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 5
Vivian's knuckles were white on the steering wheel of the Malibu. The air conditioning had died three months ago, and the New York heat was turning the car into a rolling oven. She was no longer wearing the rags of her "wife" persona. She was dressed in a sharp, tailored pencil skirt and a silk blouse she had retrieved from her storage unit-clothes that fit the woman she actually was, not the one she pretended to be.
She was rehearsing her resignation speech. Mr. Sterling, you can take this contract and shove it up your... No. Too emotional. Mr. Sterling, I refuse to work for a corporate vulture... Too cliché.
The traffic light ahead turned yellow. Vivian accelerated. She just wanted to get this over with.
Suddenly, a massive black SUV in front of her slammed on its brakes.
There was no time to think. Vivian slammed her foot down, but the old brake pads of the Chevy just screamed in protest.
CRUNCH.
The sound of metal folding on metal was sickening. Vivian was thrown forward, the seatbelt locking painfully across her chest. Her forehead banged against the steering wheel.
Steam hissed from the hood of her car.
"Perfect," she groaned, rubbing her head. "Just perfect."
Ahead, the rear door of the black SUV-a Maybach, she noted with a sinking feeling-opened.
A bodyguard stepped out first, scanning the perimeter. Then, a pair of polished oxfords hit the asphalt. Long legs clad in dark suit trousers followed.
Julian Ford-Sterling IV emerged. He adjusted his cufflinks, looking at the crumpled rear of his quarter-million-dollar car with an expression of mild inconvenience.
Vivian grabbed her sunglasses from the dashboard. They were oversized, cat-eye frames. She shoved them on. She checked the mirror. Her lip was bleeding slightly. Good. It added to the look.
She kicked her door open.
"Are you insane?" she shouted, stepping out into the street. "Who brakes in the middle of an intersection?"
Julian turned. He saw a woman in a pencil skirt and a silk blouse that had seen better days, storming toward him. Her hair was a messy wave of chestnut. Her mouth was a slash of red anger.
He didn't recognize her.
Why would he? His wife was a hunched-over creature in oversized cardigans. This woman walked like she owned the pavement.
"You rear-ended me," Julian said calmly, his voice carrying over the honking horns. "That usually implies you were following too closely."
"I was driving perfectly!" Vivian snapped, stopping two feet from him. She had to tilt her head back to look him in the eye. He was tall. Annoyingly tall. "You stopped for a pigeon!"
Julian looked past her to the road. There was, indeed, a pigeon waddling away unbothered.
"I stopped for a pedestrian," he lied smoothly. "You, however, were clearly distracted. Texting? Applying makeup?"
"Planning a murder," Vivian hissed. "Currently yours."
Julian blinked. A corner of his mouth twitched. He wasn't used to being shouted at. Most people apologized. Most women flirted.
"You have spirit," he said, stepping closer. He towered over her, casting a shadow that blocked the sun. "But spirit doesn't pay for a dented bumper on a Maybach."
Vivian felt that familiar pull-the magnetic field that surrounded him. It made her want to punch him and kiss him simultaneously. She hated it.
"My insurance will cover it," she lied. Her insurance barely covered a scratch.
"I doubt it," Julian said, glancing at her rusted Chevy. "But I'm a generous man. I'll have my lawyers contact you."
"Don't bother," Vivian reached into her purse. She pulled out a business card-one she had printed an hour ago at Kinko's. She slapped it against his chest.
He looked down. The card remained stuck to his lapel for a second before he caught it.
Vivian Sullivans. Designer. S.W. Studios.
Julian froze. He stared at the name.
"Vivian," he said, testing the word. His face twisted in a grimace of distaste.
Vivian held her breath behind her sunglasses. Here it comes. The recognition.
Julian looked up. His eyes swept over her face, lingering on her mouth, then her hair. But there was no spark of memory. Only annoyance.
"Vivian Sullivans," Julian repeated, his voice dripping with ice. "Of all the names in New York. I suppose mediocrity loves company."
He didn't know. He truly, genuinely didn't see her. He only saw the name of the woman he had just divorced-a name he clearly loathed. The realization was a slap in the face. She had lived with this man for two years, shared meals (mostly silent ones), and he didn't know her features well enough to recognize her without ugly glasses and bad foundation.
"I'm not soft," Vivian said, her voice dropping an octave. "And I'm late for work. My new boss is a tyrant."
Julian raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?"
"A complete narcissist," she confirmed. "So if you'll excuse me, I need to go get yelled at."
She turned on her heel and marched back to her steaming car. She yanked the door open, got in, and slammed it.
Julian stood in the middle of the street, watching her. He should be annoyed. His car was damaged. He was late. And her name was a curse.
But as he watched the angry brunette wrestle her car into gear and screech away, he felt something he hadn't felt in years.
Amusement.
"Gavin," he said as he got back into the Maybach.
"Sir?"
"Call the legal team. Tell them to go easy on the settlement for the crash."
"Yes, sir. Who was it?"
Julian pulled the card out again. He ran his thumb over the name.
"An employee," he said. "With a very unfortunate name. Run a check on her. I want to know if she's related to my ex-wife, or if God is just playing a cruel joke on me."
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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