Chapter 1260

Eleanor was at the lab, handling the final stages of the project. Without the crushing time pressure, she, Ryan, and Callie could calmly organize the data.

Later, Joel Kingsley also came to help, mostly with the physical tasks. He had heard from Callie that Eleanor had fainted and that lan had been the one to take care of her. He wanted to show his concern but decided to hold back for now.

Joel didn’t want to cause any more unnecessary misunderstandings. Perhaps his presence had already created a significant misunderstanding in Eleanor and lan’s marriage.

The thought had filled Joel with guilt for the past few days. He wasn’t usually a perceptive person, but now, thinking back on lan’s initial attitude toward him, he realized it had been the unmistakable animosity one shows a rival.

This prompted him to look back at his chat history with Eleanor from four years ago. Eleanor had deleted hers, but Joel’s was still there.

Joel was stacking several thick files for Eleanor. He dusted off his hands and walked over to her. “Eleanor p>

Eleanor looked up from her computer screen. “What is it, Joel p>

“About our chat history from back then… you deleted it all, didn’t you? If lan knew we were talking at the time, do you think he might have suspected you of cheating, too p>

Joel’s question broke the still surface of Eleanor’s thoughts. Her fingers paused over the keyboard as she frowned, trying to remember.

“The chat history… yes, I did delete it all,” she recalled. “As for whether he suspected anything… he never talked to me about it p>

But in the last two years of their marriage, lan had definitely grown colder. Before that, he would at least be discreet about his charade with Vanessa Shannon. But in those final two years, he started taking Vanessa’s calls right in front of her, sometimes even speaking in an intimate tone.

Could it be… he was doing it on purpose for her to see?

Could he have known she was talking to Joel back then? Even though most of their conversations were academic discussions, a man as proud and sharp as lan would certainly have been bothered if he knew.

So he chose silence, punishing her with an even colder indifference?

“I went back and looked at our chat history, and Joel sighed. “It’s my fault, I didn’t realize at the time what kind of trouble it would cause your marriage. And after I returned and joined the lab, Mr. Goodwin was definitely hostile toward me, like a rival p>

Eleanor frowned. “He was hostile toward you p>

Joel was an oblivious guy. At the time, he hadn’t thought of it as hostility, but looking back, he realized it had been a clear warning.

“Remember when I told you your mother’s sample was with lan?” Joel walked over

to her desk, leaning his hands on it as he looked back. “Ian called me personally that day p>

“What did he say?” Eleanor wasn’t particularly curious, but Joel seemed so troubled that she wanted to help him find some closure.

Joel’s memory was sharp. “He

warned me not to tell you any more details about our collaboration, to avoid unnecessary

misunderstandings. He also told me to focus on my research and not to pay excessive attention to another man’s wife, lest my own reputation suffer p>

Eleanor remembered that incident. Ian had also demanded that Joel kick her out of the lab.

“Looking at it now, what lan said

1.n

back then wasn’t a judgment on your character. He was intentionally trying to stop us from working together,” Joel said. He remembered how an had angrily called Eleanor unprofessional, but he now realized the true intent was to keep her out of the lab and away from him.

It was just that Joel, lost in his world of academia, had only just now put the pieces together.

“Joel, it’s all in the past. There’s no need to dwell on it,” Eleanor said, trying to comfort him.

Even if that had been a contributing factor, it was all over now. If, back then, they had been able to communicate as openly as she and Mansfield just had, laying their misunderstandings bare, perhaps things wouldn’t have ended the way they did.