Too Late For Regret, Mr. CEO
Arden woke up hoping last night's intimacy meant her crumbling four-year marriage was finally healing.
Instead, Federico tossed a thick divorce agreement onto the bed.
He coldly accused her of thinking about his brother and announced his perfect ex-girlfriend, Brooklyn, was returning.
To force her signature, the trust fund keeping Arden's mother alive on life support was suddenly frozen.
Federico then kicked Arden out of the master suite, banishing her to a windowless, musty maid's room.
When Brooklyn later faked a car crash to play the victim, Federico didn't hesitate to blame Arden.
He kicked down her door, hauled her up by the collar while she was burning with a severe fever, and threw photos at her face.
The sharp edges sliced her cheek, leaving a trail of blood.
"If you ever touch a single hair on Brooklyn's head again, I will personally bankrupt your family."
Arden stared at the man she had loved since she was fourteen.
He actually believed she was a jealous, calculating murderer.
The sheer, bottomless malice in his eyes shattered the last pathetic ember of hope she had left.
Wiping the blood from her cheek, Arden swallowed a handful of fever pills dry.
Love was dead, and she was done begging.
She put on her sharpest black suit, painted her lips a bold red, and marched straight into his company's executive boardroom to take back her life.
Chapters
Share
Chapter 7
The heavy oak doors of the master suite swung open.
Arden and Federico walked into the massive, dimly lit room.
Augusta, the matriarch of the Monroe family, was propped up against a mountain of pillows. Her skin looked fragile and pale, but her dark eyes were as sharp and predatory as an eagle's.
Augusta waved her hand, dismissing the private doctor and the butler. The heavy doors clicked shut, leaving the three of them alone.
She completely ignored her grandson.
She reached a shaking hand out toward Arden, gesturing for her to sit on the edge of the mattress. Augusta gently cupped Arden's pale cheek, her thumb brushing away a stray hair.
Suddenly, Augusta reached under her blanket.
She pulled out a thick manila envelope and threw it violently at Federico's chest. It hit him with a loud smack.
It was the divorce agreement Arden had signed.
Federico caught the envelope as it fell. He looked at the seal, his jaw clenching tight.
"How did you get your hands on this? Did you illegally access my private lawyer's files, Grandma?" he demanded, his voice tight with controlled anger.
Augusta slammed her wooden cane against the hardwood floor.
"My legal team was automatically copied on the trust dispute filing, you arrogant fool!" she barked. "You are letting a manipulative, calculating snake cloud your judgment."
She pointed a crooked finger at him. "As long as I have breath in my lungs, Brooklyn Garcia will never set foot in a Monroe house."
Federico stood his ground, his posture rigid.
"Brooklyn is the one who suffered back then. Arden doesn't even want me. Her heart is somewhere else."
"Nonsense!" Augusta snapped, cutting him off. "My eyes work better than yours ever will. Arden is the only woman fit to run this family."
Augusta leaned forward, pulling her ultimate weapon.
"The foundational bylaws of the family trust dictate that the primary heir must maintain a stable marriage. If you push this divorce through, I will use my veto power on the board. I will freeze your thirty percent stake in the Monroe Group."
Federico stared at his grandmother in absolute shock.
He could not believe she was willing to use the highest level of family power to blackmail him over a divorce.
He slowly turned his head to look at Arden.
His eyes were filled with pure, burning betrayal. He was entirely convinced Arden had run to Augusta and manipulated the old woman into doing this.
Arden felt the heat of his glare.
She quickly shook her head, looking at Augusta. "Grandma, no. I agreed to the divorce. You don't have to do this for me."
Augusta patted Arden's hand firmly. "Hush, child. I am handling this."
Federico ground his teeth together. He was a businessman first; he could not afford to lose control of his shares right now.
"Fine," he said, his voice like cracking ice. "The legal proceedings are paused. But my mind is not changing."
He turned around and stormed out of the bedroom, the air vibrating with his suppressed rage.
Once the door closed, Augusta let out a long, tired sigh. Her face softened.
She looked at Arden with deep, knowing eyes. "He is just trapped in the past, Arden. He cares for you more than he realizes."
Arden offered a sad, hollow smile. She didn't argue, but in her heart, she thought the old woman was simply delusional.
Augusta picked up the landline phone next to her bed. She dialed the head of the family's PR team.
Her voice turned back to iron. "Leak a story to the press immediately. I want photos of Federico and Arden. Emphasize that the Monroe marriage is rock solid."
She paused. "And send a private, formal warning letter to Brooklyn Garcia. Tell her to stay in her lane."
Listening to Augusta ruthlessly protect her, a strange warmth spread through Arden's chest. This fierce old woman was her only shield in this cold family.
After making sure Augusta was resting comfortably, Arden left the room.
The hallway was empty. Federico was nowhere to be seen.
She walked down the long corridor toward the outdoor balcony, needing the cold ocean breeze to settle her rolling stomach.
As she stepped near the open French doors, she heard loud, angry voices coming from the gardens below.
She peeked over the stone railing.
Federico was standing on the grass, arguing fiercely with his father, Cornelius.
The wind carried Cornelius's vicious words up to the balcony.
"That woman is a parasite!" Cornelius yelled. "Are you really going to repeat Jude's mistakes and let her destroy you too?"
Keep Reading
The story is getting intense! Switch to App to
Unlock All Chapters
You may also like
7.6
Jocelyn Yang lived in the grand Turner Mansion, not as a guest, but as a prisoner. Ever since her father's death, the ruthless billionaire Elam Turner forced her to atone for sins her father never committed.
On her nineteenth birthday, a male classmate secretly sent her a diamond necklace. Elam, who had flown back from London overnight, flew into a psychotic, jealous rage at the sight of another man's gift.
He mercilessly crushed the delicate necklace into the marble floor with his custom leather shoe.
"Did you forget what you are?" Elam hissed, dragging her into a pitch-black storage room. "You take gifts from other men behind my back?"
He pinned her to the dusty floorboards and violently assaulted her. The next morning, a wire transfer of $500,000 hit her bank account. He had humiliated her, broken her spirit, and was now casually trying to buy her silence. Later, when a broken bike left her walking miles through a freezing rainstorm, he just shoved scalding tea into her bleeding hands.
"Look at you," he sneered. "You look like a stray dog ruining my floors."
Jocelyn curled up in the cold, her lips bleeding and her heart shattered. She couldn't understand his terrifying obsession. If he hated her so much, why did he refuse to let her go? Why did he look at her with such manic hunger while systematically destroying her life?
Staring at the massive sum of hush money on her phone, a desperate spark of vengeance flared in her chest. Jocelyn wired every single cent back to Elam's account. She picked up her charcoal pencil, vowing to win the upcoming art competition and buy her escape from this monster forever.
7.4
Evelina Barrett was the legitimate daughter, yet she was framed for a disgusting sex scandal, expelled from the Ivy League, and locked out of her late mother's massive trust fund.
While she was thrown out to rot on the streets with a jagged, hideous red scar covering half her face, her father and step-family were throwing a lavish charity gala to celebrate her total ruin.
They laughed as they officially published her disownment notice in the Times to cut her off forever.
"Without the school halo, that ugly freak will be begging on the streets by tomorrow," her sister Aspen sneered.
Her stepmother Annabella toasted to taking out the trash, perfectly happy to steal Evelina's inheritance while ignoring the fact that Evelina knew exactly how they had murdered her mother.
For years, Evelina had been locked in a dark basement, abused by bodyguards, and treated worse than a stray dog.
Why should she, the true heir, suffer in the gutter while the leeches who destroyed her life enjoyed the wealth that rightfully belonged to her?
She refused to be their victim anymore.
Washing away her fake scar to reveal her true, breathtaking face, Evelina blackmailed New York's most lethal billionaire into marriage to secure the ultimate shield.
Then, she put on a black mourning dress, ordered a dark web ghost crew, and climbed into a heavy semi-truck.
At exactly 6:00 PM, she smashed through the iron gates of her family's elegant gala, delivering three pure black coffins directly to the lawn.
8.7
For three years, I played the perfect, submissive housewife to billionaire Julian Harrison.
But right after an intimate night together, he coldly threw a divorce agreement onto the bed.
"Scarlett landed an hour ago. I need my single status restored to welcome her back."
That same night, I ended up in the emergency room and discovered I was pregnant with twins.
When Julian found out, he didn't show a shred of joy. Instead, he stormed into my hospital room, threw a blank check directly at my face, and ordered me to get rid of them.
He accused me of using the babies as a sick game to trap his assets.
Then, his ruthless lawyer kicked me out of our penthouse, confiscating the jewelry he gifted me and tossing my worn-out notebook onto the floor like garbage.
Standing in the freezing rain, my heart completely died.
I had swallowed my pride, managed his life, and cooked his meals to his exact standards for three years, only to be thrown away the second his first love returned.
But he didn't know that the notebook his lawyer discarded contained the secret formulas of Aura Beauty, a billion-dollar empire I built in the shadows.
I tore his check into pieces, blocked his number, and left in a Maybach sent by my associate.
Logging into my global CEO database, I looked at his company's fragile stock chart with a predatory smile.
The docile Mrs. Harrison died in the rain. It was time to crush his empire.
8.8
I've always been the unwanted child-the invisible one. The rebel no one ever tried to understand.
And yet, I never resented my perfect, beloved sister. All I ever wanted was for her to be happy.
But one cruel twist of fate-and a devastating betrayal by someone I trusted-changed everything.
I woke up in a stranger's bed, losing the one thing I had guarded so carefully. Back then, I thought that was my greatest loss.
I was wrong.
Because not long after, my sister introduced me to her fiancé.
And the man standing in front of me... was the same stranger from that night.
Now he haunts me-day and night, in my dreams and in my waking hours. And just when I start to believe the nightmare might finally fade with the dawn, Alan walks back into my life.
This time, he has no intention of letting me forget.
Not the insult I dealt him.
...or that one unforgettable night.
8.9
Seraphina, a broke single mother of triplets, snuck into a billionaire's charity gala just for the free food, desperate to fund her daughter's urgent heart surgery.
But her genius five-year-old son secretly hacked the gala's raffle system, thrusting them directly under the spotlight. The untouchable billionaire host, Donovan Vance, froze when he saw the star-shaped birthmark on her wrist—the exact same mark from a dark hotel room five years ago.
Cornered, Seraphina was forced into a five-million-dollar marriage contract to appease Donovan's dying father and secure his corporate empire. She swallowed her pride, took the money to save her daughter, and moved into the penthouse. But Donovan's obsessive childhood friend, Gwendolyn, immediately targeted her. She humiliated Seraphina for her poverty and violently grabbed her in the foyer.
"I dare you to get a DNA test. When the world finds out they're not his, he'll throw you into the street himself!"
Gwendolyn's vicious threat made Seraphina's blood run cold. She was suffocating in sheer panic. She didn't even know if Donovan was actually the father. If a test proved he wasn't, she would be destroyed, and her daughter would lose her only lifeline.
But to her absolute horror, Donovan's father overheard the threat and ordered a legally binding paternity test that very day to permanently silence all doubts. With the medical team arriving and nowhere left to run, the terrifying secret Seraphina had buried for five years was about to be dragged into the light.
8.3
I went to the Vera Wang flagship store to surprise my billionaire husband for our third wedding anniversary.
Instead, I caught him in the VIP fitting room, sleeping with the twenty-two-year-old intern I had personally helped him hire.
Through the crack in the door, I recorded him kissing her neck and calling me a "boring decoration." Later, when I ruined her fitting, he grabbed my arm in the middle of Fifth Avenue and called me a hysterical bitch.
"You are nothing without my family's trust fund!"
He roared the words in front of a crowd, completely convinced that I was just a helpless canary living in his golden cage. He thought he owned my credit cards, my dignity, and my life.
That same night, while my grandmother was flatlining in the hospital, he ignored my desperate phone calls just to take a shower with his mistress.
He really believed I would swallow the humiliation and come crawling back to his penthouse, begging for my allowance.
He had no idea that I had spent my entire twenties building a massive digital empire in the shadows.
I calmly tricked him into signing a post-nuptial asset separation agreement and threw all his custom designer suits down a rotting trash compactor.
Then, I put on a blood-red haute couture gown and headed to the most exclusive charity auction in Manhattan.
It was time to use my own hidden fortune to destroy him.