All Chapters of ALMS TO LOVE: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

216 Chapters

ALMS TO LOVE CHAPTER 31

Valeria fixed her with a wise stare. "You're thinking about him, aren't you?"Fiona's heart skipped a beat. "I'm not.""Uh-huh," Valeria said, raising an eyebrow. "Don't think I don't see."Fiona swallowed, the truth searing like a black cloud in the back of her throat. She couldn't tell him. How could she? How could she make him understand what drew her to Charles? How could she make him understand the discord, the tension between what he'd done for her and what she'd felt for him?"Don't think too much about it," Valeria went on, her voice now sarcastic. "But you're not deceiving me. I'm sitting in the front row for your drama spectacle, and I'm enjoying every moment of it.""Shut up," Fiona growled, her cheeks blazing.The nurse came back in a minute, with a smile on her face to the two of them. "Ms. Degenery, Liza's vitals are stable, and she can be discharged in an hour. We just have to complete the final check."Fiona's heart leaped. An hour. That's all. Liza would come home."T

ALMS TO LOVE CHAPTER 32

"Gosh, I don't know how this is going to turn out," Fiona muttered to herself, looking over at the sleeping figure next to her. "But something's going to break. I just know it."The car growled under her. Liza Liana, wrapped all snug as a little moonbeam, slept once more against the hand clutching the bunny Valeria had left behind for her, mouth open in peace, eyelashes moving like little wings. The sun streamed through the window and gold across her face. A moment of perfection.Fiona ought to have been resting in relief. Liza was stable. The tests were within parameters. The doctor had spoken to her in person—She's getting better, Miss Degenery. She even might get to go home today.And yet.Her stomach churned.Charles.That name.That man."I shouldn't be thinking about you," she murmured, her hand automatically smoothing a lock of hair back from Liza's forehead. "Not now."But the memory pushed in anyway—his eyes when the towel hit the floor. That split-second of stunned silence.

ALMS TO LOVE CHAPTER 33

The lock caught smoothly with the key being pushed in, and Fiona opened the door with one hand resting on her hip on Liza Liana and the other hand gripping a canvas bag containing medication and scripts. There was a whiff of fresh linen and drifting lavender entering, golden and cosy. Home.For the first time in weeks, it wasn’t a hospital room she was stepping into. No antiseptic. No machines beeping. No dull gray walls. Just sunlight spilling across the hardwood floor and the sound of her daughter humming faintly against her shoulder.“We’re back,” Fiona whispered, as if speaking too loudly might wake the dream.Liza Liana blinked sleepily and murmured, “This smells like pancakes.”Fiona smiled. “It smells like hope, baby. We’re home.”She set Liza down gently on the couch, tucking her bunny under one arm and wrapping the pink throw blanket over her. The little girl immediately curled into the corner like it was the safest place in the world.Fiona leaned forward and kissed her foreh

ALMS TO LOVE CHAPTER 34

The aroma of pancakes still clung to the air, though the plates in the sink were rinsed and stacked. Sunlight streamed in through the kitchen windows, casting gold upon the marble countertop. Fiona stood at the front door, heels on, coat slung over one arm, her satchel across the other. Her hair was swept back in a beautiful bun, and her blouse was the pale color of ivory that she wore every lecture day—it complemented the soothing in her voice.Liza Liana stood before her in a puffy jacket with bunny ears on the hood, a glittery backpack held tightly in both hands.Fiona knelt down, fixing the zipper on her daughter's coat. "All right, munchkin. Miss Juniper will go out to the park later and then you'll color, okay?" Liza Liana nodded gravely. "And she said we would bake stars."Fiona smiled, eyes warm. "That's just great. I have to go to work now, remember? But I'll come home early. Promise."The little girl's lower lip protruded a little. "But I liked yesterday better.""I did too

ALMS TO LOVE CHAPTER 35

The air was faintly scented with chalk, old books, and spectres of past essays. Morning sunlight streamed through high windows, light on long rectangles between the lines of hunched students over notebooks, laptop keys typing, pencils scratching. Fiona stood near the front of the room, dark curls contained, blouse taut at the waist, heels muffled on the wooden floor.She clutched a dog-eared copy of The Yellow Wallpaper against her palm, pages covered in scribbles in numerous colors over the years of academic battles. Her voice sliced through morning quiet, firm, crisp, yet intimate—like she was sharing a secret she wouldn't share."Her voice," she went on, moving slowly through the room, "is frequently misinterpreted. It is not soft. It is not melodic. Sometimes… rage. Sometimes, staying alive."She stopped walking, turned to the class, gazing at them. "Charlotte Perkins Gilman didn't write about wallpaper because she adored interior design. She wrote it because women like her were b

ALMS TO LOVE CHAPTER 36

And maybe, perhaps—something else.Later, 3:55 p.m. – Vera Sun's AtelierThe atelier was champagne-scented, silk-scented.Fiona stood in the dressing room, barefoot, fingers on the silk of a dress she'd not yet felt brave enough to zip. A seamstress hummed behind her, pinning fabric.Then—there he was.Charles Billion. Bespoke. Stoic. Slow-motion storm.He stopped when he saw her. Then—blinking. Once. Twice."Hello," he growled, the tone lower than usual.Fiona shifted infinitesimally, the meat on her shoulders glinting. "This is not what I had in mind when I thought about 'pretend engagements.'""You look… he stopped. "Beautiful."She blinked.There was no irony in his tone this time. No coldness. Only… surprise."Don't do that," she said, bunching the cloth in her hand."Do what?""Talk like that. It's harder to keep in mind that all of this is imaginary."He stepped closer, slow, tentative, as if he wasn't sure that she would let him."I didn't do this to confuse you," Charles brea

ALMS TO LOVE CHAPTER 37

The Billion estate dining room was a world sustained by violence and custom—tear icicles suspended like crystal chandeliers, ivory hand-lacquered chairs covered in adornments, and a table so enormous that two footmen were needed to serve courses from one end to the other.Fiona never felt smaller.She pulled down the collar of her satin top—a chic, but subtle gesture—and ironed out wrinkles in her skirt beneath the raptor-gaze scrutiny of the woman in charge of the table. Madam Jamaica Billion was a vision of command—posture queenly, drawn-back silver hair in crown style, and icy eyes scanning Fiona as if proofreading the first draft for spelling errors."I do hope the dress fitting went well," Jamaica responded icily, her spoon clinking against the rim of her white china cup.Fiona gulped hard. "Yes. The atelier was. lovely.""She was gorgeous," Charles interrupted before his grandmother could add another sugary poisonous comment. "The designers were speechless."Madam Jamaica raise

ALMS TO LOVE CHAPTER 38

Fiona leaned against the door, tense, in the hallway from which she had run out of the dining room, her flat hand pushed into the cold marble wall. Her chest ached, not from fighting, but from the way he had gazed at her. As if she was permitted to be exactly such- rough, enraged, scared, and unbent- and be loved anyway.That was a door she'd not opened in years.Since the crash.Since the diagnosis.Not since she awakened and found the world no longer gave out happy endings, but charged blood, and tears, and all of your silence.She steadied a shaking breath, her heels clattering down the hall, and then moved forward. Past the faces of unhappy ancestors. Past the gold mirror where her own face was barely recognizable. Towards the doors.Outside was a cold night, and he stood waiting.Waiting.She descended the last stone step and stood before him with slitted eyes."You didn't have to wait."He gazed at her, looked at her, indeed, and said, "I know. I wanted to, though."Silence.Moo

ALMS TO LOVE CHAPTER 39

And as darkness fell into quiet, Charles stood outside the door of his car, its motor turned off and the road unfolding before him lined with the cold, harsh light of distant streetlights. It still hummed with things unspoken, a burden hanging between him and the world at large. His head was light-years away from the quiet night—his head whirling with the natural order of things that had transpired, with Fiona's distant stare and the annihilating pull between them. He'd tried to submerge it, to shunt it back, but the verity of his own feelings still remained, obstinate and immovable.His phone buzzed in his pocket, pulling him from his thoughts. He didn’t need to check the screen. The familiarity of the number—the authoritative ring of Madam Jamaica Billion—told him everything he needed to know. With a sigh, he accepted the call, bracing himself.“Charles,” Jamaica’s voice was calm, but there was an unusual softness to it, the kind that made him uneasy. “I’ve been thinking.”He stood

ALMS TO LOVE CHAPTER 40

Hours went by before Charles made the approach to his long driveway to the house. The burden of his decision still nagged him. The large house sat before him, its weathered stone facade and gleaming windows revealing nothing. He had returned home, but home was gone.As the vehicle moved away, Charles removed his hand from the wheel for a second. His phone beeped once more, which broke the quietness. He checked the screen, hoping it would be his assistant or business partner, but it was Fiona."We need to talk."His heart missed a beat. Plain words, but with the tone between them like a gun in a revolver. He was rooted in place gazing at the note with no idea what to do. What can one say? Contract cancellation? Something else?There was a voice in the back of his mind that he was not yet ready to listen to telling him to do it for real. But could he?With a deep breath, he typed back, “I’ll be there in an hour.” He hit send, then immediately regretted it, wishing he had said something

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