All Chapters of Too Late To Love Me : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

"I believed her."Dante's voice was so low Mira almost didn't hear it over the gate announcements."Thursday night, I stood in her living room and believed her," he said. "And then I drove to your parents' house and shouted at your window.""I know. I was behind it."He looked at her. His eyes were red."Group four, now boarding," said the voice overhead.Mira took her phone back out of his hand. Their fingers touched. She pulled away first."Don't get on this plane," he said. "Stay. Let me fix this.""Fix what?" She kept her voice even. Her nails dug into the strap of her bag. "The messages? Or the two years?""Both. All of it. I'll talk to her. I'll...""You'll talk to her." Mira laughed, and it came out sharp. "That's where you go when you need to talk, isn't it? Her door."He flinched. His hand went to the bruise on his jaw, as if she had hit him there too."Do you know what you never asked me, Dante?" She turned in her seat to face him. "In two years? You never asked why I stoppe

"Two years, Mira. I kept your apron."Chef Moreau stood in the doorway of his office at half past six in the morning, holding out a folded white apron with her name stitched on the pocket. He was older than she remembered, his beard gone completely white. But his eyes still crinkled at the corners before he smiled, the way they had when she was sixteen and burned her first croissants in his summer class.Mira took the apron with both hands."Chef, I don't know how to thank you.""Don't thank me. Work." He patted her cheek once. "Class begins at seven. Station six. And Mira?" His mouth twitched under the beard. "Chef Castel teaches the first-years now. Try not to cry in front of him. He takes it as a compliment."Nineteen students stood at their steel stations, whispering. They stopped when she walked in."That's her," someone said. "The one who turned them down."At seven exactly, a man walked in, and every back straightened. About thirty. Sleeves rolled up. A white burn scar from his

"Sir, it's done."Sam stood in the office doorway at a quarter past nine that night, his laptop hugged to his chest. Down the hall, a cleaner's vacuum droned.Dante was on his feet before Sam finished the sentence. "All of it?""Everything up to the night before it was deleted. It was faster than I thought." Sam set the laptop on the desk and turned it around. "I put them back in order. Oldest at the top. It's a lot, sir."Dante looked at the screen. At the long column of gray and blue. His throat had gone dry."Did you read them?""No, sir." Sam's ears went red. "I only checked that they open.""Thank you, Sam. Go home."Sam stopped at the door. "Mr. Russo? The last few are voice notes. I didn't play them.""Go home, Sam.""Yes, sir. Good night, sir." The door clicked shut.His father had called three times since eight. The phone lay face down beside the teacup, buzzing against the wood every few minutes. Dante didn't touch it.He started at the top.[Are you coming up? I'll leave th

"Papa, Celine works in the strategy office."Mira stood in the narrow corridor behind the pastry kitchen, her back against the cold tiles, the phone pressed to her ear. It was Thursday. Her first week was almost over, and her fingertips were covered in tiny sugar burns.On the other end of the line, her father was quiet for so long she checked the screen."Papa?""How do you know that?""Theo. Dante called the manager himself." She kept her voice low. Two students walked past with trays of choux. "She started Monday.""She'll be gone by noon." Laurent's voice had gone hard. She had only heard it like that once, when she was fifteen and a supplier tried to cheat him on butter. "I'll call Margaret in HR myself.""No.""Mira...""Don't fire her." Mira closed her eyes. "If she's inside our building because of Dante, I want to know why. Lock every door she shouldn't open. Every file. And let her think nobody's watching."Silence.Then her father laughed, low and surprised. "You sound exact

"Hart. The regional sales forecast. Where is it?"Celine looked up from her screen. Ben Pryce, head of the strategy office, stood over her desk with his reading glasses pushed up on his forehead."On your desk since eight, Mr. Pryce. The blue folder."He grunted, which from him meant thank you. At his door he turned back."And Hart? Stop coming in at seven. You make the rest of us look lazy.""I like the quiet, Mr. Pryce.""Nobody likes the quiet." He pushed his glasses down onto his nose. "Something's wrong with people who do."He went back into his glass office.Third week. Every door that mattered was still locked. On her first day she could open almost everything on the shared drive. By her second, half of it said Access denied.Someone had changed the locks after she walked in. Celine didn't believe in accidents.On Wednesday, a big gray-haired man in a baker's jacket came up in the private elevator and walked straight into Pryce's office without knocking. He had scars on his knu