Chapter 768

Just then, the elevator arrived at his floor.

Before stepping out, Raleigh asked, "Are you free for lunch? I'd love to grab a bite with you and Mr. Henderson."

When he mentioned Thorne, his gaze landed pointedly on Charlene, who was already walking out of the elevator with her colleagues, treating them as if they were invisible.

Vesta paused. "I'm free, but Thorne has a lot of meetings lined up lately. I think he already has plans for lunch. Let me ask him first, and we can touch base later?"

"Sounds good."

Charlene and Raleigh worked on the same floor at The Henderson Group. They bumped into each other occasionally but mutually ignored one another.

As noon approached, Charlene grabbed lunch at the corporate cafeteria with the engineers from PrimeStar Technologies. Meanwhile, Raleigh received a call from Vesta. She told him that Thorne had pushed back his schedule, booked a private room at a restaurant, and wanted to treat him to lunch.

Vesta had mentioned that morning how swamped Thorne was. Raleigh had assumed it would take at least a few days to get him pinned down for a meal.

Besides, he had seen firsthand just how frantic Thorne's schedule was during the Al tech conference a few days ago.

Honestly, Raleigh felt incredibly flattered.

It seemed Vesta and Thorne had already left the office building, as Thorne had specifically sent a driver to pick Raleigh up.

By the time he arrived at the restaurant, the couple was already there.

Raleigh instantly felt a pang of guilt. "Sorry, I'm late."

"Don't worry about it, we just got here ourselves," Thorne replied with a warm smile. "When we ran into each other at the tech conference, I actually wanted to invite you for a meal. Things were just too chaotic, and I couldn't find the time."

"Please, Mr. Henderson, you don't need to apologize. I saw how swamped you were. I already feel terrible that you pushed back your schedule just to have lunch with me."

Thorne chuckled. "It's no big deal."

Raleigh found Thorne to be surprisingly approachable.

He also knew exactly why Thorne had cleared his busy schedule for this-it was all because of how deeply he cared for Vesta.

The moment Thorne heard Raleigh wanted to get together, he had rearranged his day without a second thought.

Thorne took a sip of his water, a faint smile touching his eyes as he looked at Raleigh. "Raleigh, I heard you were the one who wrote the technical architecture for the joint project between our company and EchoWave? took a look at it. There are a lot of innovative elements in there. It's fascinating work."

Raleigh didn't actually know Thorne all that well.

He knew the man came from a wealthy, powerful family and had a reputation as a brilliant student growing up, but he had no idea what Thorne had actually majored in during college.

Hearing Thorne's praise, Raleigh eagerly jumped into the conversation, diving into the specifics of their collaborative technical architecture.

He quickly realized that whether he brought up structural design or logical parameters, Thorne kept up effortlessly. The billionaire even

offered fresh perspectives the

plugged a few holes in his original framework. sŵnovel

As the conversation flowed, Raleigh found himself genuinely stunned. "I had no idea

you possessed such a deep understanding of Al, Mr. Henderson."

"You flatter me, Raleigh," Thorne said smoothly. "It's been a long time since I really delved into anything Al-related."

Raleigh knew Thorne was just being modest.

His main goal for organizing this

lunch wasn't just to get to know Thorne better professionally,

was

also waiting for the right moment to bring up the elephant in the

room-Thorne's tangled situation with Charlene.