All Chapters of Too Late To Love Me: I Already Left With His Twins: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Lydia POVA week after the disaster dinner, I decided to learn how to do eyeliner.Not because I had anywhere to go.Not because my husband had suddenly remembered I existed.But because I had too much time on my hands, too much silence in this house, and apparently, when life was actively mocking me, my natural response was to sit in front of a vanity mirror and attempt tiny acts of self-improvement.The first wing looked decent.The second one made me look like I had lost a fight with a permanent marker.I leaned closer to the mirror in my room, squinting.“No,” I muttered to my reflection. “Absolutely not.”I wiped it off with micellar water and tried again.Still tragic.By the third attempt, I had accepted that maybe some talents were not given by God freely and had to be purchased through suffering.A knock sounded on my door.“Come in,” I called.Bernard stepped in with his usual composed face and impossible timing.“Good afternoon, ma’am.”I dropped the eyeliner on the vanity.

Lydia POV After the whole wardrobe disaster, I decided I had officially had enough. Not enough in a dramatic, suitcase-on-the-floor, I’m-running-away kind of way. Just enough in the quiet, dangerous way where I realized I had been in that house for almost eight weeks and was starting to behave like a very well-fed prisoner. Yes, I had peace. Yes, nobody was breathing down my neck. Yes, I could wake up whenever I wanted, take my courses in silence, and exist without my mother assigning me emotional labor before breakfast. But also? I had somehow spent almost two months inside one house like a decorative hostage with Wi-Fi. And that was insane. So that morning, after breakfast, I stood in front of my wardrobe and decided I was going out. Not to the garden. Not to “take in fresh air” like some rich neglected wife in a period drama. Out. Into actual civilization. Into traffic. Into noise. Into people. Into life. I reached for the only sensible outfit in the entire luxur

Lydia POVOpened my notes app. And typed exactly three words. This is war.After the whole room invasion thing, I made a decision.If Cyn wanted to perform possession every time I was in the house, then fine.She could perform to the walls.Because I was no longer going to sit around waiting for her next psychological attack like this was some rich people survival game.If peace would not come to me naturally, I would go outside and collect it by force.And surprisingly?It worked.That week, I went to the café three times.Three whole times.Which, for someone who had spent nearly two months rotating between one bedroom, one dining table, and one emotional crisis, felt almost rebellious.The first time, I stayed for two hours.The second time, nearly four.By the third visit, one of the attendants had started smiling at me like I was becoming part of the furniture.And honestly, I didn’t hate that.That afternoon, I was halfway through my iced coffee and pretending not to eavesdrop

Lydia POV By the time the charity event ended properly, my body had already started filing complaints. At first, I ignored it. Because obviously, after spending days planning an event, watching Cyn turn it into her own soft-launch as Mrs. Ashton, and then standing there while photographers cropped me out of my own idea, I assumed the pounding in my head was just regular emotional damage. Very normal. Very on brand for my life. So when I got back to the house that night and my bones felt heavier than usual, I blamed exhaustion. When my throat started scratching like I had swallowed sandpaper, I blamed stress. When I woke up sometime around 2 a.m. sweating through my shirt and freezing at the same time, I blamed Satan. Then I rolled over, dragged the duvet up to my chin, and decided that if I slept hard enough, maybe my body would reset itself by morning. It did not. When I opened my eyes again, sunlight was pushing through the curtains in thin pale strips, and for one confus

Lydia POV By the time the flu finally left my body, it had taken something else with it. I just didn’t know the exact name for it yet. Maybe that last embarrassing part of me that still believed if I reached out enough, someone would eventually reach back. Whatever it was, it was gone. And honestly? Good riddance. The first morning I woke up without a fever, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling for so long that the sunlight had already shifted across the room by the time I sat up. My body still felt heavy. Like I had been wrung dry. The tissue box on my bedside table looked like it had survived a small war. My water bottle was half full. My plant on the windowsill looked slightly offended with me for not watering it in two days. “Sorry,” I muttered to it. Because apparently the only healthy relationship in my life now was with a potted plant. I pushed the duvet off and dragged myself to the bathroom. The mirror did not greet me kindly. My face looked slimm