Her Regret Came Too Late Chapter 08

Her Regret Came Too Late Chapter 08

I didn’t answer right away. I looked at the children. Some of them were crying. Some were frozen in place, too scared to move.

My heart pounded, but my voice stayed calm.

“Dillan, you know what you did.” My voice wasn’t loud, but every word came out clear and hard. “You stole my designs. You and Victoria lied to me for three years. You ended up like this not because of me. Because of yourself.”

“Liar!” He grabbed a chair from the corner-a heavy wooden chair that one of the parents had donated. He lifted it over his head and swung it at the display shelf on the wall.

The glass shattered. It exploded outward in a million glittering pieces. The wooden models on the shelf- Callie’s crooked bridge, the lighthouse I had spent weeks on-flew across the room and smashed against the floor. Pieces broke off. Wheels rolled under cabinets.

Callie started crying. Her face buried against my leg, her whole body shaking. Her tears soaked through my pants, warm and wet.

The other children were crying too.

“See what you made me do?” Dillan screamed. He was breathing hard, his chest heaving. His eyes were wild, unfocused. “This is your fault! Everything is your fault!”

I felt my body go tight, but I couldn’t afford to lose control. The children were watching. They were already

terrified.

“That’s enough!” I shouted, loud enough to cut through his ranting. “Dillan, stop this now. I’m calling the police.”

“The police?” He laughed again. “You think I care? You think I have anything left to lose? Go ahead, Lambert. Call them. But you can’t hide from me forever. I will find you again. And again.”

He took another step toward me. His hands were shaking. “I will make sure you never have a moment of peace for the rest of your miserable life.”

Behind me, the door to the back room stood open. I could push the children inside and lock the door. But Dillan was between me and that door now. We were trapped.

Then I heard footsteps running toward the workshop. Fast. Urgent.

Ariel appeared in the doorway.

She must have heard the noise from her flower shop next door. Her face went pale when she saw the mess- the overturned workbench, the shattered glass, the splintered wood, the crying children.

But she didn’t scream.

She pulled out her phone and held it to her ear. Her voice was steady-so steady it surprised me.

“Hello? I need to report a crime. Someone is destroying my shop and threatening children. The address is…”

Dillan’s head snapped toward her. His eyes narrowed. The wild look on his face twisted into something else -something uglier. Something almost mocking.

He looked Ariel up and down. Slowly. Deliberately.

Then he opened his mouth, his voice dripping with sarcasm, “Lambert, I thought you were so heartbroken over Victoria. But here you are, already involved with some other woman.” He scoffed. “I wonder what Victoria would think if she knew how comfortable you’ve made yourself without her.”

Dillan let out a cold laugh. His eyes were full of mockery.

He hissed, “How did I find you? I know your design style too well, Lambert. That Rebirth project-even with a fake name, I recognized it in one second.”

I kept my voice calm. “And you still dared to come here?”

His face turned purple. His jaw clenched so hard I could see the muscles jumping under his skin.

“You bastard,” he spat through his teeth.

He took a step toward me. Then another. His eyes burned with so much hatred it was almost impressive. Three years of lying to my face, stealing my work, smiling at me across the dinner table-and now he looked at me like I was the villain.

“You think winning some stupid award fixes everything?” His voice rose. “You think you can just hide in this little town and pretend to be someone else? Dream on, Lambert.”

I kept my voice low. It was a warning for him. “Dillan, get out. There are children here.”

“Get out?” He laughed again-that ugly, broken sound. Then he stepped deeper into the workshop. His eyes swept across the room, taking in the workbenches, the models, the children. The kids were staring at him with wide, frightened eyes.

I saw it coming before he moved.

Dillan grabbed the edge of a workbench and flipped it over.

The crash was deafening. Wooden models flew through the air. Carving knives scattered across the floor. Glue bottles rolled everywhere. Wood chips and broken pieces of half-finished castles scattered like debris after an explosion.

The children screamed.

Callie ran to me and hid behind my legs. Her small hands gripped my shirt so hard her knuckles went white. Her face was pale. I could feel her little body shaking.

“Mr. Clark,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “I’m scared.”

“Don’t you cry, little one,” Dillan sneered at her. “Your precious teacher isn’t who you think he is.”

I put my hand on Callie’s head, trying to shield her from his madness. My other hand balled into a fist at my

side.

“You ruined me!” Dillan pointed at my face, screaming now. Spit flew from his mouth. I felt it hit my cheek, but I didn’t move. “You faked your death and everyone thinks I drove you to suicide! Eleanor left me! The Clarks threw me out! Even Victoria won’t see me anymore!”

His voice cracked on her name. Victoria. Even now, even after everything, saying her name still hurt him. I could see it in the way his face twisted.

He demaned, “Are you happy, Lambert? Is this what

you

wanted?”

She stared at me. Her lips parted.

“No,” she whispered. “No, I can’t do that. I can’t just—”

“You have to.” My voice was final. There was no anger in it. No sadness. Just a quiet, unshakable certainty. ” This is the only way you can help me now. By leaving me alone.”

She knelt there on the sidewalk, blood still dripping from her forehead, tears mixing with the red. The bodyguards had dragged Dillan to their car. The police sirens were getting closer.

“I’m sorry,” she said. Her voice was barely audible. “I’m so sorry, Lambert.”

I didn’t answer.

She got to her feet. Her body swayed. The assistant ran over to help her, but Victoria shook her off.

“I love you,” she said. “I know you don’t believe me. But I do. I always did. I was just too stupid to see it.”

I turned away as I walked down the street with my bag of groceries. I didn’t look back.

I didn’t stop until I reached my apartment door.

Then I leaned against it, closed my eyes, and felt a single tear slide down my cheek.

I didn’t answer her.

Because I didn’t love her anymore.

That night, Dillan was arrested for attempted murder.

And then, while the police were digging into his background, they found more.

The business investigation agency had been building a case against him for months. Design plagiarism. Fraud. Theft of intellectual property.

The evidence was overwhelming.

The Clark family issued a public statement. It was cold and formal and left no room for interpretation. They were cutting all ties with Dillan. Every share, every asset, every connection-gone. He was no longer their adopted son.

I read the statement on my phone while drinking coffee at my workbench. The sun was bright outside. The children hadn’t arrived yet.

I felt nothing.

Eleanor-Dillan’s ex-wife-posted a long message on social media. She wrote about how she had been deceived by Dillan. How she had trusted him and he had betrayed her. How she was moving on and starting

a new life.

Every sentence was carefully crafted to make her look like the victim. There was no mention of the fact that she had known about Dillan’s schemes. No mention of the fact that she had benefited from his stolen

designs.

I read her post and thought about how easy it was for some people to wash their hands of the past. To pretend they had nothing to do with the mess they helped create.

Then I put my phone away and went back to work.

Victoria did not go to the police station to bail Dillan out.

In fact, after the night of the motorcycle attack, she disappeared from public view entirely.

At first, the news outlets speculated. They said she was recovering from her injuries. They said she was in hiding. They said she had gone back to Dragon’s Peak.

Then, one month later, the news broke.

“Victoria Clark resigns as CEO of Brown Group, donates entire fortune to charity, and leaves the country.”

There was a photograph attached. It was grainy, taken from a distance at the airport. Victoria stood at the check-in counter with one suitcase. A single bag. No entourage. No assistant. No bodyguards.

She was wearing an old gray coat. I recognized it.

I had bought her that coat one month after our wedding. I had seen it in a store window and thought it would look good on her. So I bought it.

She almost never wore it. I had assumed she didn’t like it.

But there she was, at the airport, leaving the country forever, wearing that old gray coat.