All Chapters of No Way to Win Me Back: Chapter 501 - Chapter 510

Celeste’s POVThe clinic smelled like disinfectant and lavender, a strange attempt at comfort that only made my chest feel tighter. I had been here before, for checkups, for conversations about stress and cycles and timing, but this felt different. This wasn’t about me. It was about Grace.She sat beside me in the waiting area, fingers laced so tightly together her knuckles had gone pale.She hadn’t joked once on the drive over. That alone told me how serious this was. Grace joked when she was nervous. She joked when she was hurting. Silence meant she was standing on the edge of something.“Ten weeks,” she murmured, more to herself than to me, when the nurse called her name.I stood with her, instinctive, like my presence could physically hold her upright.“I’m right here,” I said, and meant it in every way I could.The examination room was dimmer than I expected. The doctor spoke gently, efficiently, explaining what she was doing as she prepared the ultrasound.Grace lay back, eyes fi

Ryan’s POVI watched the skyline blur past the tinted windows of the car, but I barely noticed the city lights. My mind was consumed with the weekend I had planned with Celeste, the one chance to escape the chaos of everything else.I had asked Grace to take care of Molly for the weekend, a request she’d agreed to without hesitation. The thought of Celeste finally being able to breathe, even for a couple of days, made my chest tighten in anticipation.I had booked the private resort under an alias. No notifications, no risk of anyone showing up, just us. For the first time in weeks, I could think about being with her without a hundred obligations pulling me away.When the car slowed to a stop outside her apartment, my stomach knotted with longing. When the door opened, there she was, standing on the landing with her bag over her shoulder. The way she looked at me made my throat tighten. She smiled, that small, guarded smile, and I could see the exhaustion behind it. I wanted to erase i

Celeste’s POVThe apartment felt wrong without Molly.It wasn’t quiet, Grace was there, the city hummed outside, my phone kept lighting up with notifications I didn’t open, but it was hollow.As if the walls had inhaled and forgotten how to exhale again. I stood in the doorway of Molly’s room long after Vivian left, staring at the small bed with its rumpled sheets, the nightlight still plugged in, glowing faintly like it was waiting for someone who wasn’t coming back.Vivian’s words replayed in my head on a cruel loop.Neglect.She had said it like a verdict. Like a truth she’d finally uncovered.I pressed my palm against my sternum, breathing shallowly. I knew, logically, that I didn’t have a right to fight her. Molly was her daughter. Vivian had biology, paperwork, permanence on her side. I had none of that. I had routines and bedtime stories and the way Molly liked her toast cut and the fact that she slept better when someone stayed until she drifted off.None of that counted when w

Celeste’s POVI sat at my mother’s dining table long after the tea had gone cold, my hands wrapped around the mug more for anchoring than warmth. The house smelled like lemon cleaner and old books, the way it always had, a scent that belonged to a version of me that still believed adults knew what they were doing.She watched me from across the table, her expression careful. She never crowded my silences. She had learned, long ago, that I spoke when I was ready, or not at all.Eventually, the quiet shifted. It always did.“You know,” she said gently, “what Ryan did… not many people would’ve done that.”I looked down at the surface of my tea, the thin film forming on top. “I didn’t ask him to.”“I know,” she said. “That’s not the point.”I exhaled, slow and heavy. Talking about Ryan felt like touching a bruise I’d been pretending wasn’t there.“He gave up his freedom,” I said finally. “His autonomy. He walked straight into Maximilian’s grip for me.”“For love,” Claire said.The word lan

Celeste’s POVMorning came too quietly, the kind of quiet that felt wrong in a house with a sick child.I woke up on Vivian’s couch to the sound of hurried footsteps and a sharp intake of breath. For a second, I didn’t know where I was. Then memory slammed back into place, Vivian’s front door opening the night before, her face wrecked with exhaustion, Molly burning up in bed.“Celeste,” Vivian whispered from the hallway. Her voice shook. “She’s worse.”I was on my feet before she finished the sentence.Molly lay tangled in her blankets, her cheeks flushed an angry red, curls plastered to her forehead with sweat. Her breathing was shallow, uneven. When I pressed my palm to her skin, heat radiated straight through me.“Hey, sweetheart,” I murmured, brushing damp hair away from her eyes. “It’s Mama Celeste.”Her lashes fluttered, and for a moment her eyes opened, glassy, unfocused.“My feet hurt,” she whispered.My chest tightened.I peeled back the blanket carefully and checked the banda