The Year She Stopped Being Crazy for Him novel Chapter 170

After the dinner wrapped up, Natalie parted ways with them and drove straight to the research lab.

During the meal, Gardenia had sent her another message. "Ms. Gaines, what are you planning to do?"

She just couldn't help herself. She was trying to test the waters again.

Natalie left it on read.

She walked into the lab, sitting down in front of the data monitors for a quick review. Her phone buzzed again with another message from Gardenia. "Maybe there's a misunderstanding. You should really think it over before jumping to conclusions."

Natalie finally typed back:

[Ms. Sutton, if you continue to message me about things unrelated to work, you are going to put me in a very awkward position.]

There was a long stretch of silence from the other side.

A little while later, a new message popped up. "Ms. Gaines, you mentioned last time that you only needed a week. We're actually in a bit of a rush, so let's set the deadline for one week."

Natalie popped a gummy bear into her mouth. *Ah,* she thought, *her fake olive branch failed, so now she's throwing a tantrum and trying to make my life difficult.*

Natalie opened her laptop and immediately sent over the fully optimized, completed security patch.

The other side went dead silent.

Did Gardenia think she was the only one who knew how to be passive-aggressive? Natalie could play that game just fine.

She sent another message: [Project Lead Sutton, did you receive the files? If you don't respond, I won't know if our handover was successful.]

This time, Gardenia didn't even bother sending a voice memo. Just two stiff words: [Received.]

Even without a tone of voice, Natalie could feel her seething.

She put her phone away. Spread across her desk were three monitors: one displaying data waveforms and parameters, one showing circuit schematics, and one with the control interface.

She had arrived early. Since no one else was there yet, she worked in peace for a while.

Around two o'clock, the rest of the team started trickling in.

When Marvin walked past her desk, he tossed a small bag of gummy bears next to her keyboard. The last bag of gummies she had finished was also from him. She looked up. "Got them at the checkout counter again?"

"Yeah. I don't really like them, so you can have them," he said, his eyes darting around the room, entirely avoiding her gaze.

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