All Chapters of Love Too Late: Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

“Raymond, let me go.” I looked right at him.Rage filled his gaze.“Let go? Cara, our wedding is in five days. You’re my fiancee. Start acting like it.”“How I act is none of your concern.”I forcefully pulled my hand free.“None of my concern?” He scoffed with contempt.“Everything about you is my concern. You should be at home, preparing for the wedding. I’m offering you a life of luxury that you could never exhaust.”I met his glare deliberately. “What I want isn’t to be your trophy wife in a gilded cage.”When he heard this, he became even more furious. He leaned in, closing the distance between us. “What makes you think you have the right to set terms with me?”I sacrificed so much for him in the past, but he never understood. Why would he get it this time around?I stopped struggling and simply looked at him coldly.“I’m tired. I’m going home.”Raymond stared at me for a long moment. A mix of emotions was churning in his eyes.Finally, he loosened his grip.

My plane landed in Veridia early in the morning.I took a deep breath of the city’s air. It felt like freedom.I headed straight for my mother’s old apartment. It was in an old building located in the Boho district.Dust filled the air when I opened the door. The place was much worse than anywhere I had ever lived.Yet I laughed out loud.On the third day of cleaning the attic, I found a stack of old papers at the bottom of a wooden chest. They were my mother’s unfinished ‘Songbird’ sketches.Every page had notes on the back. The last page had a small drawing of a bird. A note next to it said, [For Cara. Freedom never goes out of style.]I sat on the floor holding them and cried. This was the most precious thing my mother had left for me.Design school was harder than I thought. Professor Marta made us shape wire into something that felt like “freedom.”My fingers were soon covered in cuts.I spent nights at my small table in my apartment, revising my designs. I ate stale

Professor Marta called me into her office and handed me a scholarship letter. The amount was sufficient to cover all my tuition and living expenses.I turned it down.Afterwards, I studied and worked harder than ever. The cuts on my fingers healed, only for new ones to appear. Draft design sketches piled up across my entire room.I was determined to make it on my own. I would not accept any form of charity. Not even charity cloaked in the guise of apology.One week before the design competition’s submission deadline, I encountered Raymond in the hallway of my design school.“You’ve lost weight,” he said softly to me as I passed by him.I stopped walking but did not turn to face him.“Take care of yourself,” he said. Then, he turned and left.A friend asked me that evening, “If he is genuinely trying to change, would you forgive him?”I stirred the coffee in my cup and watched the milk foam slowly dissolve.“Forgiving someone and reconciling with someone are two different thin

On the third day of the “Reconciliation” exhibition, the Veridia gallery was crowded with visitors drawn by its reputation.The editor-in-chief of Brightwyn Fashion Weekly was standing before the central display case. He praised the pair of earrings that symbolized internal freedom, calling them “a design that interprets the true essence of liberty.” Cameras flashed incessantly throughout the hall.Warmth filled my heart as I stood on the second-floor gallery, watching the work I had labored over for countless nights receive recognition. Suddenly, a shrill voice cut through the air. “Cara! You thief!”I saw Gemma at the gallery entrance, dressed in an ostentatious gown. Security personnel held her back, but she struggled furiously. “Let me go!” she screamed. “Let me go! She stole those designs! She doesn’t deserve any of this!”The crowd erupted into chaos instantly. Reporters’ cameras swiveled toward her. Visitors whispered and stepped back. The orderly exhibition descended