All Chapters of Too Late To Love Me : Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

"Three million, eight hundred sixty thousand, four hundred and twelve dollars."Aldo Ferri read the number out loud at the head of the Russo Group boardroom on Monday morning. The directors around the long table nodded. Some of them smiled."Sucre Doré's cash on hand," Ferri said. "To the dollar. Our source is very good. They are in serious trouble. Three banks have turned them down. So the chairman proposes that we cut our offer by forty percent and give them seven days to accept."At the end of the table, Vittorio Russo folded his hands and said nothing. He didn't need to.Dante looked at the number on the page in front of him."Where did it come from?" he said.The room went quiet."We've been over this, Dante," his father said pleasantly."Are you accusing the chairman of something?" asked Grassi, the oldest director, peering over his glasses."I'm asking where a number came from," Dante said. "That used to be allowed in this room.""No. We haven't. Last month you told me you didn

"He warned me."Laurent's voice on the phone was strange. Mira had never heard her father sound unsure."Who did?""Dante." A pause. "He called the shop on Monday, before our letter went out. He told me his board had voted to cut the offer. He said he thought the report was fake. He said he thought somebody wanted it stolen."Mira sat down on the edge of her grandmother's bed. Her apron was still tied around her waist. Flour dusted the dark blanket where her hands had been."He didn't know it was us?""No. He said he didn't know why he was calling me. He said he thought our family had something to do with it, and whoever owned that company, he didn't want them hurt by something his family did." Laurent cleared his throat. "He said he was trying to listen. Even to the things nobody was saying."Mira pressed her hand flat against her chest."And then," her father said, "he stood up in their boardroom and asked his own father, in front of every director, who inside the Russo Group we wer

"Sir? Mr. Russo? The door is closing." The gate agent had her hand on the jet bridge door. Dante stood with the phone pressed to his ear and Celine's breathing on the other end. "Five seconds," Celine whispered. Dante took the phone from his ear and hung up. He turned and walked away from the gate. "Sir!" the agent called after him. "Sir, the flight!" He didn't stop. He was running by the time he passed security, his coat flying open, the small ring box knocking against his hip with every step. His phone rang. Celine. He let it ring. It rang again. He answered it while he ran. "You hung up on me," she said. She was almost laughing. "So you've decided. Kate's coming in now..." "Stay where you are," Dante said. "I'm coming to you." At the Brookhaven Herald, a security guard tried to stop him at the desk. Dante walked past him. "Sir, you need a pass..." "Third floor," Dante said. "Kate Marsh. Tell her the Russo Group's CEO is on his way up. She'll want to see me." The guard p

"Initial here. And here. Then I can file on Monday morning, and it's done."Martin Kessler, Dante's lawyer, laid the divorce papers open on the kitchen table in the villa. He was a thin man with a neat gray beard who had been the Russo family lawyer for twenty years. He tapped the second page with his pen. Mira's straight blue line through the five million dollars. Her small initials beside it."I don't understand," Dante said. "She signed them. I signed them. Why can't you just file?""Because she changed them." Kessler sat back. "She crossed out the settlement. That's a change to the agreement. She initialed her change. You didn't. Until you initial it too, the court will treat this as an agreement you never accepted. No judge in Brookhaven will finalize it."Dante looked at the blue line.She had crossed out his money. And by doing it, she had kept them married."She doesn't know that," he said."I'd imagine not. Most people don't." Kessler held out the pen. "Mr. Russo, the Beaumon

"Tell me to go."Dante stood up from the bench. He didn't come any closer. He stayed where he was under the streetlamp, a coffee in each hand, steam rising from both cups into the cold.Mira stopped on the other side of the street.He looked terrible. Gray stubble on a jaw she had never once seen unshaved. Red eyes. His coat buttoned wrong."You flew all night to hear me say it?" she said."I flew all night so you could say it to my face." His voice was rough. "If you say it, I'll go. I'll get in a taxi, and you'll never have to see me again unless you want to. I promise.""You've promised me things before.""I know."A delivery van rumbled past between them. When it was gone, neither of them had moved."I read your messages," she said."I know. Rosa saw." The corner of his mouth moved. "She cried.""Was it true? All of it?""All of it." He took one step toward the curb and stopped. "Celine was at the Herald. She said she'd tell the reporter about the baby, about us, about your family