Delayed Passion: Miss Lynch's Unrequited Love-Chapter 70: Couple’s Edition

"..."

The sound of beads tumbling onto a jade plate.

Thea Lynch stared wide-eyed as the beads jumped crazily on the floor. She still had a piece of string in her hand and was stunned in place.

A long moment passed, and the beads had long stopped, with more than half of them rolling under the bed.

She looked up, bewildered, at Ian Preston: "Brother, I just wanted to give you a hand."

Ian hadn’t slept all night and had just dozed off for a few minutes. He had stood up too quickly, causing a bit of dizziness. He quickly steadied himself but hadn’t expected Thea to react even quicker, reaching out suddenly.

Thea bent down to pick up the beads on the floor. The gap under the bed was very small, and kneeling on the floor, she wasn’t sure she could retrieve them.

She didn’t know the exact price of Ian’s bracelet, but anything he wore certainly wasn’t just a string of numbers; it had to be valuable.

The incident happened so suddenly, and with this minor episode, she was now wide awake.

"No need to pick them up." A hand across from her stopped her as she bent down, grabbing her arm and forcing her to stand straight and face him.

Thea was an outsider, knowing next to nothing about such things.

Just by looking at the beads’ color, they were definitely not better than the bracelet she was wearing now. But there wasn’t much difference between the two unless you looked up close; otherwise, it was hard to tell the difference.

Put together, it’s the kind of situation where if she didn’t look closely, she might wear the wrong one.

These are even harder to find a replacement for; it was rare to find one with such high similarity.

How could she not pick them up? There’s no way she could make an identical one for him.

Unless...

Thea glanced at her own wrist, "How about this one, brother, you take it back."

This is the only way to "compensate" him, although it was originally his in the first place.

But there’s no choice.

It’s not about money anymore.

Ian pursed his lips, a bit helpless, "Go wash up, I’ll pick up here."

"..." Thea hesitated, not moving.

"Hurry up."

"... Okay."

When she came out of the bathroom ten minutes later, she found that Ian was no longer in the master bedroom. She searched the floor and didn’t see any beads; he had really picked them up.

In the dining room, Ian heard footsteps and didn’t look up, "Come eat, you have to take medicine later."

She walked over and sat in front of a pulled-out chair, taking the spoon he handed her, and asked, "Where are those beads?"

"On the coffee table."

"Oh, will you be taking them back, brother?"

"Why?" Ian replied with a question instead of answering.

The beads weren’t all picked up; two or three were down in the deeper parts under her bed. So he didn’t plan on taking them back; he just kept them to prevent her from accidentally stepping on them and hurting her foot again, as she had twisted her ankle before.

"Or maybe, I can help you string them back another day when I have time?" Thea put the spoon into the bowl, propping her elbows on the table, slightly tilting her head to look at the man across from her, "I could probably fix it, that is if you don’t mind, brother."

"You?" Ian was surprised.

Thea felt a bit uneasy at his gaze, hooking her finger around a strand of hair at her cheek and tucking it behind her ear.

"Didn’t I do similar crafts before? It should be about the same."

Ian reacted after a few seconds, lifting his chin slightly to indicate the black phone charm on the table, "This?"

"Mm." Thea responded sullenly, not giving him a chance to continue the topic about the charm, "I’ll bring it to you after I fix it another day, brother."

——

Ian left at noon that day.

Thea’s fever had subsided, and after taking medicine and sleeping a bit in the afternoon, she returned to work the next day.

The cold wasn’t completely gone, and when she spoke, her voice still had a thick nasal sound, making it sound soft and gentle.

During lunch break, Thea had errands run to buy string and some accessory tools.

She wasn’t extremely handy, but not clumsy either, and her sense of aesthetics was decent, so the things she made were still passable.

The whole noon, Thea was in the office stringing beads. She carefully examined the beads in her hand and found a few indeed missing.

She guessed they were still under the bed, but moving the bed was a bit troublesome.

The easiest solution now was to take a few she had to fill in.

The bracelet she wore was already a bit large.

Stringing beads wasn’t difficult; the main part was picking out the most similar ones.

"Foreman Lynch, you didn’t sleep, huh." When Foreman Chandler and the others returned, they didn’t enter directly but peeked at the doorway. Seeing that she was awake, they pushed the door open to come in.

Thea acknowledged, "Just busy with something."

"Yo, who’s this for?" They brought her some fruit, and as they placed it on her desk, they just happened to see the two bracelets, nearly having the gossip written all over their faces.

"These are even matching couple styles."

"No way, before I saw Foreman Lynch wearing this alone, thought it was some treasure found. Turns out it’s a pair!"

"Gone for just one day, and something already happened?"

Knowing everyone meant no harm and accustomed to their teasing, Thea wasn’t angry and instead smiled a little.

Her hands didn’t stop moving, "You’re overthinking it, it’s a brother’s."

Because there was still one bead short, Thea, worrying it would be too tight, used an inconspicuous little accessory to replace it.

Early on, she had asked Ian, and since he didn’t mind, she could arrange as she pleased.

He wasn’t particular.

Thea then fixed her own, "It was just something I broke, helping to fix it should be expected."

Foreman Chandler and others smiled, didn’t say anything, just assuming she was shy to tell the truth as a girl.

These two were so similar, who would believe they weren’t couple sets?

After lunch break, an important meeting in the R&D department.

Thea hurriedly took a picture of the bracelet to send to Ian, then grabbed her laptop to join Foreman Chandler and others upstairs.

This time, in addition to the important executives, the majority present were also key members of the R&D department.

Afraid of another scene like last time, Foreman Chandler even brought two more people this time.

Thea sat down in the last seat, whereupon the deputy general manager cleared his throat, signaling the meeting officially beginning.

"I wonder what views everyone here has on the current domestic and international AI robotics market. Foreman Lynch."

"Me?" Thea raised an eyebrow, "I don’t have any views."

"Come on, share with us." The deputy general manager winked at her.

"Is Stratus thinking of penetrating the AI market lately?"

"Not exactly." The deputy general manager kept the statement open-ended.

Thea frowned, "The technology for robotics in China is already quite advanced, even surpassing foreign counterparts, and the boom time is over.

Product updates are quick, evolving from initially rare to now infiltrating various industries and even every household. People have moved from initial curiosity to seeing them as common, and for Stratus to jump in now seems too late."

"I don’t think this market belongs to us. Even just for novelty’s sake, I doubt we can surpass the domestic leading companies."