Three Years Forgotten, Why Go Crazy When I Say Goodbye? novel Chapter 135

Bravado aside, once Vivienne hung up the phone, reality set in. She had to produce an updated proposal, and she was entirely incapable of doing it herself. The plagiarized draft had already exhausted her limited abilities.

After a moment of panic, she grabbed the files and headed straight for Julian's office.

Julian was sitting at his desk, staring blankly out the window, replaying the dinner he'd had with Willow the night before. Hearing Vivienne walk in, he snapped back to reality. "What is it?"

His sudden jolt was obvious, and Vivienne frowned. She had noticed he was zoning out a lot lately. But she didn't have the luxury of dissecting his mood right now; she needed to save the Merit Biotech deal.

"Julian, do you have a minute?"

Julian glanced at his watch. "I have a meeting in thirty minutes."

Vivienne froze. He had never spoken to her like that before. In the past, no matter how swamped he was, he would drop everything the second she walked through his door. Setting a hard time limit felt jarringly cold.

She swallowed her unease. "What's going on? What's wrong?" he prompted.

Pulling herself together, Vivienne forced a helpless sigh. "It's about the Merit Biotech project. The technical documents Leo Yardley's team submitted are full of mistakes. I've told them to fix it over and over, but they refuse to listen. I'm just at my wit's end."

Playing the victim, she slid the documents across his desk.

As expected, Julian's brow furrowed the moment he started reading.

"This is what they prepared?"

Halfway through, Julian suddenly paused. "Who came up with the idea for this experimental control group?"

Vivienne jumped, terrified he had found an error. She leaned in and realized he was pointing at a data set regarding "cellular self-repair metrics"—something she had blindly copy-pasted from one of Willow's old files.

Unsure of his angle, she cautiously tested the waters. "Why? Is there something wrong with the numbers?"

She had her excuse ready; the second he criticized the data, she would throw Leo and his team to the wolves.

Instead, Julian shook his head. "No, the data is flawless. In fact, it's incredibly insightful. I'd argue it's the strongest part of the entire proposal."