Boss, Your Ex-Wife is Unreachable Now! novel Chapter 96

Once Willow made up her mind, she sprang into action. First, she called her dad to let him know she'd be away for a month on a creative research trip. She warned him she might be out of touch, but promised to come home after a month, so he shouldn't worry.

Next, she rang Ablitt to reschedule their dinner plans.

Of course, she set up her social media to auto-post occasional updates—visible only to her dad, Ablitt, and her best friend who was still away on a business trip. That way, nobody else would notice her absence.

With everything in order, Willow grabbed the half-box of purple grapes and headed back to the Research Institute.

For the whole month, she wouldn't be going home on weekends. No one was happier about this than Maurice.

One evening, in the dorm building at the Institute—

"I knew it! With things going so well, you really thought you could just take a break? Good thing you came to your senses, or I'd have started wondering if you were a foreign spy sent to slow our progress down," Maurice teased, popping one of Willow's grapes into his mouth. Even with his mouth full, he couldn't resist running it.

Willow knew Maurice was all bark and no bite—and that he only let loose like this when it was just the two of them. Still, she couldn't let the "spy" accusation slide.

"If I were a spy, you'd be the first one caught," Willow deadpanned.

Maurice swallowed the juicy grape and blinked. "Why's that?"

She flashed him an angelic smile. "Because you can't keep your mouth shut. All I'd have to do is drop your name, and I'd be a hero. Who else would they arrest if not you?"

Maurice almost choked on his next grape. "Would it kill you to let me win for once?" he grumbled, cheeks puffed out, looking genuinely put out.

Willow only shrugged, feigning innocence. "I only let my cute little brother win. Are you my cute little brother?"

Over the next month, Willow and the other researchers threw themselves into their work, running tests, solving problems, and checking results over and over. The whole team was energized, the project moving forward in leaps and bounds.

Seeing their team leader giving up her weekends, the rest of the group followed suit. Soon, nobody was leaving the Institute on their days off—everyone was pushing hard to meet their deadlines.

At this pace, their stealth air-launched drone might be ready in less than six months.

Time flew by. In the blink of an eye, a month was gone and it was already early February.

That Friday at lunch, Maurice showed up at Willow's dorm room again.

"So, are things back to normal next month?" he asked, not forgetting that Willow had only said she wouldn't go home this month—not that she'd be staying at the Institute forever, at least not until the drone was finished.