All Chapters of Too Late To Love Me, Mr Billionaire : Chapter 201 - Chapter 210

217 Chapters

Smaller Than She Intended

Natasha’s POVShe drove home on autopilot.She didn’t remember most of it, the turns and the lights and the parking, just the steering wheel under her hands and Kira’s voice running on a loop in her head, steady and factual and completely without cruelty, which somehow made it worse.She sat in the car outside her building for twenty minutes.Her father.She’d spent her whole adult life being careful not to become her mother and it turned out she’d spent it being her father instead, building a story and defending it and never once questioning whether the foundation of it was true because questioning it would have meant looking at something she didn’t want to see.She got out of the car and went upstairs and sat on her kitchen counter with her phone in her hand and looked at her mother’s name in her contacts.Her mother was seventy-one and lived in Accra and called her every Sunday at five pm without fail and always asked about the restaurant first and her love life second and her heal

The Same Car

Adrian’s POVHis assistant had reorganized his calendar three times in the last month and each time she’d moved the same block, a two hour window on Thursday afternoons he’d originally labelled personal and never filled, because every time Thursday came around he sat in his office and thought about what to do with it and came up with nothing and let it pass.He was looking at it again now.His office at Westbrook house was on the second floor, the one he’d converted from a guest room two years ago when he decided he was done commuting to the Westbrook Industries building for everything, floor to ceiling shelves on two walls, a desk that faced the window and looked out over the west garden, and a silence that was different from the silence in the building downtown.He leaned back in his chair and looked at the calendar.Kira’s birthday was in two weeks.He’d been thinking about it for a month, which was not something he would have done a year ago, or two years ago, or at any point duri

My Mother

Elijah’s POVHe parked on 57th and sat in the car for exactly two minutes.Not because he was second guessing anything, the decision was made, he just wanted to finish the call with his Seoul sous chef Minho who was explaining at length why the new pastry section wasn’t working and what he thought should change about it, and Elijah listened and said he agreed on the first point and disagreed on the second and told him to try the adjustment on Thursday and call him after service.He ended the call and got out of the car.The showroom on Park Avenue had the kind of entrance that said everything about what was inside before you opened the door, and Elijah opened it and walked in and a young man in a grey suit appeared immediately.“Good afternoon. I’m Daniel. Can I help you?”“The Cullinan Black Badge,” Elijah said. “Where is it?”Daniel led him across the floor.He’d spent two weeks on this decision, going through options the way he went through menu revisions, eliminating and refining

Both Of You

Kira’s POV“The acidity is right but the portion is too generous for an opener,” Kira said, setting the spoon down. “If someone eats that full portion they won’t have the appetite for the fish course and the fish course is the best thing on this menu.”Her head chef, David, made a note without arguing because he’d worked with her long enough to know she was right before he’d even checked his own instincts against it.“Cut it by a third,” Kira said. “Keep the garnish exactly as it is, the garnish is perfect.”“The garnish took me two weeks,” David said.“I know. It shows. Don’t touch it.” She moved to the next dish. “What’s this one.”“New venison. Juniper and blackberry reduction, parsnip purée, crispy shallots on top.”She tasted it and stood there for a moment and tasted it again.“David.”“Yes chef.”“This is really good.”He looked at the ceiling briefly with the expression of someone receiving a compliment they’d been working toward for a long time and didn’t know what to do with

I Meant Every Word

Kira’s POV She was twenty minutes from the restaurant when Alyssa’s text came through on the car screen. Pull up Natasha’s podcast. Right now. Kira connected her phone and found it and pressed play and pulled back into traffic and listened. Natasha’s voice came through the Cullinan’s speakers, clear and slow, no intro music, no preamble, just Natasha speaking directly into the microphone the way she spoke in person, no performance in it. “I want to talk about something I got wrong,” Natasha said. “Not partially wrong. Completely wrong. And I want to say it here because this is where I said the wrong thing in the first place so it’s where the correction belongs.” Kira moved into the left lane and slowed down. “Some months ago I did an episode about Kira Ashford. I said she stole from me. I said her success was built on her family’s money and not her own work. I said things I presented as fact that were not fact, they were a story I’d been told when I was twelve years old by peopl

Build A Hospital

Kira’s POVElena had said forty people and delivered fifty-three.Kira counted them from the doorway of the dining room before she walked in, a habit from restaurant service, always know your numbers before you step into a room, and she stood there for exactly three seconds taking in the tables pushed together and the candles and the flowers and the particular noise of a room full of people who were genuinely happy to be somewhere.“Mum said forty,” Kira said to Alyssa beside her.“Your mother has a flexible relationship with numbers,” Alyssa said. “Go in.”She went in.Elena found her within seconds, kissed both cheeks.“Happy birthday darling,” she said and handed her a glass of wine before she could complain about the number of people. Mum, who's the lady in pink, I’ve never seen her, Kira said…What about the man in grey suit, mum…..“Come and sit,” Elena said and steered her toward the nearest table before she could count anyone else.The room pulled her in the way full rooms did

Happy Birthday Darling

Kira’s POVCatherine kissed both her cheeks.“Happy birthday darling. You look wonderful.”“Thank you,” Kira said.Elena appeared from nowhere and took Catherine’s arm and introduced her to the couple nearest the door and Catherine laughed at something the husband said and the room absorbed her the way it absorbed everyone Elena brought into it, smoothly and without resistance.Kira turned back to her table.“She came,” Alyssa said.“I can see that.”“Did you know?”“No.” Kira picked up her wine. “Did you?”“Elena called me this afternoon and asked me not to mention it.” Alyssa picked up her own glass. “I’m mentioning it.”“I appreciate that.”Marcus appeared on her other side with a plate he’d clearly just taken from a passing tray. “Catherine’s here,” he said.“I noticed Marcus.”“Are you alright?”“Both of you stop asking me that.” Kira looked at them. Catherine settled three seats down on the opposite side of the table between Elena’s friend Patricia and a man from Richard’s fir

Too Late For That

Adrian’s POVHis phone rang at eight fifteen.He was in his office with his coffee and the Singapore quarterly he still hadn’t finished and the particular quiet of a Saturday morning in Westbrook house when the twins were at Elena’s and the whole building had nothing in it but him.He picked up.“Kira.”“Are you busy?”“No. What’s wrong?”She told him what she heard from the call Catherine had been on.He sat back in his chair and listened and didn’t say anything, not because he had nothing to say but because she needed to get through it first and interrupting her was not something he was going to do. She told him about the hallway and Catherine at the window and the phone and the voice and the name, Thomas, and the weekend plans and the me too at the end that landed the way those two words always landed when they were said to someone you weren’t supposed to be saying them to.When she finished the line was quiet for a moment.“Adrian,” she said.“I heard you.”“I’m not telling you th

I Know Baby

Kira’s POVThe note came with the booking confirmation in a plain envelope, Adrian’s handwriting on the front, and inside just four lines.I heard you never got to finish this module. I thought you should. No occasion, no strings. The details are attached.Kira read it twice and put it on her kitchen counter and looked at it for the rest of the evening.The details said Hana Mori, Tribeca, Saturday nine to one, Japanese knife technique, private session. She looked up Hana Mori and read three paragraphs about twelve years training in Osaka and a waiting list that ran six months and a teaching philosophy described by one former student as the most demanding four hours of my culinary life and the most useful.She put the confirmation in her bag and didn’t tell anyone.Saturday morning she drove to Tribeca and parked the Cullinan and stood outside the studio door for thirty seconds and rang the bell.Hana Mori opened it before the ring finished.“You’re three minutes early,” she said. “Go

Good Luck

Elijah’s POVKira ate like she hadn’t realized she was hungry until the container was open in her lap, which knowing her meant she’d been running since six in the morning and had skipped breakfast entirely because there was always something more pressing.Elijah ate beside her and didn’t mention it.The Cullinan was warm and the street outside was doing its Saturday afternoon thing and they sat in the passenger and driver seats with their containers and the paper bag between them on the console and didn’t talk for a few minutes.“The Copenhagen restaurant,” Elijah said. “Have you been to Lille?”“Which one.”“Vesterbrogade. Small place, maybe twenty covers, no printed menu, whatever the kitchen decides that day.”“I haven’t been.”“I went in October for a conference and went back three times in four days.”Kira looked at him. “Three times.”“There was a dish on the second night. Turbot, brown butter, preserved lemon, and something underneath it I still haven’t identified.” He looked a

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