All Chapters of No Way to Win Me Back: Chapter 491 - Chapter 500

595 Chapters

Chapter Four Hundred and Ninety-One

Ryan’s POVI did not sleep.The city outside my windows dimmed and brightened again, night thinning into something pale and uncertain, and I was still sitting on the edge of the bed with my phone in my hand like it might burn me if I let go.Crown Luxe’s penthouse was silent in that expensive, curated way, soundproofed, controlled, empty. It had never felt less like somewhere a person should live.My thumb hovered, scrolled, stopped.Celeste.Her name sat at the top of the screen in the same understated font it had always been, as if it hadn't detonated entire versions of my life. I opened the thread even though I already knew what was there. I had memorized it. I could have recited it blind.Did you eat?Don’t forget Molly’s recital is on Thursday.Aurora samples came in. You’re going to like the clasp, I swear.Come over. I miss you.My chest tightened on that last one. The timestamp stared back at me like an accusation. I had never replied. I had been standing in my father’s office

Chapter Four Hundred and Ninety-Two

Celeste’s POVThe courthouse steps were already crowded when I arrived, cameras angling like curious insects, their lenses humming with anticipation. Vanessa Abrams’ trial had finally begun, and with it, the unspoken understanding that my name would be dragged into rooms I hadn’t consented to enter. I kept my head high anyway. There was no other option. Rosemary Atelier had taught me that, how to walk into scrutiny like it was just another fitting, another mirror reflecting angles I couldn’t change.Inside, the air was stale with old wood and newer tension. Vanessa sat several rows ahead, immaculate as always, her posture serene in a way that felt rehearsed. She didn’t look back. I was grateful for that. I wasn’t sure what I would have done if she had, if she’d offered me that familiar, poisonous half-smile.I took my seat and folded my hands together, nails pressing crescents into my palms. I told myself to focus on facts. On process. On the clean, impersonal machinery of justice grin

Chapter Four Hundred and Ninety-Three

Celeste’s POVI almost didn’t go.I stared at Ryan’s name on my phone for a full minute before answering, my thumb hovering like it might burn if I touched the screen.We hadn’t spoken properly since his resignation, since he knelt in front of me in my studio and broke both our hearts with the same quiet inevitability. The memory still sat in my chest, heavy and sharp.But when his message came, Can we talk? Just… talk, I felt it everywhere. The pull. The ache. The unfinished sentence that had been living between us for weeks.I asked Grace if she could take care of Molly for the night. I framed it as work, as exhaustion, as something adult and manageable. Grace didn’t push. She just studied me for a second too long before nodding and telling Molly they’d order extra dessert.I told myself I wasn’t running.The hotel suite was discreet in the way expensive places always are, muted colors, thick carpet, silence that felt padded. I arrived first and stood by the window, arms crossed tigh

Chapter Four Hundred and Ninety-Four

Celeste’s POVI pulled back first.It wasn’t abrupt, not really. Just a small retreat, a fraction of space reclaimed between our bodies. My hands slipped from his shoulders, my cheek no longer resting against his chest. The room felt colder immediately, like warmth had been borrowed and then returned too quickly.Ryan noticed. Of course he did.“What did you call me here for?” I asked quietly.The words felt heavier than they should have. Maybe because asking them meant acknowledging that this wasn’t just a stolen night. There was a reason. There was always a reason with Ryan, even when he wished there wasn’t.He didn’t answer right away. His hands stayed on my waist, but they loosened, fingers no longer gripping as if afraid I’d disappear. He inhaled slowly, the way he did when bracing himself.“My father,” he said finally.My stomach sank.“Maximilian wants to make a public announcement,” Ryan continued. “A statement. He wants me to say I’m no longer dating you. Publicly. Explicitly.

Chapter Four Hundred and Ninety-Five

Celeste’s POVHearing him say it, so calmly, so strategically, lit something sharp and feral in my chest.Other women.Seen with other women.As if he were talking about interchangeable accessories. As if my body hadn’t memorized the exact slope of his shoulders, the way his breath hitched when I kissed the corner of his mouth. As if the idea of him letting someone else touch him didn’t make my vision go white at the edges.I laughed once, short and humorless. “Is that all then?”Ryan looked up at me, already reading the shift in my tone. His eyes darkened, wary and alert, the way they always did when he knew he’d stepped onto unstable ground. “Celeste—”I didn’t let him finish.I moved before my mind could catch up, straddling him where he sat on the edge of the bed, my hands braced on his shoulders. He sucked in a breath, hands instinctively coming to my hips, grounding me even as I leaned in close enough that our noses brushed.“You don’t get to talk about being seen with other wome

Chapter Four Hundred and Ninety-Six

Ryan’s POVI met Vivian at Aurora’s main office on a gray afternoon that made the glass walls look colder than they were. The building still smelled new, polished stone, fresh wood, ambition layered thick in the air. It had always been Steven’s taste more than mine, all clean lines and quiet dominance, but I’d signed off on it anyway. Now it felt like standing inside a decision I couldn’t undo.Vivian was already there when I arrived, sleeves rolled up, hair pulled back with a severity I rarely saw on her.Her tablet was propped against a stack of folders, and she was speaking in quick, efficient bursts to two department heads who looked like they hadn’t slept.When she noticed me, she lifted a hand without breaking stride, finished her sentence, and dismissed them with a nod.“Give me ten,” she said, already scrolling.I waited. I always did with Vivian. She had a way of commanding space without ever raising her voice. When she finally set the tablet down, she leaned back in her chair

Chapter Four Hundred and Ninety-Seven

Celeste’s POVI had known Vivian was coming over before she knocked.There was a tension in the apartment that morning that hadn’t been there before, like the air itself was bracing for impact. Molly was at school, Grace was out, and the quiet felt deliberate. Intentional. Vivian didn’t arrive with small talk or pleasantries. She arrived with her shoulders squared and her hands empty, as if she hadn’t trusted herself to carry anything breakable.When I opened the door, she looked different. Not softer, Vivian was not a woman who softened easily, but stripped of something defensive. Her hair was pulled back too tightly, her coat buttoned all the way up despite the warmth.“Thank you for agreeing to see me,” she said.I stepped aside to let her in. “Of course.”She stood in the living room for a moment, taking it in. Molly’s drawings were still taped to the fridge. Her shoes were tucked under the console table the way we’d taught her to do. Vivian’s gaze lingered there longer than necess

Chapter Four Hundred and Ninety-Eight

Celeste’s POVI had gone to bed that night with a strange, unfamiliar steadiness in my chest.The conversation with Vivian lingered like a quiet victory, not triumphant, not clean, but earned. She had apologized. Really apologized.Not the brittle kind that came wrapped in justification, but the sort that left her eyes wet and her shoulders slumped, like she had finally set something heavy down. We had spoken about jealousy, about fear, about how love could twist into something sharp when it felt threatened.And in the end, we had agreed on something fragile and important: Molly would not be pulled apart to soothe adult insecurities. Vivian would build her own relationship with her daughter, brick by careful brick, instead of trying to step into the life Molly already trusted.It didn’t solve everything. But it was a start.That sense of forward motion stayed with me the next evening, even as exhaustion settled deep into my bones.Molly fell asleep quickly, curled on her side with her

Chapter Four Hundred and Ninety-Nine

Celeste’s POVI was already exhausted before Damien ever stepped into Crown Luxe that afternoon.The week had been one long, continuous ache, Vivian, Molly, Grace, Ryan, choices stacked on top of choices until my chest felt permanently tight. I had buried myself in work, letting numbers and designs and meetings blur together because at least they followed rules. At least they didn’t ask me to feel.So when Rachel knocked lightly and said, “Damien Kent is here to see you,” my first instinct was to laugh. A sharp, humorless sound that startled even me.Of course he was.“Send him in,” I said, smoothing my blazer as if it mattered.Damien walked in looking… composed. Too composed. The polished version of him, the one that wore regret like a tailored suit and accountability like a carefully chosen accessory. He no longer filled the room the way he used to, but his presence still pressed against old bruises.“Well,” I said before he could speak, leaning back against my desk. “Let me guess.

Chapter Five Hundred

Ryan’s POVI had Mr. Davis bring Maximilian up the moment his meeting wrapped. I didn’t trust the window between decisions and announcements, not with my father.If something was going to be said to the board, to the press, to the world, it would be said with me standing in front of him, not as an afterthought he could spin into obedience.When Maximilian entered my office, he looked the same as always: immaculate suit, measured expression, control stitched into every line of his posture. He didn’t sit until I gestured to the chair across from my desk. Even then, it felt like a courtesy he indulged rather than accepted.“You asked for me,” he said. No question. Just fact.“I did,” I replied, folding my hands together to stop them from shaking. “I wanted to remind you of something.”His eyebrow lifted a fraction. “This should be interesting.”“I already told you I wouldn’t publicly deny my feelings for Celeste Sinclair,” I said. “I won’t stand in front of cameras and pretend I didn’t lo

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