All Chapters of Too Late To Beg: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

TAMSIN After Leo told me the ball was in my court, I walked out of his office. My hands were shaking. I clenched them into fists so the clerk wouldn't see. He tried to speak to me as I passed his desk. I kept walking, pushed through the glass doors hard enough that they swung wide, and crossed the parking lot to my car. I shoved the keys into the ignition. Started the engine. Then it all came back. James's face in our living room, his hand wrapped around Isla's. "Isla is pregnant with my child." His mother's voice, sharp and accusatory. "She's pretending to be pregnant. How convenient." The bedroom floor. Cold. Sticky. My dress soaked through with blood. My voice breaking. "Please, James. Save our baby." Watching him lift Isla into his arms instead. "I'll come back for you. I promise." The empty hours that followed. The crawling. The crash. The silence when he never came back. I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles went white. Then I turned off the car. Climbed b

TAMSIN "Missed who?" I stared at him and waited for an answer, but he said nothing, just looked at me with that infuriating half-smile that used to make my stomach flip and now made me want to throw something at his head. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and took a step back. "What are you doing here? Because I have no memory of inviting you to this address. Or are you going to tell me you were visiting a client who lives nearby?" He let out a low laugh. "I see you got your sass back. Good. Watching you cry wasn't nearly as entertaining." He gestured toward the street. "Now, since you have no intention of changing, let's go. I need to talk to you and it's important." I folded my arms. "My mood is not good right now. If you have something to say, say it here." "No." He shook his head once, definitive. "We discussed this date and I have made all the arrangements. Let's go." He reached for my hand, but I pulled it back before he could take it. "Mr. Leonardo Price, ar

TAMSIN I stared at the building in front of us, my brows drawing together in confusion. "What are we doing here?" I asked. Leo said nothing. He simply got out of the car, walked around to my side, and opened my door. I did not move. "I asked you a question." "And I will answer it inside." He held out his hand. I ignored it and got out on my own, but before I could take more than two steps, his hand closed around mine, firm and warm, and he began leading me toward the entrance. "Leo, what are you doing?" I tried to pull my hand free. "Let go." He did not let go. Did not slow down. Did not even look back at me as he pulled me through the glass doors and into a lobby that was far too luxurious to be a standard clinic. The floors were marble. The furniture looked expensive. Soft music played from hidden speakers. "This is ridiculous," I said, still trying to extract my hand from his. "I am a doctor. If I needed medical attention, I would handle it myself." He stopped in front o

JAMES I stayed on that floor longer than I should have, as my mind traveled down memory lane. I could still remember. When Isla's family moved away a few years after the fire, we kept in touch for a while. Letters at first, then emails, then texts. But eventually, the messages grew further apart, the responses slower, until one day I realized we had not spoken in months and I did not even know where she was living anymore. I had assumed she was fine. Happy. Living whatever life she had built for herself in whatever city her family had settled in. Then she came back. Showed up at my office one afternoon looking exactly the same and completely different all at once. Same face. Same smile. But something fragile about her now, something that had not been there before. She told me she was engaged. That she would be in the country for almost two years while her fiancé finished a work contract overseas. That she did not know many people here anymore and would appreciate having

TAMSIN Finn shot to his feet with a strangled yell, hot liquid dripping down his face and onto his shirt, his hands coming up too late to shield himself. "What is wrong with you?" he shouted. "Mrs. Whitmore, have you lost your mind?" "Everyone!" I raised my voice loud enough to carry through the thin walls. "Come in here and see the best graduating lawyer from his class! Nothing but a fraud and a liar!" Doors opened. Footsteps hurried down the hall. Within seconds, half a dozen attorneys had crowded into the doorway, staring at the scene with wide eyes. Finn grabbed tissues from his desk, trying frantically to wipe the coffee from his face. "You are insane. I could sue you for assault." "Please do," I said pleasantly. "I would love to see you try to explain in court why you took five million dollars from my husband to pretend to represent me while actually working for him the entire time." The other lawyers murmured among themselves. Finn's face went pale beneath the