Home / Romance / Don’t Beg for Love / Chapter 151 - Chapter 160

All Chapters of Don’t Beg for Love : Chapter 151 - Chapter 160

204 Chapters

151. Her Reputation or The Crown

Annalise’s POVThe crown.Whatever careful reasoning I’d built up over the past few weeks, every excuse I’d handed myself not to suspect Aurelia of anything worse than coincidence, started crumbling the second those two words left her mouth.My eyes flicked to the wall clock mounted behind her. Barely minutes left before the winner announcement would begin downstairs. I could already picture the MC checking his notes, the crowd settling into their seats, Tania probably craning her neck every few seconds to watch for me coming back.I kept my voice level despite the tightness climbing up my throat. “Why? You were the one who suggested I take the crown, that we could collaborate afterward. Why change your mind now?”Aurelia’s smile stayed perfectly in place, unbothered, like she’d rehearsed this exact moment somewhere in advance. “Don’t twist things around, Annalise. I know exactly what kind of underhanded trick you pulled to secure this win.”“Underhanded trick.” I shook my head slowly

152. The Silence

Andrew’s POVI was already on my feet before I fully registered standing up, eyes sweeping the crowd, apprehension clawing its way up my chest after that single shake of Tania’s head.Had Annalise walked away from this entirely? Abandoned the crown without a word to anyone, without even telling me she’d changed her mind about tonight?I’d noticed something shifting in her these past few days, a distance she hadn’t bothered hiding no matter how many times I tried to close it. More than once I’d wondered if she resented what I’d done with the judges more than she’d ever admit out loud, if handing her that win through my own connections had cost her something she valued more than the prize itself. Maybe tonight was her answer to that. Maybe she’d rather forfeit the whole thing entirely than stand up there and accept a victory she felt she hadn’t earned clean, on her own terms, without my name attached anywhere near it.Or maybe I was wrong about all of it, and something far worse had act

153. Going Down with Her

Didn’t deserve the crown?What exactly was she saying up there?Every face in that hall turned toward its neighbor at once, murmurs spreading through the crowd fast enough that I caught the same words repeating from a dozen different mouths. Even the judges seated near the front exchanged glances, none of them looking any less confused than the rest of us.So my fear had been real after all. She’d never wanted this crown in the first place, and I’d gone and fought for it on her behalf anyway, without asking, without even considering that she might not want it handed to her this way.The silence stretched long enough that I could hear my own pulse in my ears, thick with tension nobody in that room seemed willing to break first.A faint smile crossed her face then, small but deliberate. “I don’t deserve this crown,” she repeated, “not until it’s truly, honestly mine.”I frowned. Where exactly was she taking this.“Two weeks ago,” she continued, her voice carrying easily across the silen

154. Took The Shot

A gasp tore through the hall loud enough to swallow every other sound in the room, and the entire crowd went rigid in their seats at once, nobody quite brave enough to move. I was already on my feet before I’d consciously decided to stand, panic climbing up my throat faster than I could push it back down, every instinct in me screaming to close the distance between the stage and where I stood.“I built this career with my own two hands.” Aurelia’s voice carried a tremor beneath its sharp edge, the gun steady despite it. “Decades of work. Decades of sacrifice, clawing my way up from nothing while people like her got to skip straight to the top on borrowed talent. And I’m supposed to just let some filthy nobody tear all of that down in a single night? That would be the biggest mistake of my entire life, letting that happen without a fight.”Annalise stood remarkably still, her voice calm enough that it startled even me. “Don’t do this, Aurelia. There’s still time to walk away from all o

155. Risked Her Life

Annalise’s POVAt The City’s First HospitalI sat in one of the stiff plastic chairs lining the hallway outside the emergency room, still too dazed to fully process everything that had happened only an hour ago. The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed faintly, harsh enough to make my eyes ache, and somewhere down the corridor a cart rattled past carrying supplies I didn’t want to think too hard about.“Damn it. Damn it. Grandpa’s actually going to kill me for this.” Xander kept muttering the same words on repeat, pacing back and forth across the narrow hallway with both hands buried deep in his hair, like he could physically wring the guilt out of himself if he just kept moving.Andrew sat quietly beside me, his shirt still stiff with dried blood. Cassandra’s blood. I found myself unable to look at it directly for more than a second at a time, the sight of it dragging me straight back to the exact moment she’d hit the ground in his arms.“Are you alright?” he asked, his voice was low,

156. Trust

Cassandra was wheeled out of the emergency room not long after the doctor’s announcement.She looked impossibly small against the white sheets, her skin drained of color to the point where she almost blended into the pillow beneath her head. An oxygen mask covered half her face, fogging faintly with each shallow breath, and the IV line taped to her arm swayed slightly with the motion of the stretcher’s wheels against the tile. Whatever composure she’d carried through every performance since arriving at this family, every carefully crafted smile and manufactured tear, had been stripped away completely, leaving behind something fragile enough that it hurt to look at directly.I felt something twist deep in my chest, indescribable and unwelcome, my eyes tracking the stretcher the entire way down the hallway until the elevator doors slid shut around it.After everything, after the warehouse, after the lies dressed up as sisterly devotion, she’d done this. For me.I didn’t know what to do

157. Pregnant?

Three days later, after work, I drove straight to the hospital and made my way up to the VIP ward.Mom was already there, as she had been every single day since the surgery, and Cassandra’s face lit up the moment I stepped through the door.“Big sis!” She pushed herself up slightly against the pillows. “I missed you all day. I honestly thought you might not show up today, with how busy you’ve been lately.”“I wouldn’t skip visiting you,” I said, setting the bag of fruit down on the side table.Mom took the bag from me and carried it toward the small fridge tucked in the corner of the room. “You’re not too tired from work, are you, sweetheart?”“I’m fine,” I told her.It wasn’t entirely true. Since winning the crown, the Global Fashion Design Forum had handed me a prize substantial enough to build an entire empire from scratch if I wanted to, and I fully intended to. I just wanted to hand Sterling Empire back to Xander cleanly first, which meant drowning myself in paperwork and back-to

158. No way!

I stopped him quickly, both palms pressed flat against his chest before he could pull me any closer.He drew back slightly, brows knitting together. “What’s wrong?”I shook my head. Honestly, I didn’t have an answer for him. I just wasn’t in the mood tonight, though I couldn’t have explained why even if he’d asked me directly.I shifted away from him instead, putting a small but deliberate gap between us, my mind drifting straight back to the test strips sitting untouched in my bag. I couldn’t quite understand why I’d let Cassandra’s offhand comment get under my skin enough to actually buy them.There was no possible way I could be pregnant. I hadn’t missed a single pill, not once, not even during the chaos of the past few weeks.We arrived at Sweetelle shortly after, and the staff ushered us straight into our reserved private booth, tucked away behind a curtain of soft draped fabric.“We just added a brand new flavor to the menu this week,” one of the servers said brightly, setting d

159. Confirmed!

The Next DayAfter sending the remaining pills off to the pharmaceutical company for testing, I drove straight to the hospital.The moment I stepped through the entrance, a thought stopped me cold halfway across the lobby.The strip test could have been misleading. Faulty batches happened, false positives happened, and I’d spent half the night convincing myself of exactly that. But what if I actually confirmed it properly instead of circling the same worry all over again? The idea terrified me, if I was honest with myself, but it also promised something close to relief after a night that had cost me nearly all my sleep.So instead of heading up to the VIP ward, I made my way to the Gynecology Department first.A receptionist looked up as I approached the front desk. “Good morning, how can I help you today?”“I’d like to see a doctor, please. Whoever’s available.”She checked something on her screen, tapping through a few windows. “Do you have an appointment scheduled with us?”“No, I’

160. The Pills

I froze at the sound of an unfamiliar voice calling my name, and when I turned, I wouldn’t have placed the face right away if my eyes hadn’t caught the small, unmistakable curve of her pregnancy bump first.Even then, her name refused to surface in my memory.She stopped in front of me, one hand resting protectively over her stomach. “You don’t recognize me, do you?” A faint, tired smile crossed her face. “Or should I just call myself your sister-in-law instead?”Of course I recognized her once she said that. How could I forget the face of one of the two girls Xander had supposedly gotten pregnant, back when that entire scandal had almost blown up across every gossip channel in the city.I forced a smile onto my face. “Angie, right? How have you been?”Her expression crumpled slightly, the smile slipping. “Honestly, not great. This is my third checkup, and I’m here alone again, just like the last two times. I always hear about couples showing up together for these appointments. I have

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