All Chapters of Too Late To Love Me : Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

"Sit down, Dante."He sat. On the bench. Not on the far end. Not in the middle. In the place she had left for him, close enough that the steam from their two cups mixed in the cold.She had broken her own rule. She didn't seem to care.Mira didn't look at him. She looked straight ahead at the school gate, still locked and dark."I didn't sleep," she said. "I sat here from four o'clock. I knew you'd come straight from the airport. I knew you'd forget the coffee.""How?""Because you only forget things when you're scared." She turned the cup in her hands. "Tell me."He took the folded paper out of his jacket. He didn't hand it to her. He held it on his knee."It's mine," he said.Mira didn't move. Her face didn't change. Only her fingers tightened on the paper cup until the lid popped up on one side and a little coffee ran over her knuckles.She didn't wipe it off."Ninety-nine point nine percent," Dante said. "Dr. Chen ran it in her own lab. She says she's never had one come back wrong

"He didn't come."Adèle said it at the window of the practice kitchen at 6:15 on Wednesday morning. She said it the way you'd say it was raining. Mira, at the marble counter, kept her eyes on the chocolate she was tempering."I know.""He's come every single morning he's been in Paris. Even the morning after the rain.""I know, Adèle.""Did he fly back to her? For the baby?"Mira's spatula stopped."Maybe," she said.Adèle came away from the window and stood beside her. She didn't say anything for a moment."Mira. Castel walked you home last night.""I know.""Something happened."Mira didn't answer. She scraped the side of the bowl."Beaumont." Julien's voice came through the door, flat and businesslike. "Station six. Sugar cage. Twenty minutes.""Julien...""Not now." He was already walking away. "Twenty minutes.""Something happened," Adèle said again, softer. "I can see it on your face. And he's not looking at you this morning. Castel. He hasn't looked at you once since he came in

"Forty-two thousand dollars. In a paper bag."Kate Marsh repeated the words. She sat across from Dante in a back booth of a diner on Fourth Street, the kind with cracked red seats and coffee that tasted like it had been on the burner since morning. She had a notebook open and a pen in her hand. She hadn't written anything yet."Theo got it from the salesman," Dante said. "The man remembers because nobody had ever paid him in cash before. He thought it was a joke.""And this Kyle Brandt ran your paternity test.""He ran the samples. Dr. Chen signed the report. She's honest. I'd bet my life on it. She never touched the tubes."Kate tapped her pen against the notebook."Why are you telling me this, Mr. Russo? A month ago you walked into my newsroom and told me you'd buy my paper if I printed one word about your family.""About my wife's family." Dante wrapped his hands around his cup. "Not about mine. My family, you can print whatever you like. If you can prove it."Kate studied him."Yo

"Papa. Something's wrong. I need you to tell me everything." Mira stood in the locked practice kitchen with her back against the door and the phone pressed to her ear. Julien had cleared the corridor. Adèle was standing guard outside. It was nine in the morning in Paris. Three in Brookhaven. Her father answered on the fifth ring, his voice thick with sleep. Then he heard hers, and he was awake. "What happened?" "Celine was here. At my school. In front of everyone." Mira closed her eyes. "She called me heiress. She said she knows about Grandma's shares. She said everyone in Brookhaven will know by Christmas." Her father didn't answer. "Papa?" "I was going to call you this morning." Her father's voice had changed. Flat. Heavy. "I was waiting for it to be a decent hour." "Call me about what?" "Last night, at midnight our time, a fund bought twelve percent of Sucre Doré." Mira's hand tightened on the phone. "That's not possible. Grandma's trust holds the majority. Nobody can bu

"She's thinner. Laurent, look at her. She's thinner than when she left." Anne Beaumont held Mira at arm's length in the arrivals hall at Brookhaven airport on the twenty-second of December, turning her left and right like a cake she was checking for cracks. "Mama. I'm fine." "You're not fine. You're a stick." Anne pulled her into a hug that smelled of flour and lavender soap. "I'm making osso buco tonight. You're eating two plates." Laurent stood behind his wife with Mira's suitcase already in his hand. He just put his free arm around both of them and held on, and Mira felt his chin come down on the top of her head the way it had when she was small. Frank was waiting outside with the car. He opened the back door and said, "Welcome home, Miss Mira," and his old eyes were wet. They didn't talk about it until after dinner. The plates were cleared. The kitchen was warm, the windows fogged. Anne put a pot of coffee on the table and three cups, and then she sat down, and Laurent sat d