The Year I Stopped Being His novel Chapter 295

Dawson sighed and opened his folder. Inside was a list of names, all crossed out with red ink.

"Still no luck. The third company maxed out at a sixty-two percent encapsulation rate, and their liposome particle size deviation was way off. The fifth company couldn't get their voltage parameters high enough, so the phages couldn't even penetrate the liposomes. The seventh company—that German equipment distributor—flat out told me that for the parameters we're asking for, there are less than three manufacturers in the world who can pull it off. One in Boston, one in Munich, and one in San Francisco. The Boston firm has a strategic partnership with DeepBlue Technologies, the Munich one is booked out until the year after next, and the one in San Francisco..." He paused and looked up at Garrison. "The one in San Francisco is asking for this much."

Dawson held up three fingers.

"Three million dollars?"

"Thirty million," Dawson corrected. "And that's just for a trial batch, with zero guarantee of success."

Garrison didn't say a word.

He squared up a stack of organized lab notes and set them on the corner of the desk, lightly running his thumb over the edge of the paper. Silence hung heavily in the office for a few seconds, broken only by the low hum of the ultra-low temperature freezer in the corner.

Dawson stared at Garrison's back, suddenly struck by the realization that this man was only thirty-six, yet gray was already creeping into his temples. He had seen Garrison at his absolute peak—back when Dawson first joined the lab as an intern. Garrison had just won the Nobel Prize, hailed by the media as a prodigy. Back then, standing on the press conference stage, he was sharp and unstoppable, a blade freshly drawn from its sheath.

And now, the man standing in front of him had just had his lab ransacked and was squatting on the floor, trying to piece together a broken cello...

"I'll clean up the cello," Dawson offered kindly, crouching down and reaching for the shattered neck.

"Don't touch it!"

"Alright, alright, you do it yourself." Dawson held up both hands in surrender and backed away toward the door, muttering under his breath as he went. "Can't touch the cello, can't touch the files. Why don't you just seal this office off and turn it into a museum? Hang a sign on the door—'Garrison's Private Territory: Trespassers Will Be Shot.' Oh wait, trespassers don't get shot, they just have to pay up. Every single thing in this room is either broken, expensive, or both..."

He was so caught up in his muttering that his back suddenly slammed into someone. It wasn't the doorframe—doorframes were hard. This was soft, carrying a faint whiff of expensive perfume. Dawson froze, turned his head, and found himself face-to-face with a woman.

A very beautiful woman.

She looked past Dawson's shoulder, her gaze landing on Garrison as he packed up the ruined cello case. A meaningful smirk played on her lips.

"Garrison, it's been a long time."