All Chapters of You Left Me At The Altar, Now You Beg Me: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

ARIA“Call him.” I thrust my phone toward the receptionist. “Tell him I’m not leaving this lobby in this wedding dress.”I go for the door again. Two guards step in front of me before I can reach it.“Damian!” I scream..Employees have stopped pretending to work. Some look away out of pity. One girl by the elevators is filming me on her phone, not even hiding it.Two hours ago these people were planning to call me Mrs. Sinclair. Now I’ll be content for their group chat.“Let me go!” I struggle with the guards. “Get your hands off me.”I can feel the tears coming. I struggle to hold them back. Not now. Not right here.A man in a suit comes jogging out of the elevator bank, tie loose, already talking before he reaches me.“Miss Cole,” he says, “I’m Head of Communications, if we could just adjust this somewhere more—”“Take me to Damian. Right now. Or shut this place down.”He doesn’t like it. But three minutes later, I am standing in front of Damian’s office door for the first time as s

ARIAI let the phone ring twice before I answer, my thumb hovering over the screen, heart beating fast.“Aria,” Victoria’s voice, warm and careful. “How’s your father and the loans?”My whole body goes cold. “Are you calling to spite me, Victoria?”She laughs, soft and unhurried. “You should be more careful, Aria.” A pause. “Does Damian know you’re carrying his child?”The room tilts. I can’t breathe. The phone nearly slips from my hand.“What child?” My voice comes out slowly.“Don’t try to play games with me, Aria. You really thought no one noticed the hospital visit and the test?” She pauses again, letting those words settle deep into the phone and my heart.I just want to end the call and tell her never to dial my line again. But my fingers refuse to work, and my ear yearns to hear what will hurt my heart more.“Damian doesn’t know,” she says, “and he must never know.”I am already pacing the room now. “Why?”“He already believes you are the one who betrayed him and the company.

ARIA“You filed it.” I’m still standing, phone pressed tightly to my ear. “Before I even said yes?”A Pause.“Well, Aria… I filed it,” Evelyn says slowly. “You can still say no.”“Of course.”“But think about your career. How about that too?”That line gets me. Because I have always been waiting for opportunities like this to show the world that the rejected stone at the altar can also become the cornerstone.“This is not even about Sinclair being involved,” Evelyn continues. “You’re currently the most sought lawyer in the state. So, think about it, Aria.”I sit down at the table; my hands aren’t steady.“Forty-eight hours.”“Forty-eight hours, Aria.”I don’t know if I am sure about this.“I have a daughter, Evelyn. I have a father in a care facility three hundred miles away I haven’t seen in person in six years. I just can’t…”“You can. You are a strong woman. You have done things harder than this.”I don’t answer that, because as much as I hate to admit it, she is right.I inhale d

 ARIA By the time I arrive at the mediation room, it is already full. Sinclair’s legal team on one side, three lawyers. Heavy folders on the table. “Hello everyone,” I greet with a smile. “I’m sorry for coming late. I was actually in a meeting with the company’s CEO.” A few minutes later, Damian walks in, followed by the mediator, and the session begins properly. “Eleven months before the child fell three stories,” I say, sliding the inspection report across the table, “your company’s contracted inspector flagged the east balcony railing as a structural risk. In writing.” The counsel doesn’t flinch. “That inspection was disputed internally. The defect wasn’t classified as an immediate hazard.” “Disputed by whom?” &

 ARIA I wait till day break before I dial Sandra Rejinders, the lady at the stairs. I thought I had moved on from six years ago, but my recent meeting with Damian reopened the wounds I thought had healed. And now, I would not stop until I found out what exactly it was. The number rings out twice before a response. “Miss Cole.” She doesn’t sound surprised. “Good morning.” “Good morning, Sandra. I hope you’re good this morning.” I wait for her response before I proceed. “I am calling because you mentioned something about access logs from six years ago.” Silence on the line. Long enough that I check to see if the caller dropped. “Hello? Hello o?” I look into the phone. “Someone followed me the other day. We found one Corbin Hale.”