats, what time he stops waiting, what time you get back, what should be recorded, what shouldn't be done. You're treating the Langford Estate like an observation project, and you're treating me like a business partner."

Leaning against the hallway wall, Wren suddenly felt profoundly exhausted.

"Then what exactly do you want me to treat you as?"

The line went dead silent.

The question was brutally simple, yet impossibly difficult.

A husband?

They were still in the middle of a divorce lawsuit.

A lover?

He had polluted that title a long time ago.

The father of her child?

He was trying to learn, but he was still miles away from succeeding.

Wren didn't force him to answer.

"Lawrence, if I don't establish crystal-clear boundaries now, someone is going to dump the blame for everything back onto my shoulders again."

When she finished, she could hear the faint sound of his breathing through the speaker.

A moment later, Lawrence said, "I never asked you to give up your career."

"No, you just hoped that once I was done with my career, I'd still be the one holding the Langford Estate together behind the scenes."

The words hung in the air, plunging both sides into absolute silence.

Lawrence likely wanted to deny it.

But he couldn't.

Wren stared at the fluorescent light at the end of the hallway. "If Leo looks for me before bed, have him send me a voice message. I'll reply when my meeting is over."

She hung up the phone.

When she walked back into the conference room, Phoebe looked up. "The Langfords?"

Wren nodded.

Maya let out a long sigh. "I'm suddenly realizing that our 'Opt-Out' button is absolutely crucial. Not just for patients, but for adults in general. Like when you're faced with unreasonable family demands, you just press it, and the system prompts: Sorry, this user's mental battery is depleted for the day."

Phoebe retorted, "Then you'd be the first one forced offline."

"Why me?"

"Because your mental battery has always been falsely advertised."

It wasn't loud, but it managed to crack open the suffocating tension that had built up all day.

Julian placed a printed copy of his revised feedback on Wren's desk.

"Daisy added a few more notes."

Wren took it. "Thank you."

Daisy sat down nearby, snapping a pair of disposable chopsticks apart with a casual tone. "Don't thank me, I'm a paid consultant. Even though you can't pay me yet, you can settle the first installment with chicken wings."

Wren smiled gently. "Put it on our tab."

Julian noticed the deep exhaustion beneath Wren's eyes and wanted to tell her to eat something first.

But as the words reached his lips, he swallowed them, opting for something far more appropriate. "I reviewed the children's version. The direction is solid. However, the pause mechanism needs to be defined more explicitly."

Wren nodded. "We're revising it right now."

"Do you need me to contact the clinical ethics team to review a draft in advance?"

She looked up at him.

Julian didn't shy away from her gaze.

His eyes held no eager desperation to prove himself, nor did he attempt to close the distance in a way that would make her uncomfortable. He simply laid a viable option before her, leaving the choice entirely in her hands.

The lingering exhaustion from dealing with the Langfords suddenly eased a fraction in her chest.

"Yes," she said. "But don't use your personal connections to pressure them. Just ask them to audit it strictly from a professional standpoint."