All Chapters of Darling, I'm Running Out Of Time: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

96 Chapters

Chapter 1 — Months, Not Years

"The last treatment didn't respond the way we needed it to." Dr. Voss said it looking directly at her, not at the file open on the desk between them. That was something Celine had noticed about him over the past two years. He rarely consulted the file when she was in the room. Either he had it memorized, or he'd gotten accustomed to her report. "What that means for your prognosis," Dr. Voss continued, "is that the picture has changed." "How changed?" Celine asked him. He laced his hands on the desk. "We're talking about months, Celine. Not years." There it was. She'd known, abstractly. "How many months?" she asked him. "I can't give you an exact number. It doesn't work that way — there are too many variables, and I'd rather be honest about what I don't know than give you a figure that turns out to be wrong in either direction." He paused. "What I can tell you is that if we're going to attempt another course of treatment, the time to decide is now. Not next month." She nodde

Chapter 2

Isla was on her knees on the fourteenth floor, unpacking the last crate of framed prints, when her phone rang.She almost didn't answer. Her hands were full and her hair was in her face and she had seventeen things left to do before the afternoon walkthrough with the building's events coordinator.She answered anyway."Isla." It was Marcus, her boss at Hartwell Creative. His voice had that particular energy it got when something unexpected had happened — not bad unexpected. The other kind. "Are you sitting down?""I'm on the floor actually.""Close enough." A pause. "Cole Global just contacted us. They want to extend the installation contract. Three more months. Full rate."Isla sat back on her heels. "Sorry?""Three months, Isla. Full rate. They want additional work done — expanded installation across two more floors apparently. The request came directly from the executive office."She looked around the fourteenth floor gallery space. At the work she'd spent four days carefully han

Chapter 3

She arrived at 8:58 am.Zachary's PA, a composed woman named Diana who had worked for him for seven years and prided herself on being unshockable, did a very subtle double take when Isla Simmons stepped out of the elevator — portfolio under one arm, slightly windswept from the New York morning, looking around the fortieth floor with the particular expression of someone trying very hard to appear less intimidated than they were."Isla Simmons," Isla said. "I have a nine o'clock appointment with Mr. Cole."Diana checked her screen. Looked up. "He's expecting you. I'll let him know you're here."Isla nodded and stood by the window and looked out at the city below and told herself to breathe.Diana's phone buzzed almost immediately."You can go in."His office was exactly what she expected and nothing like what she expected simultaneously.The space was vast — floor to ceiling windows on two sides, the whole city spread out below like something he'd ordered specifically. Clean lines. Dark

Chapter 4

Reid's dinner parties were never actually dinner parties.Isla figured that out within the first ten minutes.The food was real — properly cooked, properly served, the kind of meal that required actual effort — but the people were too carefully chosen for it to be casual. Everyone in the room knew someone who knew someone and the conversations moved the way conversations moved when nobody was really relaxing.She almost hadn't come.Caden had invited her three days ago by saying Reid's doing a dinner thing Friday. You should come. You know Reid and you know me. Zachary will be there but don't let that put you off — he's fine once you get used to him.But the real reason she had come was because she was tired of going home to her Brooklyn apartment and eating pasta alone and calling it a social life.She was standing near the window with a glass of water looking out at the city when Caden appeared at her elbow."You're doing the window thing," he said."What window thing?""The sta

Chapter 5

Theo's message came at 8:14 a.m.“Reid mentioned you're working in the Cole Global building. I have a consultation there Tuesday. Lunch after?”Isla read it on the subway, one hand on the overhead rail.She smiled and typed back.Tuesday works.I'll find you, he replied.I'll be on the fourteenth floor.I design buildings. I don't get lost.She laughed out loud that the he man beside her shifted slightly.She put her phone away still smiling and finished her coffee and thought that Theo Winslow was genuinely the easiest person she'd met since moving to New York. No performance. No agenda. Just — easy. Like breathing.She hadn't realised how much she'd missed easy until she found it again.The twenty second floor was empty when she arrived.She liked it like this. Before her team. Before the noise. Just her and the space and the particular silence of a room that hadn't become anything yet.She was standing in the centre of the floor, arms crossed, head tilted, thinking about the north

Chapter 6

Isla's team left at six.She stayed.There was still the ceiling anchor on the north end that wasn't sitting right — a fraction of a degree off, nothing anyone else would notice, everything she would notice every single time she walked into this room for the next three months. She changed into the old trainers she kept in her bag for late nights, set up the ladder, and got back to work.The twenty second floor was quiet.She liked this part. Always had. Just her and the work and no one asking questions.She was halfway up the ladder, wrench in hand, when she heard footsteps.She knew before she turned around. She had learned his footsteps without meaning to — leather soles, deliberate, the kind that moved through a building like they owned it. Which they did. Which was the point.She finished what she was doing. Came down the ladder.He was standing in the doorway with his jacket off and his tie loosened and his hands in his pockets looking at the north wall. The first time she had

Chapter 7

The file was open on the desk when Reid walked in.He didn't knock. He never knocked. Twenty years and it had never once been discussed because there was nothing to discuss — it was simply how things were between them, the way certain things between certain people became simply true without anyone deciding them.He sat down across from Zachary. Looked at the file. At the name on the tab. Then at Zachary.He didn't say anything immediately."You read it," he said finally."Yes.""All of it.""Yes."Reid was quiet for a moment. "You never read anyone's file.""I read everyone's file.""Not like this." He looked at the desk. "Not at eleven at night."Zachary closed the file and set it to one side. "He called her yesterday. And the day before.""That's her business.""He spent two years—""Zachary." Reid's voice was careful. Even. "What are you going to do with this?"Silence."Nothing," Zachary said."Then why did you read it?"He didn't answer that.Reid looked at him for a long moment.

The Lunch That Changes Everything

Odette arrived at the small restaurant with her coat still on, sliding into the booth across from Isla before she’d even set down her bag. “Tell me,” she said. Isla was arranging her napkin. Straightening her silverware. The small rituals of someone buying time. “Tell you what?” “About the dinner. The one you didn’t want to tell me about on the phone.” “I already told you. It was a working dinner. We discussed the installation scope.” Odette leaned back. She had this particular way of looking at people when she knew they were leaving things out. A tilt of her head. A slight narrowing of her eyes. “You’re lying,” Odette said. “I’m not—” “You do that thing. You leave out details when you’re nervous. So tell me what actually happened.” Isla picked up her menu even though she’d already decided what to order. “We had dinner ,” she said quietly. “In the restaurant downstairs the company.” “He cooked no sorry he ordered .” “Yes.” “Zachary Cole, billionaire CEO, cooked you dinne

The Hour After

Thirty-seven minutes later there was a knock on her door.She opened it.He was standing there in the corridor with his jacket off and his shirt sleeves rolled up like he’d come straight from somewhere, like something about that call had made him stop thinking about the appearance he maintained and just — came.“How long have you known?” he asked.She stepped back. He came inside. Closed the door.“I didn’t know. I guessed.” She moved into the living room, creating distance. “You do things. You go very still sometimes. When your phone rings from a specific number. And there was a moment in the elevator when you looked at the city like you were—”“Saying goodbye?”She didn’t answer.He looked around her apartment like he was seeing it for the first time. Small. Careful. Everything exactly where it belonged. No excess. No chaos. Everything chosen.“How much did you guess?” he asked.“Enough to know something is wrong. Not enough to know what.”He sat down on her couch without being invi

The Consequence

Zachary went back to his office at 11 p.m.Reid was there waiting. He was sitting in the dark with only the city lights coming through the windows, which meant he’d been waiting for a while.“Diana told me someone was in the building,” Reid said. “Where did you go?”“To Isla’s apartment.”Reid stood up. “Why would you—”“She asked if I was sick. So I told her.”“Zachary. You didn’t tell her the whole thing, right? You didn’t tell her about—”“About the plan? About the fact that I extended her contract specifically to experience love before I die? About the file I read on her ex-boyfriend?”Reid’s face went pale.“You told her all of it.”“Not all. But enough.”“And what did she say?”Zachary moved to the window. The city sprawled below them in a grid of light. Millions of people in their rooms making decisions that mattered and didn’t matter simultaneously.“She told me if I ever lied to her again she would destroy me.”Reid sat back down heavily. “Okay. Okay, so now she knows. Now wh

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