Genius Wife's Revenge: Too Late For Regret
For two years, I played the role of the "Midwestern mistake," the mousey wife Julian Ford-Sterling IV kept hidden like a shameful secret. I hid my true self behind thick glasses and ashen foundation, acting as the perfect, cowed charity case while he lived a life of marble and indifference.
The day our marriage contract ended, the headlines were already screaming about his affair with Hollywood’s sweetheart, Lana Vane. Julian didn't even grant me a final conversation; he simply sent his legal team to hand me divorce papers that gave me nothing—no alimony, no shares, just a non-disclosure agreement and a one-way ticket out of his life.
I signed the papers and walked away, but a drugged encounter in a dark club that same night led me back into his arms. We collided in the shadows, two strangers stripped of their titles, but I fled before dawn, accidentally leaving behind my vintage silver locket. By the time I reached my secret design studio the next morning, I discovered Julian had executed a hostile takeover of my entire life’s work.
To my horror, Lana Vane was already there, clutching my stolen locket and shamelessly claiming she was the woman Julian had spent the night with. Julian stood before me in his charcoal suit, looking at me with total lack of recognition. To him, I was just a "gold-digging" architect he had bought along with the furniture.
I watched them together, the man who had discarded me and the woman who had stolen my identity, realizing that Julian was obsessed with the genius of "Rose" while despising the woman who stood right in front of him. He had no idea that the wife he’d just divorced was the very person he was now desperate to control.
I straightened my spine, my violet-blue eyes cold and lethal behind my new designer frames.
"Mr. Ford-Sterling, you wanted the best designer in the city? You’ve got her. But you should know—I don't just build empires. I know exactly how to tear them down."
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Chapter 3
Vivian ran.
She didn't run like a socialite late for a brunch; she ran like an operative whose cover had been blown. She took the service stairs, ignoring the burning in her calves and the fact that she was holding her high heels in one hand. The plush carpet of the corridor gave way to cold concrete.
She burst out into the alleyway behind the club at 4:00 AM. The city was grey, suspended in that eerie quiet between the late-night revelers and the early-morning delivery trucks. Vivian leaned against the brick wall, gasping for air. She looked down at herself. The red silk dress was rumpled. There was a bruise forming on her wrist where he had gripped her.
She felt dirty. She felt exhilarated. She felt terrified.
Inside the Royal Court, on the 8th floor, the elevator doors slid open with a soft chime.
Lana Vane stepped out. She looked impeccable, even at this hour, though her eyes were sharp with predation. She had tipped the bartender fifty bucks to find out where Julian had gone.
She walked down the hallway, counting the numbers. 886... 887...
888.
The door was locked. Of course it was.
Lana didn't have a bobby pin or spy training. What she had was a lack of morals and sticky fingers. As a housekeeping cart rattled down the adjacent hall, the maid momentarily turned her back to grab fresh towels. Lana, moving with the speed of a viper, swiped the master key card from the top of the cart.
She waited for the maid to round the corner before swiping the card.
Beep. Green light.
Lana paused. A smile, slow and serpentine, curled her lips. She pushed the door open with a single, manicured finger.
The room was still dark, smelling of sex and musk. Lana's nose wrinkled, but her ambition smoothed the expression away. She pulled a small penlight from her clutch and clicked it on.
The beam swept across the room. It landed on the sofa.
Julian was asleep, sprawled out, a sheet tangled around his waist. His chest rose and fell in a deep rhythm. He looked vulnerable, a look the world never saw.
Lana stepped inside, careful not to make a sound. She was about to wake him, to stage a scene of concern, when the beam of light caught a glint on the floor.
She crouched down. Buried in the shag carpet, half-hidden by a discarded throw pillow, was a silver necklace.
Lana picked it up. It was heavy, old silver. An intricate locket. She didn't recognize the design, but she knew quality when she felt it.
She looked at the necklace. She looked at the sleeping billionaire. She looked at the empty space beside him where a woman had obviously been just minutes ago.
The math was simple. Julian was drugged (the bartender had mentioned he looked out of it). He had slept with someone. That someone had fled.
Lana Vane didn't believe in waste.
She unclasped the necklace and fastened it around her own neck. The cold metal sat against her collarbone like a claim.
She walked over to the mirror in the corner, ruffled her perfect blonde hair until it looked "bedhead chic," and smeared her lipstick just enough to suggest passion. Then, she walked over to the sofa and sat on the edge, close enough that her perfume-Chanel No. 5, generic and expensive-would drift over him.
"Julian?" she whispered, touching his shoulder.
Julian groaned. His eyes fluttered open. The headache was a dull throb now, but his memory was a shattered mirror. He remembered heat. He remembered a scent. He remembered a body that fit his perfectly.
He squinted. A blonde silhouette sat before him.
"Is it... you?" His voice was gravel.
Lana leaned down, brushing a strand of hair from his forehead. "It's me, Julian. I'm here. Last night... you were incredible."
Julian sat up, the sheet falling to his waist. He rubbed his face with both hands. He felt... satisfied. Physically, at least. But something felt off. The scent. The air smelled of Chanel now, overpowering the wild rose memory.
"I... I don't remember much," he admitted, looking at her.
Lana smiled, a soft, practiced expression she used for romantic comedies. "That's okay. You were a little out of it. But I took care of you."
Julian's eyes dropped to her neck. The silver locket glinted in the dim light.
He frowned. He had a vague, tactile memory of metal against his lips, of a chain tangling in his fingers.
"That necklace," he said.
Lana's hand flew to it, clutching it protectively. "Oh, this? You... you liked it last night."
The physical evidence overrode the glitch in his instinct. She was here. She had the necklace. She knew what happened.
Julian sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Right."
He didn't feel the spark he thought he had felt. He felt hollow. But Julian was a man of logic. If A plus B equaled C, then Lana was the woman he had just slept with.
"Gavin!" he called out, his voice returning to its usual command.
The door opened instantly. Gavin stepped in, holding a tray of coffee and aspirin. He stopped dead when he saw Lana sitting on the sofa, disheveled, next to a half-naked Julian.
"Sir?" Gavin's eyes went wide.
Lana stood up, pulling her dress straight with a mock-shy gesture. "Good morning, Gavin."
Julian stood up, unashamed of his nudity as he grabbed his trousers from the floor. "Get Miss Vane a car. And have someone bring a change of clothes for her. Something... appropriate."
"Yes, sir."
Julian walked to the bathroom. He paused at the door and looked back at Lana. She was beaming at him.
He felt a wave of nausea.
Meanwhile, in a cramped apartment in Queens, Vivian stood under the shower spray. The water was scalding hot, turning her skin pink. She scrubbed at her body with a loofah, trying to erase the phantom touch of Julian's hands.
"Stupid," she hissed at the tile wall. "Stupid, stupid, stupid."
She turned off the water and stepped out, wrapping herself in a towel. She wiped the steam from the mirror.
Her eyes were red-rimmed. Her lips were swollen.
She walked into the living room where Winnie was snoring on the couch. Vivian turned on the small TV in the corner to drown out her own thoughts.
The morning news was on. A ticker tape scrolled across the bottom of the screen.
BREAKING NEWS: STERLING GROUP ACQUIRES BOUTIQUE DESIGN FIRM S.W. STUDIOS IN HOSTILE TAKEOVER.
Vivian froze. The towel slipped from her hand.
"No," she whispered.
S.W. Studios. Her studio. Her sanctuary. The place where 'Rose' existed.
The screen cut to a clip of a spokesperson. "Mr. Ford-Sterling sees great potential in the avant-garde designs of S.W. Studios and looks forward to integrating their talent into the Sterling family."
Vivian sank onto the floor.
She had just divorced the man. She had just slept with the man. And now... she worked for the man.
Fate wasn't just cruel; it was a sadist with a sense of humor.
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7.5
"Say it."
Elara's throat tightened.
"I belong to you," she whispered. "I am your slave."
Kane Blackthorn's gaze hardened.
"And?"
Her voice broke.
"I am... your sex slave."
The Alpha stepped closer, his shadow swallowing her whole.
"You will expect no kindness," he said coldly. "No affection. No protection. You exist to obey me."
"Yes, my Lord."
"Strip, Elara."
Elara once lived in the Blood Moon Pack as the daughter of a powerful man.
Now she lives in the Alpha's palace as something far worse than a servant.
A slave.
Alpha Kane Blackthorn rules his pack with an iron will and an untouchable reputation.
Mercy is not something he offers twice.
And Elara belongs to him now.
She should hate him.
She tries to.
But the deeper she falls into the Alpha's dark world, the more dangerous things become.
Because Kane Blackthorn doesn't look at her like a slave.
He looks at her like something far more dangerous.
Something he might never let go.
7.4
Four years ago, to protect the man I loved from losing his billionaire empire, I drugged his drink, told him I only used him for his money, and vanished.
Now, at a high-society gala, Callum Wyatt is back. He isn't just a CEO anymore; he's a ruthless predator, and the second his eyes lock onto me, I know I am his prey.
When my wealthy half-sister publicly humiliated me, calling me the cheap bastard child of a homewrecker, Callum stepped out of the shadows. He nearly snapped her wrist in half and declared to New York's elite that anyone who touched me would be dismantled.
In the back of his Maybach, he pinned my arms above my head, his eyes burning with psychotic obsession.
"If you run again, Aubrey, I will burn your entire world to the ground just to keep you."
My heart bled. I had spent four grueling years tearing myself apart to keep him out of my messy, blood-soaked revenge against the family that watched my mother die.
But his terrifying protection only made my biological father's family target me harder, using their massive capital to buy out my movie set and crush my acting career.
They thought I would cower.
But as I walked onto the soundstage, facing the heiress trying to steal my role, I took off my sunglasses. I wasn't running anymore; it was time to make them pay.
9.3
Born into privilege, Eleanor never imagined her life could shatter in a single night. Then her father disappeared with his mistress, her mother fell from a building and slipped into a coma, and everything she once owned turned to dust.
Determined not to ruin Jonathan's future with her family's disgrace, she ended their relationship and became the bride of a man trapped in a vegetative state.
She believed that was the last time their paths would cross. But two years later, Jonathan pinned her in the dark and whispered, "Long time no see, my sister-in-law."
7.9
June was an ordinary architect struggling to pay rent, completely estranged from her high-society mother.
But one night, she was kidnapped and beaten in an abandoned warehouse by Gage Becker, the city's most ruthless billionaire, who demanded payback for her mother's sins.
Gage pointed a high-definition camera at June's battered face and video-called her mother, threatening to release the footage and ruin her upcoming billion-dollar wedding.
"I will never throw away a billion-dollar marriage for a useless daughter."
Her mother's cold voice echoed through the warehouse before the line went dead.
From that moment, Gage systematically destroyed June's life. She was publicly humiliated and forced to hack off her own hair with a cigar cutter. She was blacklisted from every firm in the city, evicted by her landlord, and violently mugged in a freezing New York blizzard.
Curled up in an icy tunnel waiting to die, June felt a suffocating despair. She hadn't spoken to her mother in months. Why did she have to endure this hell for a woman who didn't even care if she lived or died? Why was a monster like Gage so obsessed with driving her to the grave?
When Gage's armored Maybach pulled up, he stepped into the snow to mock her, waiting for her to finally surrender and beg for his mercy.
But the absolute humiliation snapped the last thread of June's sanity.
Instead of crying, she lunged forward with feral energy and sank her teeth directly into the devil's flesh.
7.3
Jolene flies to Italy broke and desperate for a PA job. She walks into the wrong room and finds a man naked in the shower. She can't stop staring. He notices.
The interview is brutal. Two men, Marco and Enzo, tear her apart, humiliate her, and dismiss her. She thinks she failed.
Then Enzo gets in the car. It was all a test. They wanted to see if she'd break. She didn't. The job is hers.
But they don't want a normal assistant. They want control. They touch her when they want, stand too close, give orders that cross every line.
On her first night, Marco tells her to take off her blouse.
Jolene has to choose: obey or walk away with nothing.
The problem? Part of her doesn't want to leave.
9.5
Isla Rivera's mistake was being too good at her job. When she uncovers money laundering at Vitale Imports, she becomes the captive of Dante Vitale - a dangerous mafia don who needs her forensic accounting skills to find the traitor stealing from his empire.
The deal is simple: find who's taken fifty million, or lose everything she loves.
But nothing about Dante is simple. Behind the ruthless exterior is a man who never chose this life, who protects innocents even as he rules a world built on blood and power. A man whose dark eyes see straight through Isla's defenses, awakening a desire she never expected to feel for her captor.
As Isla unravels a conspiracy buried deep inside Dante's own family, the professional arrangement turns personal. Every heated glance, every stolen moment in his penthouse pulls them closer, blurring the line between fear and forbidden attraction.
When she uncovers the truth - the enemy is someone Dante once trusted - the stakes explode. Now Isla must choose between walking away safely, or standing beside the dangerous man who has claimed both her heart and her fate.
Because she's no longer just his prisoner. She's his partner. And some bonds are forged in fire, loyalty... and love.
Mafia Romance • Enemies to Lovers • Forced Proximity • Dark Romance • HEA Guarantee