My Ex-Husband’s Regret Means Nothing

"The merger goes through tomorrow morning," I told the circle of men hanging on my every word. "If the board objects, liquidate their shares and replace the entire row of them."

"Ruthless," Marcus laughed, swirling his crystal glass of bourbon. "You haven't lost a single deal since the divorce, Sterling. Wall Street is practically begging for mercy."

"Mercy isn't in my vocabulary, Marcus." I took a sip of my drink, scanning the crowded ballroom of the Manhattan charity gala.

"Clearly." Richard, a hedge fund manager, leaned in closer. "Especially not after you trimmed the fat last year. Best decision you ever made, dumping that... what was her name? The quiet one."

"Elowen." The name felt hollow on my tongue. I kept my face entirely blank. "And it wasn't a business decision. It was an inevitability."

"A brilliant one," Marcus insisted. "She was an anchor. A mediocre little housewife dragging down a titan. Look at you now. Unstoppable."

I didn't argue. Elowen had been timid. Soft. Always waiting up for me in the dark, always apologizing for simply existing in my space. She was a clinging vine I had to prune to keep growing. The divorce was exactly a year ago today. I hadn't spared her a single thought in eleven months. My chest held nothing but the steady, victorious rhythm of a man who owned the world.

"Is that the guest of honor?" Richard pointed toward the entrance.

The heavy gilded doors of the ballroom swung open.

The string quartet missed a note. The low hum of elite Manhattan chatter died out instantly, replaced by a tense, charged silence.

I turned my head.

A woman stood in the archway.

Black silk hugged her waist and flared sharply at the shoulders. She wore no necklace, just a pair of diamond drop earrings that caught the chandelier light like ice. Her spine was steel. Her chin tilted up, surveying the room of billionaires and socialites as if they were peasants begging for a fraction of her time.

My glass slipped a fraction of an inch in my grip.

"Who the hell is that?" Marcus whispered.

I couldn't answer. My vocal cords snapped shut.

It was Elowen.

Not the woman who used to cry when I raised my voice. Not the girl who wore oversized sweaters and hid in the shadows of my penthouses. This woman commanded the light.

"Wait," Richard muttered, adjusting his glasses. "That's El. The painter. The one who just sold out the Louvre's contemporary wing in four minutes."

"The art prodigy?" Marcus stared, his mouth hanging open. "I tried to buy one of her pieces for ten million last month. Her agent laughed and hung up on me."

Elowen stepped into the room.

She didn't look for me. She didn't scan the crowd with the nervous, desperate eyes I remembered. She moved through the sea of power brokers, and they parted for her.

"She's gorgeous," Marcus said, his voice dropping low. "I'm going to introduce myself."

My jaw clamped tight. A muscle ticked in my cheek. "Don't."

Marcus blinked, stepping back from the sudden frost in my tone. "Why not?"

I didn't answer him. Elowen was ten feet away. Five feet.

She stopped at the edge of our circle to take a champagne flute from a passing waiter.

"Ms. El," Marcus said, completely ignoring my warning. "An honor. Marcus Thorne, Thorne Capital."

Elowen turned her head. Her eyes—once warm, eager, always searching for my approval—were now pools of frozen glass. She didn't smile.

"Mr. Thorne." Her voice was smooth, carrying a sharp edge that cut right through the ambient noise. "I read your firm's quarterly report. You should focus less on art acquisitions and more on your failing tech investments."

Marcus turned pale. Richard choked on a laugh.

Then, Elowen's gaze shifted.

She looked directly at me.

Air vanished from my lungs. The invincible fortress I had built over the last year crumbled into dust in a fraction of a second.

I expected anger. I expected pain. I expected the familiar tears she used to shed when I handed her the divorce papers.

I found absolutely nothing.

Her eyes swept over me with the same mild disinterest she might give a stain on the carpet.

"Sterling," she said. No tremor. No hesitation. Just my name, stripped of all the love it used to hold.

My chest hollowed out. A vicious, tearing panic ripped through my stomach. The bourbon burned my throat, but I couldn't swallow.

"Elowen." My voice sounded foreign. Rough. "You're... here."

"I was invited." She took a slow sip of her champagne. "The charity relies on my donations now, it seems."

"You're a painter." I hated how weak the words sounded. How utterly clueless I appeared in front of my peers.

"I am." She tilted her head. "Did you think I would stay in that empty apartment waiting for you to come home forever?"

"You never mentioned art."

"You never asked."

The truth of her words felt like a physical blow. I stepped closer, entirely forgetting the men standing beside us. The scent of her perfume—something sharp, expensive, entirely new—filled the space between us.

"You look different," I said.

"I look like someone who finally woke up." Elowen handed her half-empty glass to a stunned Richard. "Excuse me. I have a buyer to speak with. Someone whose portfolio isn't built on ruining people."

"I gave you everything," I countered, my voice dropping to a harsh whisper so the surrounding vultures couldn't hear. "You lived in a fifty-million-dollar penthouse. You had endless credit."

"I had a cage," Elowen replied. "And a warden who couldn't remember my birthday."

"That's not fair."

"Fair?" A sharp, mocking laugh escaped her lips. "You handed me divorce papers on our anniversary, Sterling. You told me my presence suffocated your ambition."

I flinched. The memory flashed in my mind—her standing in the foyer, tears spilling down her cheeks, begging me to go to couples therapy. I had walked out without a backward glance.

"You look like you're thriving," I managed to say, the panic morphing into a bitter, foreign ache.

"I am." She stepped closer, invading my space. "I cut the dead weight out of my life."

"You're quoting my own friends to me," I said, my hands balling into fists at my sides.

"I don't care about your friends, Sterling. I'm stating a fact."

She turned her back to me.

I reached out. My fingers brushed the cold silk of her sleeve.

"Elowen, wait."

She stopped. Slowly, she looked down at my hand. The absolute zero temperature in her stare made my fingers burn.

"Remove your hand, Sterling."

I didn't move. The panic was morphing into a desperate, clawing need. I needed her to look at me the way she used to. I needed the warmth back.

"I said," she lowered her voice, the sound vibrating with pure authority, "take your hand off me."

My fingers uncurled. I dropped my arm to my side, paralyzed by the sheer force of her presence.

She didn't glance back as she walked away.

I stood frozen, the undisputed king of Wall Street reduced to a statue in the middle of the room. My mind raced, trying to calculate how to fix this, how to regain control. I had thrown away a diamond because I thought it was glass.

"Darling, there you are."

A male voice cut through the noise.

I snapped my attention across the room. A tall, strikingly handsome man in a tailored tuxedo approached Elowen. He slid an arm seamlessly around her waist, pulling her flush against his chest.

Elowen looked up at him. She smiled.

It was a genuine, radiant, blinding smile. The exact smile she hadn't given me in years.

The man leaned down and pressed a kiss to her temple. "Did the big bad wolf bite?"

"Not at all," Elowen laughed, her hand resting flat against his chest. "He doesn't have teeth anymore."

My vision tinted red. The glass in my hand shattered.