Too Late To Love Me I Already Left With His Twins (Lydia and Dave) novel Chapter 23

Lydia

Dave POV

By ten-thirty that night, I had rejected two valuation models, sent back three revised drafts, and still felt like something about the merger was off. 1

I hate when instinct moves faster than proof.

It makes me impatient.

On paper, the acquisition made sense.

It would expand Ashton Holdings into a market we had been circling for months. The board wanted movement. Shareholders wanted speed. The media would call it aggressive, strategic, timely.

On paper, it was clean. 1

But paper has never been the thing I trust most.

I stood by the windows in my study, jacket thrown over a chair, one hand in my pocket and the other around a glass of water I had forgotten to drink.

Cyn was still talking.

Something about optics.

Investor reassurance. 1

Positioning.

I was listening.

Technically.

But my mind kept circling back.

To the kitchen.

To Lydia.

To the way she had stood there barefoot with a mug in one hand and certainty in her voice like she had every right to insert herself into a conversation I hadn’t invited her into.

You’re not buying a company. You’re inheriting distrust.

I hated how cleanly the sentence had lodged itself in my head.

Not because it was wrong.

Because it wasn’t.

And because I had known that the second she said it.

Which was exactly why I had shut it down.

I know myself well enough to admit the truth in private, if nowhere else.

I dismissed her too quickly.

1/4

+15 Bonus

Not because the point lacked merit.

Because I hadn’t expected merit from her at all.

And that realization annoyed me more than the merger itself.

Across from me, Cyn crossed one leg over the other.

“The issue is trust, Dave,” she said. “Their internal structure is fractured. You can’t merge with instability and expect clean integration.”

I looked at her.

Then away.

The words were right.

But tonight they sounded… familiar.

That was new.

Unwelcome.

And irritating.

I set the glass down on the desk and rubbed a hand over my jaw.

Cyn noticed immediately.

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