Too Late To Love Me I Already Left With His Twins (Lydia and Dave) novel Chapter 243

I reached the door.

Men Dave spoke.

“Wow.”

I turned.

“You didn’t strike me as a man with so much work to do.”

His gaze dropped toward the basket.

“Especially considering you came all the way here to deliver homemade pickles.”

There it was.

The jab.

I could have returned it.

There were several things I could have said.

Instead, I smiled.

“Have a good evening.”

I walked out.

The moment the door closed behind me, my smile disappeared.

I stood beside my car for a few seconds, staring at the house.

At her house.

At the place where her children lived, where she laughed with them, where Dave was apparently comfortable enough to stand in her kitchen and question who I was.

My jaw tightened,

Why did that bother me?

I had no claim on Lydia.

None.

She wasn’t mine.

She had never been mine.

And yet the image of Dave standing in her kitchen wouldn’t leave my head.

Neither would the way he had introduced himself.

Lydia’s ex-husband.

The title shouldn’t have bothered me.

But it did.

Because somewhere between the conference room, the phone calls, the dinners, the children, the ridiculous

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pickles and that stupid side hug, something had changed.

started looking forward to seeing her.

I’d started noticing things I had no business noticing.

The way she laughed.

The way she looked at her children.

The way she challenged me.

The way she looked away whenever our-eyes lingered too long.

And now, seeing another man standing in her home had made something ugly and undeniable crawl through my

chest.

Jealousy.

I closed my eyes and exhaled slowly.

Then the realization came.

Not gently.

Not gradually.

It hit me with the kind of clarity that made denial impossible.

I was jealous because I wanted her.

Not as a client.

Not as a friend.

Not as the woman who happened to be the mother of two incredible children.

I wanted Lydia.

And worse

I was in love with her.

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Stayed

Theo’s POV

I dropped my keys onto my desk and loosened the collar of my shirt, but instead of sitting down to work, I stood there staring at the city through the glass windows of my office. The lights below blurred into a thousand tiny points, cars moving between buildings, people rushing toward homes and dinners and lives that had absolutely nothing to do with mine.

My mind, unfortunately, had decided to stay at Lydia’s house.

More specifically, it had decided to stay on the moment Dave had asked who I was.

I could still hear her voice.

I walked back to my desk and opened my laptop.

The screen illuminated the room.

I stared at it.

Then opened my email.

Scrolled through a few messages.

Closed it.

Opened a financial report.

Read exactly two lines.

Closed that too.

I leaned back in my chair.

“This is ridiculous.”

My assistant would have agreed.

I was a man who could negotiate a multimillion-dollar acquisition without blinking. I could sit across from a boardroom full of executives and dismantle an argument in under ten minutes. I had spent years learning how to read people, anticipate problems, control conversations, and make decisions quickly.

Yet one woman had somehow reduced me to sitting in my office at two at afternoon wondering how the hell one was supposed to ask a woman out.

I rubbed my jaw.

Fine.

I was in love with her.

There.

I had finally admitted it.

Not I like spending time with her.

Not I enjoy her company.

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Not she’s attractive.

Not even I’m protective of her.

Love.

The word sat in my mind with an uncomfortable atuount of weight.

I loved Lydia.

I loved the way she laughed when she was genuinely amused, throwing her head back slightly as though she couldn’t contain it. I loved how fiercely she protected her children. I loved that she could be sitting in the middle of chaos and somehow become the calmest person in the room when her children needed her. I loved the way she challenged me without ever seeming impressed by my money, my position, or my name.

And apparently, I was jealous.

Painfully jealous. 1

Because watching Dave stand in her kitchen, watching the ease with which he moved around her home, watching him sit with her children like he still belonged there had made something ugly twist inside my chest.

I didn’t like it.

Not even a little.

But pretending it wasn’t there wouldn’t make it disappear.

If I wanted Lydia, I had to do something about it.

I couldn’t keep hiding behind business meetings, Anna’s friendship, accidental dinners, and conveniently timed deliveries of homemade pickles.

I needed a plan.

I opened a new document.

At the top, I typed:

Operation: Lydia.

I stared at it.

Deleted it.

Typed:

How to Pursue Lydia Without Making an Absolute Fool of Myself.

I stared at that one.

“Much better.”

Then I started typing.

Step One: Find out what she likes.

I paused.

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I knew what she liked.

at least I thought I did.

She liked books. Good food. Quiet moments when she could escape the noise of work and motherhood. She loved her children with an intensity that was almost frightening. She liked thoughtful things more than flashy ones. She appreciated effort, but she hated anything that felt forced.

I added another line.

Step Two: Do not overwhelm her.

Then another.

Step Three: Do not behave like a client.

I frowned.

That one needed to be in bold.

Because Lydia had spent months insisting on boundaries with me.

She was my PR consultant.

I was her client.

And if I approached this carelessly, I could destroy whatever trust existed between us.

I needed to make her understand that I wasn’t pursuing her because she was convenient, because we had trauma- bonded over difficult circumstances, or because she happened to be the woman I spent the most time around lately.

I wanted her.

Her.

Not the woman who worked for me.

Not the woman who was friends with my sister.

Lydia.

I stared at the screen for another few seconds.

Then I reached for my phone.

There was only one person I could call.

I pressed her name.

She answered on the fourth ring.

“What?”

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I blinked.

“Hello to you too.”

“It’s almost ten o’clock.”