Lahat ng Kabanata ng TOO LATE TO WANT ME BACK : Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 10

AliceSix days left of being Catherine Morgan, and I lay awake in the dark counting them anyway, one by one. I turned each day over in my head like if I thought about it long enough, time might slow down a little.Vaylen didn’t come home that night. I moved through the penthouse the same way I’d moved through this marriage, ensuring the rooms stayed spotless while the hours passed without sound. Nothing changed, but somehow that had stopped feeling strange a long time ago.The next morning, I counted again while standing by the bedroom window. Five days left. The city stretched below me, loud and moving and alive in a way this place never was.It was my birthday, a thought that came and went almost immediately with no excitement and no ache either, remaining just a fact.By noon, I stood at the kitchen counter stirring powder into a glass of water, watching it disappear slowly beneath the spoon. Prenatal vitamins.“Once a day,” the doctor had said two days ago, a responsibility sittin

AliceFor a full second, Monica’s name on the screen didn’t make sense.I grabbed the phone off the nightstand and stared at it, still half asleep, trying to understand why she would be calling me this early. Then the call ended, and morning light stretched across the bed in pale stripes while my ankle throbbed the second I moved it.The phone rang again, so I answered this time.“Catherine.” Monica didn’t bother with hello, her voice coming sharp and furious straight away. “Where the hell are you? We’ve been knocking.”I pushed myself upright slowly, my body still heavy from last night, when a loud knock hit the door downstairs before I could even stand fully. Another one followed, harder and more impatient.I limped down the stairs and opened the door, but Monica slapped me before I properly saw her face. My head turned with the force of it as heat spread slowly across my cheek.“You shameless woman.” She pushed past me immediately. “Dancing with my son in front of everyone like some

ALICEWest Laurentis appeared below as the clouds broke apart. Glass towers. Bridges lined with light. Entire blocks burning gold against the evening sky. I had forgotten how much of it there was. The wheels hit the runway faster than I expected. Around me, people reached for bags immediately. I stayed still a little longer — looking at the city through the oval window until it stopped feeling like something I had left and started feeling like something I had come back to. Then I stood, and picked up my bag, and walked off the plane. I stopped inside the doors for a moment. My eyes caught his shape before he saw me. Maximilian stood beside the car with his arms crossed and his eyes fixed on the terminal doors, wearing the expression of someone who had been standing in exactly that spot — mentally, if not physically — for three years. He didn't move toward me immediately. His eyes were fixed on me. Then he crossed the distance between us and his arms came around me, lifting me slig

ALICE I spent most of the night inside my apartment with Arenthis Summit documents spread across the table in front of me. Investment briefings. Partnership agreements. Proposals. The glow from my laptop screen burned against my eyes after the third hour, but I kept reading anyway. I barely slept. By the time my secretary’s call came in the next morning, I was already sitting in Maximilian’s car on the way to the airport, watching the city slide past the tinted windows in silence. --- I looked out through the window as Arenthis slowly emerged beneath the clouds. And suddenly, I remembered the first time I came here. Ten years ago. Grandpa had brought me with him during one of his meetings with the Prime Minister. I still remembered standing beside him inside the government hall while world leaders and investors moved around us like people from another world. The jet touched down in Arenthis at exactly 9:52 A.M. Escorts were already waiting on the runway. Black vehicles. Se

ALICE I had spent the last twenty minutes trying to convince my body to cooperate.The sound of the orchestra drifted faintly through the walls of my room. Laughter followed it. Glasses clinking. Conversations rising and falling beneath the music downstairs.Grandpa’s birthday celebration had already started. And I was still standing here fighting the urge to sit back down.My body hadn’t felt normal since the night at the Arenthis rooftop pool three weeks ago.The dizziness came and went without warning now. The headaches lasted longer. Sometimes the pain low in my stomach faded for hours before returning sharp enough to stop my breathing halfway through a sentence.My private doctor had already warned me severally. Rest. Less stress. No public exhaustion. As if my life would suddenly allow any of those things.I should have stepped back from Laurent Empire temporarily. Any reasonable person would have. But it had only been two months since I became acting president.Two months. Too