The Indifferent Ex-Husband: Heartstrings in the Mall of Fate novel Chapter 601

He had just come back from the meeting room.

First thing in the morning, he walked into the office and headed straight for a meeting, and who would've thought that after all that, the other party still hadn't accepted his friend request.

Brandon glanced at the clock on his computer screen—it was already past ten.

If last night they didn't log into their work WhatsApp because it was the weekend and their day off, then by now they should definitely be online.

Were they not accepting because they didn't recognize him, or was it that... they didn't want to accept?

As the question started to form in his mind, Kent knocked and entered the room.

“Mr. Crawley, Mr. Ferber would like to see you.”

Brandon looked at him: “Harvey Ferber?”

“Yes, he said he happened to be passing by the office and thought he'd drop in for a visit,” Kent said, presenting the calling card as he spoke, “He's currently in the reception room.”

Brandon locked eyes with Kent, a slight frown knotting his brow.

Harvey Ferber showing up at this time—was he planning to come directly to the company to find Arlene, or had he also heard that Arlene had taken on the design project for the West District Junior High Science Museum?

As these doubts swirled in his mind, Brandon reached out to take the calling card from Kent and headed for the door.

“I’ll go see him.”

“Alright.” Kent turned to follow.

“And another thing,” Brandon said without breaking stride, “get in touch with President Poe and tell him to reach out to the designer. Say that if the designer is keen to collaborate but isn't leaving a phone number or accepting WhatsApp requests, how are we supposed to communicate about work?”

“Got it.”

Kent acknowledged, pulled out his phone, and hurriedly dialed President Poe.

He hadn't expected the designer to be so high and mighty—ignoring friend requests left and right.

Yesterday, you could excuse it by saying it was the weekend and they weren't checking their work phones, but now that it's a workday, it's unlikely they wouldn't be looking at their phones.

He wasn't too keen on working with someone who made such a fuss about just adding a contact—it'd only lead to delays in the project if they couldn't be reached later on.

Given Brandon's habits, it was out of the question to give a second chance.

But now that he's asking him to nudge President Poe, it was clear he still hoped to make further contact with the designer.

Clearly, the detailed résumé he had on the designer from last night wasn't enough to fully convince Brandon, even though President Poe had personally sent him the résumé with the designer's photo, and he had personally investigated Arlene's background and found it to be consistent with the information President Poe had sent.

Kent didn't understand Brandon's obsession, but since Brandon had given the order, even if he was dissatisfied with this "Arlene" designer, he had no choice but to follow through.

President Poe's phone was picked up after a brief ring.

“President Poe.” Kent put on his usual polite smile, exchanged a few cordial words, and then got to the point, “About this designer you're interested in—could you maybe get her to accept the WhatsApp request? No phone number and no WhatsApp acceptance, how are we supposed to communicate about work later on?”

President Poe sounded surprised: “Oh? She didn't add you?”

“Didn't add me? She didn't even accept Mr. Crawley,” Kent said, a bit annoyed though still wearing a polite smile, “If we're having these issues before we've even officially started working together, what's it going to be like when we do? If we can’t find her every other day, how's work supposed to progress, right?”

“Yes, yes.” President Poe chuckled along soothingly, “I guess she wasn't online over the weekend. Don't worry, I’ll check with the designer and get back to you soon.”

“Alright, I'll leave it to you then, President Poe.”

Kent hung up and quickly caught up with Brandon, who had walked ahead.

Seems like President Poe was worried she'd forget, already shot her a message on WhatsApp: "Did you add him? Let me know when you're done."

The "ding" of the WhatsApp notification snapped Sophia back to reality, bringing her focus back to her phone.

President Poe's nudge pulled her out of that unexplained sadness, and as reason took over again, her eyes skipped right past the "I'm Brandon" message and she hit "Accept," then scrolled down and accepted Kent's friend request too.

She opened Kent's chatbox, typed up a message: "Sorry, I didn't realize you were the project lead. My bad for not accepting your request sooner."

Sent it off to Kent and quickly copied the message, opened Brandon's WhatsApp chat, pasted and hit "Send." Finally, she could breathe easy and shot a message back to President Poe:

"Done. Sorry for the trouble, President Poe."

"No worries, just focus on resting up. I'll sort it out with them."

President Poe's reply came back quick, showing he was really caring.

"Thanks, President Poe. Really appreciate it."

Sophia shot back a message and then closed the chat.

As she returned to the main screen, her eyes couldn't help but linger on Brandon's WhatsApp profile for a moment. Hesitating, her finger eventually tapped on his WhatsApp avatar, and she checked out his profile.

His WhatsApp name was just a simple "Brandon," nothing else, no bio or anything.

Sophia stared at that "Brandon" for a long while, her finger as if having a mind of its own, hesitated and then tapped into Brandon's Facebook.

His Facebook was a blank slate.

Confused, Sophia turned off her phone.