All Chapters of Too Late to Want Me; I chose your Billionaire Brother: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

The parking lot of the local precinct smelled like cheap cologne and sweat.Cillian had to sign twice before the officer finally unclipped the gate.“He’s lucky this wasn’t worse,” the woman muttered, eyeing Syl slumped on the bench behind her.Cillian glanced at Syl— head bowed, tie crooked, the scent of bourbon wafted off him like cologne. He was a mess.Cillian went to him and crouched down. “Can you stand?”Syl stood, but barely. Cillian didn’t ask what bar it was. Didn’t ask what happened. Didn’t ask what was wrong.He knew what was wrong.Instead, he helped him slow and steady until they were in the car. Syl pressed his forehead against the cool glass window, eyes closed, breathing shallow.Cillian gripped the steering wheel tighter than he meant to. He wasn’t going to speak. He wouldn’t nag. Wouldn’t ask what happened. He knew what happened.He glanced at Syl and noticed his eyes were still closed. He looked less like a brilliant lawyer and more like a boy lost in his own mind.

When Cillian Dawson was twenty-six, he met the woman he thought would change his life. And she did. Not with love—but with the brutal realization that ambition and affection do not always hold hands.Isla Hale was fire and elegance wrapped in silk. A woman whose smile held secrets, whose affection was always just out of reach. She came from a family richer than his. Not entirely wealthy, but with enough connections to make her look down on a man like Cillian. At first, she was entirely uninterested in someone like him. So he worked. God, he worked. He burned through sleepless nights, climbed ladders no one invited him onto, built a future brick by aching brick—because he thought it would make him enough.But he was never going to be enough for Isla Hale. After two years, she left. She didn’t leave with a slam or a scream. She left with a sigh. Like she was letting go of a bad idea. And he, foolishly, called it heartbreak. Years later, she returned. Suddenly appearing like she had ne

BenitaThe office door clicked shut behind her, but Benita didn’t look up right away. She was still staring at the restraining order lying flat on her desk — like it had every right to be there. Like it belonged beside her pen, her phone, her calendar. It didn’t.She finally glanced up when the scent of rosewood, expensive and feminine floated in.The woman walked in with the quiet confidence of someone who belonged in spaces like this. No. She moved like she’d orchestrated the entire day—like walking into a Bellington office was her right. Blonde. Almond eyes. Familiar.Too familiar.Benita rose slightly, unsure, then eased back into her seat. “Benita Bellington,” she extended a hand. “Isla Hale,” the woman answered, Benita’s raised brow.Instantly Benita remembered the trending video this morning.Isla set her coat across the guest chair, not bothering to sit. “We have a friend in common.”Benita already suspected the friend in common but, “I’m sure you’ll have to be more specif

CillianBy 7 a.m., the quiet kitchen echoed with the clink of cutlery against ceramic..Sunlight spilled through the tall windows of Cillian’s home, lighting the breakfast table where he sat with Syl and Kent. An untouched plate of eggs cooled in front of him, but no one was really eating.The phone lay facedown beside his coffee mug, still echoing the message he’d read before dawn.Kent had read the message twice and was halfway through a third like the first two hadn’t sunk in.“Belle Bellington just retracted the restriction order. Your statement’s —““Oh shut up already.” Cillian groaned.Kent leaned back in his chair, with a grin across his face. “I can’t! The witch blinked first.”“It’s a win, yeah,” Syl smiled, “But it could’ve gone a different way, Cill. If she hadn’t blinked, you could’ve been in deeper shit.”“Well, she did blink. So here we are.”“That’s not the point,” Syl pressed. “Let’s be more strategic about situations, okay? I can’t save you from everything.”Cillian

The clip had only been five minutes, but Benita had replayed it eight times.Cillian stood in front of the cameras with that unreadable calm, his words echoing in her quiet office like a bruise pressed over and over again.“Cillian St.James,” she muttered, “it suits him.”She paused the video, her finger hovering above the trackpad, the screen frozen on his face. That face. Hardened by grief, sharpened by purpose. He didn’t look like the man who once held her like she was the only thing tethering him to this world. He looked like someone who had let go.She sat back, exhaling through her nose.Retiring the Dawson name. Rewriting his legacy. Choosing his family, finally.But where did that leave her?Since leaving the Bellington Estate, she’d been in a state of floating—neither here nor there. Technically, she still had access to the apartment Belle bought for her, but it felt too polished, too performative. Even now, this office didn’t feel like hers. She ran her fingers across the gl