All Chapters of Too Late To Beg: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

LEO I stood there in the courthouse parking lot, watching James's car disappear down the street with Tamsin inside. My heart felt as though someone had reached into my chest and squeezed it until nothing remained but a hollow ache. I do not know how long I stood there. Long enough that the parking lot emptied around me. Long enough that the attendant came over to ask if I was alright. I told him I was fine. It was a lie. Eventually, I managed to get into my car. I do not remember driving home. My body went through the motions while my mind replayed the scene in the courtroom over and over again. Tamsin standing up. Tamsin telling the judge she did not want the divorce. Tamsin looking at me with something that resembled regret, then walking away without explanation. When I arrived home, I walked straight to my study and poured myself a drink. Then another. Then I stopped counting. I blamed myself. I had been too focused on my other cases this past week. To

LEO I slid out of bed with a deliberateness that made Tamsin's eyes widen in alarm. The cool air hit my skin as I reached for my clothes, still scattered across the floor where we had discarded them in our urgency. I pulled on my trousers first, then reached for my shirt, my movements calm and methodical despite the fury building in my chest. "What are you doing?" Tamsin whispered, her voice tight with something that sounded like panic. I buttoned the top of my shirt with careful precision, each fastening a small act of defiance against the situation I found myself in. "What does it look like I am doing?" I replied, my tone mild despite the tension coiling through my muscles. "I am getting dressed so I can face him." "Leo, please." She sat up, clutching the sheet to her chest, her hair tumbling around her shoulders in a way that would have distracted me under different circumstances. "You cannot..." "I am going to face James," I insisted, my voice steady and final. The

TAMSIN I could not understand what was happening to me. When I had made the decision to return to James temporarily for Hannah's sake, I had known, with painful clarity, that I would have to give up whatever had rekindled between Leo and myself. I had accepted that sacrifice as the price of keeping my sister safe, keeping her alive, keeping her close enough to rebuild the years we had lost. What I had not expected was how devastatingly difficult it would be. Worse, I had never imagined I would do something so completely out of character, so reckless, so utterly unlike the Tamsin I thought I knew. Having sex with Leo in James's villa, in a bedroom just down the hall from where my husband slept, would have seemed laughable to me even a week ago. Impossible. Absurd. And yet I had done exactly that. The thought should have filled me with shame. With regret. With the kind of guilty horror that comes from betraying every principle you thought you held sacred. Instead, all I

TAMSIN Leo stopped mid-stride, confusion flooding his face as though I had just spoken in a language he did not understand. "Tamsin? What is going on? I mean, I was expecting you earlier, and then when you did not show up, when you would not answer your phone..." He trailed off, searching my face for some explanation that would make sense of my cold rejection. I could see Poppy standing slightly behind me, her presence a silent show of support that gave me the courage to keep my voice steady. "Let me ask you a question, Leo," I said, and was proud of how calm I sounded despite the fury building in my chest. "What do you take me for? A fool? Someone who is easy to manipulate?" His eyes widened. "What? No, Tamsin, I would never..." "Time and again," I continued, my voice rising now, all the hurt and rage I had been holding back pouring out in a torrent I could not control, "you have abused and insulted my feelings for you. Did you think I would never find out?" "Find out w

LEO "So tell me," Evelyn pressed, leaning forward with undisguised curiosity. "What happened? The situation with Tamsin is still complicated, is it not? She is still married. Still living in James's house. What changed?" I took another sip of wine, letting the warmth spread through my chest. "You are right that the situation is complicated," I admitted. "More complicated than I realized, actually. But I am certain now that Tamsin loves me. Really loves me. And that is the best realization of my life at this point in time." Evelyn studied me for a long moment, and I saw confusion flicker across her face. "I do not understand," she said finally. "You left her in the past, right? Disappeared from her life without explanation. And she married someone else, built a whole new life without you. Every other woman who experienced that would hate you. Would want nothing to do with you. Why would a beautiful, amazing woman like Tamsin forgive someone who hurt her so much?" The questio