Chapter 3

Calanthia's expression went from shock, to disbelief, to confusion, and finally to a complexity I couldn't understand.

Bennett raised her glass. "Welcome back, Dr. Thornwood and your team. Our business partner for this collaboration is Aldrive Group.

"Mr. Vance is Verlia's pride. He grew Aldrive Group to a ten-billion-dollar valuation in three years. That's incredible!"

Calanthia's hand paused mid-air, gripping her glass. "Ten billion dollars?"

"Dr. Thornwood, you didn't know?" Gunner said with a smile. "Mr. Vance's Aldrive Group is now the top chip packaging and testing company in the country.

"Last year, they were the city's top taxpayer."

Calanthia set her glass down and looked at me. "You... got into chips after you quit?"

"Yeah," I replied.

"You used to work on optical materials back at the institute," she said.

"Changed fields," I replied.

Calanthia opened her mouth, as if she wanted to ask more.

Darian was sitting next to her, staying completely silent. But he looked uneasy.

Three years ago, when he and Calanthia left, I was an engineer pulling in three thousand dollars a month.

Now, three years later, when we met again, I was the CEO of a ten-billion-dollar company.

That gap was going to take him a while to wrap his head around.

"Mr. Vance," Calanthia called me by my title, her tone a bit forced. "When are we going to go over the technical details for this project?"

"Tomorrow at nine a.m., at Aldrive Group headquarters," I replied.

"Okay." She dropped her eyes and didn't look at me anymore.

As the dinner ended, I stood up to leave.

When I reached the door, someone tugged at my sleeve. "Aldric," the person said.

Calanthia was standing in the hallway, the light casting shadows across her face. Her lashes were trembling. "That divorce agreement... you really meant it?"

"It's all there in black and white. What do you think?" I shot back.

She replied, "We're not divorced. Legally, I'm still your wife."

"That's why I keep asking you to sign. Three years ago, you didn't. Today, you still haven't," I said.

"I'm not going to sign it," Calanthia said.

"That's your problem," I replied coldly.

"Eamon is my son," Calanthia said loudly.

I said calmly, "When you left the country, he was just three months old. He couldn't roll over, couldn't lift his head, and he couldn't even say 'Mom'.

"His first fever, his first steps, the first time he called me 'Dad', his first day at kindergarten. Every single one of those, I was the only one there."

Tears streamed down Calanthia's face. She cried, "I tried to video call every month..."

I demanded, "Really? How many times did you actually call? Twelve times the first year, six the second, and just twice in the third.

"The last time Eamon saw you on a video call, he pointed at the screen and asked me, 'Daddy, who's that lady?'"

Calanthia covered her mouth, her shoulders quivering.

I continued, "After that, I stopped answering your video calls. I didn't want my son to ask me that same question twice in a row."

"Aldric..." Calanthia called out.

"Goodnight, Dr. Thornwood," I said flatly.

With that, I turned and left.

*****

The next morning, in the 32nd floor of Aldrive Group's headquarters, Calanthia walked in with her team.

All twelve of them were PhDs with overseas backgrounds, dressed in crisp suits, each with a laptop and project documents in hand.

Darian walked among the group, glancing up at the Aldrive Group logo atop the building, a mix of emotions in his eyes.

The receptionist came over with a smile. "Dr. Thornwood, welcome! Mr. Vance is waiting for you on the 32nd floor. Please, this way."

As the elevator rose, Calanthia looked out through the glass, taking in the vast corporate campus below.

Six R&D towers, two manufacturing plants, a staff cafeteria, a basketball court, and even a daycare center.

This was a scale she never would have dreamed of three years ago, back when she left.

The elevator reached the 32nd floor. The conference room door was open, and a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the skyline of Verlia New District.

I was sitting at the head of the table, with Reid Clemens, the VP of Technology, and Tina Miller, the CFO, on either side of me.

I said, "Dr. Thornwood, please, take a seat."

Calanthia sat down across from me and opened her laptop.

She moved with practiced professionalism, her face calm and collected. People would never guess she'd been crying in the hallway last night.

"Mr. Vance, the quantum communication encryption tech my team brought back has made a breakthrough in photon entanglement stability," she reported.

The data was solid, the logic tight, and every slide made it clear she'd poured three years of hard work abroad into this.

I had to admit, she was truly exceptional.

She continued, "Based on our preliminary estimates, if we integrate with Aldrive Group's chip packaging and testing platform, we can achieve commercialization within two years."

With that, she closed her laptop. "That concludes our proposal."

There was a brief silence in the conference room. Reid shot me a look.

I leafed through the documents in front of me. "Dr. Thornwood, your data model has a flaw."

Calanthia raised an eyebrow. "What's the problem?"

I replied, "On page seven, you used the theoretical peak for photon pair generation efficiency. In real engineering conditions, you need to reduce that by at least thirty percent."

She hesitated for a second. "You... actually understand quantum communication?"

"I know a thing or two," I replied.

Reid almost burst out laughing beside me.