Once His Wife, Now His Worst Regret
She thought their love could survive anything. She was wrong.
For five years, Amara Hayes was the perfect wife - loyal, gentle, and endlessly forgiving. She believed her husband, Ethan Blackwell, when he said his late nights were for business. She trusted him when he swore his heart was hers.
Until the night she walked into his office and saw him making love to another woman.
Humiliated, heartbroken, and betrayed, Amara left without a word - leaving behind her wedding ring, her identity, and the man who destroyed her faith in love.
Three years later, she returns to New York as a powerful businesswoman with a new name and a cold smile. She's no longer the naive wife he controlled - she's his rival, his downfall, and his punishment.
But Ethan isn't the same man either. He's haunted by the woman he lost and desperate for redemption. And when fate throws them together again, old flames reignite amid a storm of revenge, pain, and forbidden desire.
He once broke her heart. Now, she'll make him wish he never did.
Chapters
Share
Chapter 4
The sun crept through the thin curtains, painting faint streaks of gold across the small apartment. Amara hadn't slept. Her eyes were swollen, her body drained, but her mind-clearer than it had been in months.
The city was already awake, cars honking, people hurrying to their lives. For the first time, she didn't feel like part of that blur. She felt... still. Present. And in that stillness, pain had turned into something sharper-purpose.
She rose quietly and walked into the bathroom. The mirror reflected a woman she barely recognized. Her hair was messy, eyes rimmed with red, but there was something different about her gaze-steady, fierce, alive.
She turned on the tap and splashed water on her face until the cold stung. No more tears. No more pretending.
Behind her, Lena stirred awake on the couch. "You didn't sleep, did you?"
Amara shook her head. "Couldn't."
Lena sat up, rubbing her eyes. "He'll try again today."
"I know," Amara said simply, brushing her wet hair back. "And this time, I'm not hiding."
Lena frowned. "What are you going to do?"
"Go home," Amara said. "To get my things-and my dignity."
Half an hour later, she stood in front of the Blackwell penthouse once more. The same place she'd run from just hours ago. The building loomed high and cold, its marble entrance spotless, its guards pretending not to notice the woman they'd watched leave in tears the night before.
Her card key still worked. Of course it did. Ethan didn't think she'd actually walk away.
The elevator ride was silent except for the faint hum of her pulse in her ears. By the time the doors slid open, her heart was hammering-but she didn't pause. She walked straight in.
The scent of his cologne lingered. The lights were still on. And there he was-Ethan-standing by the floor-to-ceiling window, shirt pressed, hair slicked back, every inch the composed billionaire the world worshiped. But when he turned, his eyes betrayed him. They were rimmed with exhaustion, bloodshot, desperate.
"Amara," he breathed, relief flooding his face. "You came back."
"I came to get my things," she said coldly.
He frowned. "Don't do this."
"Do what?" she asked, her voice steady. "Finally act like I matter?"
He moved closer, jaw tightening. "You're angry, I understand that. But you're not thinking clearly. Last night-"
"Last night," she cut in, "I saw you with her. I saw everything clearly, Ethan."
He reached for her hand, but she stepped back. He froze.
"Amara, I made a mistake," he said quietly, his tone rehearsed, coaxing. "It didn't mean anything. You know I love you."
She gave a small, humorless laugh. "Love?" Her voice trembled-not from fear, but from fury barely contained. "You call that love?"
"Stop twisting this," he snapped, frustration bleeding through. "You walked out without giving me a chance to explain."
"There's nothing left to explain."
"Yes, there is," he insisted, stepping closer again. "Because you're my wife. And wives don't just walk away."
She lifted her chin. "Then maybe I'm not your wife anymore."
The words hit him like a slap. His jaw clenched, hands curling into fists.
"Careful," he said, his voice dropping to something darker. "You don't want to say things you'll regret."
She met his stare without flinching. "The only thing I regret is giving you so much power over me."
He exhaled sharply, nostrils flaring. "You're not leaving like this, Amara. We'll fix this."
"I'm not broken," she said. "You are."
She brushed past him toward the bedroom. Every step felt like reclaiming a piece of herself. She gathered her suitcase, the few clothes she cared to take, her journals, and the framed photo of her parents from the bedside table. When she turned back, Ethan was standing in the doorway, blocking her exit.
"Move," she said.
He didn't. His eyes softened, voice dropping to a whisper. "You still love me. I can see it."
Amara looked at him for a long, silent moment. Then she said softly, "I used to. But loving you was the most painful mistake of my life."
She pushed past him and walked toward the door.
"Amara!" he shouted. "You think you can just leave and everything ends?"
She stopped, hand on the doorknob, but didn't turn around.
"Yes," she said. "That's exactly what I think."
Then she opened the door- Only to freeze.
Standing on the threshold was the last person she expected to see. Her mother-in-law, Eleanor Blackwell-elegant, intimidating, and dangerous in her silence-holding a glass of champagne and wearing a smile that didn't reach her eyes.
"Well," Eleanor said smoothly. "It seems the rumors were true. The dutiful wife finally walked away."
Ethan stiffened behind Amara. "Mother-"
But Eleanor raised a hand to silence him, her gaze fixed on Amara. "You really think leaving my son will save you, dear? You've just declared war on the Blackwells."
The glass in her hand tilted, the champagne spilling onto the marble like liquid gold.
And as Amara met that cold, calculating stare, something inside her shifted-fear turning to fire.
"Then I hope your family's ready," she said quietly. "Because I don't lose wars anymore."
You may also like
8.4
Grace, after three years of silence from a crash that stole her voice and family, finally uttered a hoarse syllable. It was her first sound, a breakthrough she desperately wanted to share with Josiah, her childhood protector. Instead, through a slightly ajar door, she heard his careless chuckle, followed by a sharp, entitled voice.
Alexandria's voice sliced through the air: "Josiah, are you really planning to bring that little mute to the banquet? She's a walking trailer park tragedy. It's embarrassing." Grace froze, waiting for Josiah to defend her. He didn't. Instead, he sighed, calling her "a responsibility" and "a lifeless ghost," then pulled Alexandria closer.
The words were serrated blades. Her silent devotion, her self-erasure for his peace, had made her a punchline. He was relieved she was broken. The bitter realization of his betrayal ignited a cold, white-hot fury.
Wiping away tears, Grace met Josiah, feigning her usual submissive smile, and quietly refused his "hush money." As he walked away without a glance, her inner voice was clear, sharp, and resolute: "I'm done playing your game."
8.9
Audrey Fletcher was forced to marry the notorious playboy Julian Sterling to save her family's sinking company after her sister ran away.
On their wedding night, her new husband threw a $100,000 check at her face, told her they would be strangers in private, and abandoned her in the bridal suite.
She thought being trapped in a loveless, transactional marriage was the worst fate possible.
She was wrong.
To protect herself, Audrey hung a pair of men's boxer shorts on her balcony to fake a lover's presence.
Instead of deterring her husband, the ridiculous ruse brought Alistair Sterling—Julian's terrifying, powerful uncle and the true puppet master of the family.
He stormed into her apartment with a legal team to catch her cheating, and later even offered her ten million dollars to divorce his nephew.
When she refused out of fear of her own family's ruin, the situation escalated.
Forced to attend a charity gala, Audrey was tricked by staff into wearing a scandalous, backless gown and sent to a dark penthouse suite to beg her husband for peace.
But the man waiting in the shadows wasn't Julian. It was Alistair.
"Does the thought of seducing your husband's uncle give you a special kind of thrill?"
He didn't listen to her desperate explanations. Instead, he pinned her arms behind her back and crushed his mouth against hers in a brutal, punishing kiss.
Trembling with terror and revulsion, Audrey bit his lip until she tasted blood, shoved the billionaire away, and ran for her life.
She couldn't understand why this powerful man was so dangerously obsessed with destroying her sham marriage.
But as she fled into the cold city night, she realized the terrifying truth: the real game was just beginning.
8.6
I woke up choking on rotting air in an alien jungle, surrounded by giant bioluminescent ferns and a three-eyed, armor-plated beast charging straight at me.
Before the monster could tear me apart, I was saved by a squad of men with metallic wings and laser rifles, but my nightmare was just beginning.
When they brought me back to their high-tech military base, every soldier we passed stopped dead, staring at me with a feverish, starving hunger that made my skin crawl.
In the medical wing, a manic doctor bypassed all protocol, pulling out a wicked silver needle to forcibly extract my blood, looking at me not as a patient, but as a winning lottery ticket.
Even their highest-ranking commander, a giant, scarred Admiral, immediately tried to claim me, demanding I be moved into his personal bedroom for "protection."
I didn't understand why I was being treated like a caged miracle, nor why a simple, accidental touch of my hand could bring my winged protector to his knees and silence his feral instincts.
"In the Aethel Empire, there are no females," my protector whispered, his icy blue eyes filled with raw desperation. "You are the only one."
The portal that brought me here was fading, trapping me in a universe of eighty billion shapeshifting Alpha males. Looking at the terrifying devotion in his eyes, I realized my life as an ordinary human was over, and to survive this, I had to tame the beasts.
7.2
Elara Vex had everything-a flawless ice core, the title of prodigy, and a place at the pinnacle of the High Tower. But in one brutal night, it was all ripped away. Her mentor tore the core from her chest. Her fiancé drove a sword through her back. Her own sister smiled as she bled out on the cold marble floor.
When Elara wakes, she's years in the past, mere hours before her core is scheduled to be stolen. This time, she won't be anyone's sacrificial lamb. She shatters her own core with forbidden blood magic and forges something far more terrifying in its place-a bottomless, ravenous Chaos Core that devours magic itself.
Now, branded a worthless cripple and cast into the deadly Abyss, Elara is pulled from the darkness by the outcasts of Elysium Academy-a school for heretics, psychopaths, and everything the Tower despises. Under the tutelage of a reclusive principal who knew her murdered mother, Elara will master her forbidden power and uncover the Tower's darkest secrets.
When the Five Academies Ranking Tournament arrives, Seraphina Vex stands in the arena, draped in white saintess robes, ready to claim ultimate glory. She doesn't know that a ghost from her past has clawed her way back from hell. She doesn't know that Elara is coming-and this time, the prodigal sister isn't asking for mercy. She's bringing chaos.
9.6
I was only three and a half years old, living in a damp basement and beaten daily by Enoch Pruitt with a heavy leather whip.
"Get up, you useless waste of space!"
He always told me I was a stray he had picked out of the garbage.
But during one brutal beating that nearly stopped my heart, time froze, and a glowing figure called The Chronicler appeared.
"You are not an abandoned orphan, Clare. You carry the blood of the highest gods."
He revealed that I was the stolen daughter of the ultra-wealthy Barrett family.
Then, he showed me the horrific ending of my previous life.
I had died right here on this bloody dirt floor.
My real parents and three brothers went completely insane with grief, turning into ruthless monsters who destroyed themselves and the entire world to avenge me.
Meanwhile, the Pruitt family kept torturing me, locking me in a woodshed and feeding me moldy bread.
The memory of my bones breaking and my real mother's agonizing screams crushed my chest.
Why did I have to suffer like an animal while my true family tore the world apart looking for me?
This time, I refused to die in the mud.
I accepted my divine blood, my eyes glowing gold as I summoned a bolt of purple lightning to strike my abuser.
I just needed to survive the night.
Because my real father's heavily armed convoy was already tearing up the mountain, ready to burn this hell to the ground.
8.7
Adelia thought she was just heading upstairs to rest in the hotel suite arranged by her caring stepsister.
But her champagne had been heavily drugged. In the pitch-black room, her rational thoughts melted away as she was violently pulled into the darkness by a terrifying stranger.
The next morning, the heavy suite door was kicked open, and blinding camera flashes shattered her world.
Her fiancé stormed in, hurling their prenuptial agreement directly at her bleeding cheek.
"You make me sick! Violating our agreement like this. You are a disgusting, unfaithful whore!"
Her stepsister squeezed to the front of the crowd, crying perfectly rehearsed tears of horror for the tabloid reporters, while her eyes gleamed with pure, unadulterated triumph.
Desperate and trembling, Adelia begged her father for help, explaining she had been framed.
But her father, the family CEO, only cared about his plummeting stock prices. He coldly stripped her of her inheritance, froze her trust funds, and had massive security guards physically drag her out of Manhattan.
She hadn't just been betrayed; she had been completely slaughtered by the people she loved most. As the elevator plummeted toward the lobby, her tears dried into a bloody, silent vow.
Six years later, Adelia stepped out of JFK Airport, flanked by her terrifyingly smart six-year-old twins.
She was no longer a disgraced, pathetic victim. She had returned as a legendary, untouchable ghost surgeon, ready to rip her family's empire apart.
And her very first move involves saving the life of the ruthless Wall Street predator who ruined her that night.