Chapter 435
Charlene didn’t say another word. She simply stepped past them and entered the conference room.
Their conversation by the door hadn’t gone unnoticed; several people inside had caught sight of Charlene and Thorne talking quietly. Still, nobody in the room really knew what was going on between them. To most, it looked like nothing more than an ordinary greeting, and no one gave it a second thought.
Except for Stewart-he was in on the truth.
As Charlene returned to her seat, Stewart leaned over and whispered, “Did you two have a fight?”
She shook her head. “No.”noveldrama
Even at the lowest points in their relationship, when things had been at their tensest, it was never like that never any shouting, never any real argument. Now, things were different. There was nothing to fight about.
With Henderson Group and PrimeStar officially starting their partnership, Charlene spent nearly the entire day at Henderson’s offices.
By a little after five that afternoon, the meeting room suddenly erupted in shouts of surprise.
“Oh my god, it actually worked!”
“What happened?”
“The model we built before-Ms. Ross thought it wasn’t good enough. Last week, we talked it over, and these past few days, we’ve reworked everything based on her suggestions-calculations, data, the whole architecture. And now, our model’s efficiency has improved dramatically! We’ve just broken through a bottleneck that’s been stumping us for almost two years. I can’t believe it—it’s really solved!” Someone else chimed in, “And the alignment issue that’s been haunting us for ages—we’ve finally made headway. Ms. Ross, you’re absolutely brilliant!”
It was worth noting: Henderson Group was one of the top firms in the country, and everyone here was among the best in their field-recruited at great expense for their expertise. By anyone’s standards, they were a formidable team.
But today, they were discovering what it meant to meet someone truly extraordinary-somebody who raised the bar even for them.
The engineers from Henderson looked at Charlene, their eyes shining. One of them hurried over and shook her hand, practically bouncing with excitement. “No wonder you’re the lead author on that long-form paper, Ms. Ross-you’re incredible!”
Charlene smiled, about to respond, when she caught sight of Vesta standing quietly behind the group.
Her smile faltered for a split second.
The cluster of jubilant engineers noticed Vesta as well. “Ms. Hawkins? When did you get here?”
Before Vesta could answer, Professor Hancock chuckled. “Ms. Hawkins has been here for a while now. You all were so engrossed, you didn’t even notice someone else had joined us.”
Vesta smiled but didn’t reply. If you looked closely, though, you’d see the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.
Professor Hancock was right-she had been standing there for some time. She’d witnessed part of the scene as Henderson’s most promising engineers crowded around Charlene, asking for her thoughts and advice.
Vesta could follow some of their technical discussion-up to a point. But Charlene was operating on another level entirely. She’d glance at a problem and immediately pinpoint the issue, offering a solution so quickly that even Henderson’s brightest minds struggled to keep up.
As for Vesta… well, she lagged even further behind.
The group, still buzzing from their breakthrough, was just about to dive back into discussion when Thorne’s voice suddenly cut through the chatter. “What’s all the excitement about?”
No one was cowed by his presence as CEO; one of the engineers was about to fill him in when Vesta interjected, “Finished with your meetings?”
Thorne nodded, ready to join the conversation, but as his gaze shifted, he caught the color in Vesta’s face—or rather, the lack of it. He frowned, concern flickering in his eyes. “You don’t look well. Are you feeling alright?”