All Chapters of TOO LATE TO WANT ME BACK : Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

48 Chapters

{ TWENTY ONE }

VAYLEN The freezing drizzle mixing with the falling soot felt like needle pricks against my face, but I didn't wipe my skin.I stood at the perimeter tape, my shoes sinking into the wet, black ash covering the pavement outside the Morgan Headquarters. It was 4:00 AM. The red and blue strobe lights from the emergency vehicles flashed across the concrete carcass, turning the rising columns of gray smoke into a violent display of color against the dark sky. The suffocating smell of burning plastic and charred wood hung thick in the air.Around me, surviving executives and department heads moved in a chaotic panic, their voices overlapping as they shouted over the noise of the clearing engines. I ignored them entirely, my chest rising and falling in steady intervals.Winter stepped out from the shadow of a command unit, his coat stained with charcoal, his face pale as he held out a digital ledger.“The central server towers are fully involved, Mr. Morgan,” he said, his voice tight and hi

{ TWENTY TWO }

ALICEThree days had passed since the High Court victory, and the sterile white and gold walls of the guest wing inside the Obsidian Tower still smelled of fresh paint and expensive floor wax. I stood before the full-length mirror, keeping my touch light as I pressed my palm flat against my lower stomach. I let a rare, small smile touch my face in the quiet of the room. Twenty-four months. I spoke the timeline silently to myself, letting the number settle like a boundary line. This cage was magnificent, and it was dangerous, but it carried an expiration date. I pulled the lapels of my gray wool blazer straight, pinning the fabric tightly across my chest to hide the slight hollows near my collarbones. I slid a pair of dark sunglasses over my eyes, blocking out the aggressive morning glare cutting through the glass before the exhaustion on my face could show. My body felt heavy from the lingering fatigue, but I forced my chin up, preparing to take on the full layout of my presidential

{ TWENTY THREE }

VAYLEN The blinding crimson glare of a low-slung autumn sunset bled across the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, casting long shadows over the executive suite. I stood perfectly motionless near the glass, keeping my arms folded across my chest as I locked my eyes straight across the dual-carriageway avenue. Below me, the white-stone facade of the Laurent Group Headquarters reflected the fading light like a heavy shield. On my dark glass desk terminal, the logo of CARINE LTD burned quietly in the dimming office, its digital frame catching the edge of my sleeve. I turned my back to the glass slowly, letting the silence of the room settle. The identity shift had been an absolute, calculating necessity. I had changed the name of the new expansion subsidiary to honor the quiet woman who had once pulled my body out of a freezing river, but more importantly, I did it to erase every single trace of the Morgan legacy from the capital's registry files. Alice Laurent was no longer the submissi

{ TWENTY FOUR }

ALICE The grand, sprawling exhibition hall of CARINE LTD carried a low, continuous hum of high-tier corporate negotiations, punctuated by the rhythmic clinking of crystal flutes and a blinding, synchronized wall of white media flashbulbs. On the upper gallery, the mezzanine orchestra delivered a heavy, acoustic wallpaper of cello notes that transformed the social launch into a sterile boardroom in motion. I stepped onto the polished floor, keeping my spine in a perfect vertical line of sovereign grace. My eyes scanned the flawless, hyper-strategic scale of the layout. Every pillar, every lighting grid, and every registration terminal was positioned with absolute operational efficiency. Whoever had pulled off a market entry of this magnitude in the space of three days was a brilliant, highly capable billionaire. I moved gracefully to my assigned front-row table, waving to familiar tycoons with a stable, elegant smile before taking my seat. The air inside the cavernous hall was heavy,

{ TWENTY FIVE }

VAYLEN The hall fell into a heavy, suffocating crawl the exact second I stepped closer to the edge of the mahogany table. I expected her assistant and her secretary to step back under my authority, but they stood completely motionless behind the dense, formal perimeter of her elite security detail. They entirely ignored my presence, their eyes remaining fixed on the front door as if I were a minor administrative detail they had already cleared. Catherine looked straight up into my glare, her expression entirely empty of recognition, carrying no fear, no anger, and no trace of the past we had shared. Her voice was smooth, professional, and completely calm as she spoke, treating me like an absolute stranger she was meeting for the very first time.“I’m sorry, Mr. Morgan,” she said, her tone carrying the empty politeness of a routine business interaction. “Whatever proposal you possess, send it across to my office. My administrative board will review the parameters before we move forwa

{ TWENTY SIX }

Alice The white and gold panels of my bedroom inside the Obsidian Tower offered no comfort the moment the door clicked shut behind me. I walked straight to the window, the silk of my robe brushing against my ankles as a profound, suffocating disturbance filled my chest. I stared out at the city lights blinking through the dark, watching the distant headlights trace the avenue below. Why? The question sat like a physical weight behind my teeth. There was no logical template for what Vaylen Morgan had done. A man of his clinical discipline did not simply abandon an established empire in Velmora City, liquidate his entire domestic infrastructure, and fast-track a massive international expansion across an ocean just to plant his boardroom directly opposite my gates. I pressed my palm flat against my lower stomach, my heart delivering a heavy, frantic thud against my ribs as a cold wave of protective maternal paranoia washed over me. He must never discover the secret inside my body. I

{ TWENTY SEVEN }

Alice “Drop the pretense,” Vaylen whispered, his breath ghosting in the cold air between us. “We are going to talk.”A cold, violent wave of panic hit my chest, but I forced my posture into a rigid vertical line, locking my fingers steadily around the leather of my clutch to keep my sovereign mask flawlessly in place. I looked up into his intense, bloodshot glare, letting my voice fall with a smooth, professional distance that carried absolutely no recognition.“We cannot talk on the streets, Mr. Morgan,” I said, keeping my tone calm and level. “Let’s keep professional issues to the office. You shouldn't block me on a public pavement.”Vaylen’s jaw tightened, a raw, bitter edge breaking through his alpha composure as he took a half-step closer, refusing to let the corporate line freeze him out of my perimeter. “You have completely rejected my partnership proposals, ignored my calls for three weeks, and ordered a total communication blackout on my entire empire,” he said, his voice dr

{ TWENTY EIGHT }

VAYLEN I clamped my palms hard against the leather steering wheel, my knuckles turning white as I forced the car away from the wet sidewalk curb outside the Crest Club. The gray autumn mist blurred the windshield in front of my eyes, but the phantom scent of fresh graphite paint and white lilies felt like pure, suffocating ash at the back of my throat. My pride was a mutilated, bleeding ruin. My brain looped the devastating sidewalk confrontation a thousand times in the space of a single breath, dissecting every micro-action with a painful, clinical precision. I saw her empty, polite eyes looking straight through my chest as if the space I occupied were completely hollow. I heard her soft, dismissive corporate smile, and I felt the absolute, unbending finality of her posture when she looked at the digital tablet screen and denied her own face. But the image that was actively suffocating me, the single visual anchor driving a hot, blinding wave of madness through my core, was Geral

{ TWENTY NINE }

VaylenMelissa reached out frantically to grab the soot-stained lapels of my suit jacket before I could turn away. “Vaylen, you left me in Velmora like an unwanted piece of baggage,” she screamed, tears spilling over her heavy makeup, her voice rising into a sharp, trembling pitch that grated violently against my ears. “You cannot just erase our entire life, change your company name, and run across the ocean to ignore my family after everything we’ve prepared. It is deeply unfair to me!”I didn't flinch, and I didn't drop my mask. The memory of Gerald Hawthorne lifting Alice’s right hand to press a deliberate, lingering kiss against her palm was still burning like white-hot sulfur behind my eyelids, rendering Melissa's frantic touch completely repulsive to my masculine pride. I reached down, my long fingers closing firmly around her wrists. I peeled her hands off my coat one by one with a bone-chilling, clinical force that left her frozen on the asphalt. “The wedding is dead, Meliss

{ THIRTY }

Alice The silent, leather-insulated interior of the armored Hawthorne SUV offered an immediate, suffocating relief the exact split second the heavy doors thudded shut. The click of the automated locks cut off the freezing autumn mist and Vaylen Morgan’s rigid, unyielding silhouette entirely, leaving nothing but the quiet hum of the climate control. I leaned my head back against the cushion as the multi-ton vehicle accelerated smoothly into the capital traffic, my heart still racing violently behind my ribs from the sheer terror of the sidewalk intersection. I was genuinely relieved that Gerald had arrived when he did. His massive, terrifying corporate shadow was the only anvil heavy enough to completely crush Vaylen's desperate attempt to breach my perimeter. But the moment the car cleared the main palace gates, that relief instantly dissolved into a cold, heavy reality. Lifting my right hand with slow, deliberate movements, I took a silk handkerchief from my clutch and firmly wipe

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