Too Late For Regret: My Billionaire Husband

I was twenty-five weeks pregnant, sitting on a cracked plastic chair at the hospital, when my billionaire husband looked me right in the eye and called me "it." Ellsworth didn't recognize his own wife in my tight coat and swollen ankles; he was too busy shielding his mistress, Jolie, from the "messy cleaning lady" in the hallway. "Just ignore it," he told his assistant as I struggled to stand. "Close the doors. We’re running late for the gala." He left me there with a high-risk pregnancy diagnosis and a prescription I couldn't afford, while he drove off in a Maybach with a woman who had meticulously stolen my entire identity. When I returned to our cold mansion, the nightmare continued. His grandmother treated me like a breeding animal, and the housekeeper tried to starve me because Ellsworth said my weight gain was "embarrassing" to the family name. I soon realized the sick truth: Jolie wasn't just his lover; she was a mimic, wearing my old clothes and using my old hair tutorials to play the role of the woman I was before the Banks family broke me. How could a man who once promised to love me now treat me like a stain on his perfect life? Why was he keeping me trapped in a guest room while parading a fake version of me around the city? They thought I was a broken, penniless ghost with nowhere to go, but they forgot I was once the sharpest financial mind of my generation. While Ellsworth was busy playing house with a replica, I was secretly accepting a fully funded PhD and auditing his illegal shell companies from the shadows of his own home. He thinks he can keep me trapped in this marriage just to secure his trust fund. He has no idea that I’m not just leaving—I’m going to burn his empire to the ground before the baby is even born.

Chapters

Chapter 4

Cressie was in the kitchen, pouring hot water for tea, when Ellsworth stormed in. He was still wearing his pajamas, his hair messy. He looked furious.

"Did you know?" he demanded.

Cressie didn't turn. "Know what?"

"About the trust!" He slammed a hand onto the marble island.

Beatrice followed him in, looking grim. She was holding a copy of the divorce papers Cressie had signed the night before.

"The agreement is void," Beatrice announced.

Cressie turned slowly. "Excuse me?"

"Clause 14, Section B of the Banks Family Trust," Beatrice recited from memory. "In the event of a divorce proceedings initiated during a pregnancy of a direct heir, all liquid assets of the trust are frozen until the child reaches the age of one."

Ellsworth looked like he wanted to punch a wall. "If we file these papers now, the bank freezes my capital. Banks Capital grinds to a halt. I can't trade. I can't close the merger."

Cressie took a sip of her tea. It was scalding hot, but she welcomed the burn. "So?"

"So," Beatrice said, her voice like steel, "you are not getting divorced. Not yet. You will remain married, legally and publicly, until the child is born and the trust conditions are met."

Cressie let out a dry laugh. "You want me to live here? With him? While he parades his mistress around town?"

"You will live here," Beatrice commanded. "You will play the happy couple for the press. In exchange, we will double your settlement."

"I don't want your money," Cressie said. "I want peace."

"Then you'll have to wait for it," Ellsworth snapped. "I'm not bankrupting my company because of bad timing."

Cressie looked at him. He was pathetic. A billionaire held hostage by his grandmother's rules. This was her leverage. If she left, his empire crumbled.

"Fine," Cressie said. "But I have conditions."

"More conditions?" Ellsworth groaned.

"I'm moving to the West Wing guest suite. Permanently. You stay in the Master. I don't want to see you. I don't want to hear you. And I certainly don't want to smell your... extracurricular activities."

Ellsworth flushed. "This is my house."

"And it's my womb carrying your trust fund key," Cressie shot back. Her voice was sharp, authoritative. It was the voice she used to use in boardrooms.

Ellsworth stared at her, stunned.

"Deal," Beatrice said quickly. "West Wing. Separate lives. Just keep the ring on."

Cressie set her mug down. "Done."

She walked past Ellsworth, brushing his shoulder. He flinched, as if she were electric.

That night, Ellsworth lay in the Master bedroom. It was huge. It was cold.

He was used to Cressie being there. Even when he ignored her, her presence was a constant-a warm body, the sound of her breathing, the smell of her vanilla lotion.

Now, the bed felt like an ice rink.

He rolled over, punching the pillow. He grabbed his phone. Jolie had sent him a photo. She was wearing lingerie, pouting at the camera. Miss you, baby.

He looked at it. Usually, this would excite him. Usually, he would call a car and go to her apartment.

But tonight, he just felt... tired.

He zoomed in on the photo. In the background of Jolie's selfie, on her nightstand, was a book. The Art of War.

He frowned. Since when did Jolie read strategy?

He swiped the photo away.

Down the hall, in the West Wing, Cressie was humming. She was organizing her new room. It was smaller, simpler.

She put her hand on her belly. "Just a few more months," she promised. "We stay in the belly of the beast. And we watch."

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Continue to next part

In their first year of marriage, Melinda's husband never shared her bed, and the loneliness became a craving. She understood why after catching him kissing her sister-she was just a stand-in. When that restless craving finally sharpened into an ailment, she went to the hospital and met a doctor whose steady hands almost unraveled her. The next day, he showed up as the company's new CEO and made her his assistant. "Sir, I have a husband. Stop hitting on me." She had tried to resist, but eventually, she still became his girlfriend. Her ex begged tearfully, "Melinda, let's start over. Don't leave me." Melinda huffed, "Sorry. I'm not interested in a man who couldn't perform in bed."

Billionaire Modern Romance

8.2

After Beckett Blackwood Rescued His Beloved Intern Girlfriend From a Fire

8.2

A devastating fire leads billionaire Beckett Blackwood to save his intern girlfriend, but the resulting brain damage resets his memory to age eighteen. In his mind, he is still the devoted young man who promised his wife the world—long before their marriage crumbled under the weight of his infidelity and neglect. Now, he looks at her with restored adoration and clingy affection. Yet, refusing to fall back into the painful past, she coldly delivers the harsh truth: they divorced two years ago.

Billionaire Modern Romance

8.3

Dumped by the CEO, Claimed by the Titan

8.3

Faye Barnes wakes in a bathtub of blood, her wrist slit, while downstairs her soon-to-be ex-husband and his family wait for her signature. They see a worthless country girl who married up. They have no idea the woman who built Bowen's empire from the shadows now inhabits this body—every strategy, every award, every legend was hers. For three years he took the credit. Now she signs the divorce as a declaration of war. On her way out, she takes down three men to save a teenage girl, unaware that Chaz Savage, the dark king of finance, watches from a black Bentley. He's a predator hunting a puzzle—until the trap closes around him. Bowen's fall is just the opening move in Faye's true game.

Action Billionaire Modern Mystery Romance

9.7

Getting Rid of Pests

9.7

A famous star discovers her true identity as the heiress to the Holmes family, the wealthiest clan in Hemmingville. However, her return is met with hostility when her adoptive sister, Nancy, attempts to humiliate her before the paparazzi. Accusing her of a scandalous past, Nancy demands she strip in public to enter the estate. Having been reborn, the protagonist abandons her former submissive nature. She defies the family's rules, asserting her value and vowing to make her rivals grovel.

Action Billionaire Modern Romance

8.1

Marrying The Crippled Billionaire For Revenge

8.1

I was the top trauma surgeon at the city’s busiest hospital until my family decided I was nothing more than a disposal fee. I stood in my father’s mahogany-lined study, staring at a two-hundred-thousand-dollar check that was meant to buy my silence and my dignity. "Sign the confession, Aurelia," my father demanded, the silver cigar cutter snapping with a violent finality. They wanted me to take the fall for a medical error I never committed, all to protect my sister Dominique’s image before her high-profile merger with the Blackburn family. When I refused to sign my life away, the betrayal turned lethal. My sister planted a priceless sapphire heirloom in my bag and called the security team to search me in front of my ex-fiancé. My mother watched with cold indifference as I was branded a thief, and my father threatened to pull the plug on my grandmother’s nursing home payments by noon if I didn't vanish. I was thrown out into a freezing rainstorm with a revoked medical license, a battered suitcase, and exactly forty-two dollars to my name. Even the man I once loved looked at me with pity, believing I had stooped to grand larceny because I was jealous of my sister’s success. I stood at a bus stop, shivering and broken, wondering how my own blood could trade my truth for a corporate PR stunt. They had taken my career, my home, and my reputation, leaving me with nothing but the clothes on my back and a burning need for justice. Desperate to protect my grandmother, I sought out the one man they all feared: Avery Blackburn, the "monster" CEO rumored to be a brain-damaged vegetable. But the man I found in the shadows of the VIP wing wasn't a victim; he was a wolf waiting for the right moment to strike. "I need a shield, and you need a wife," he rasped, sliding a titanium card across the desk. I didn't hesitate to sign the marriage certificate. The Blanchards think they’ve discarded a liability, but they’re about to find out what happens when you give a desperate surgeon a billionaire’s scalpel.

Action Billionaire Modern

8.9

One mistake and Billionaire's Prisoner

8.9

He made one mistake-he chose revenge instead of mercy. Luna's sharp tongue and careless drunken words should have been harmless. Instead, they mark her as a target for Daimen Blackwell, a billionaire who doesn't forgive and never forgets. What begins as punishment turns into possession when he forces her into a contract that binds her to him as his mistress-his rules, his house, his bed. Luna is naïve in love but not in spirit, and her defiance slowly becomes the one thing Daimen can't control. Somewhere between power plays and stolen moments, he wins her heart-only to destroy it. When Daimen betrays her, Luna leaves with nothing but shattered trust. And that's when he discovers the truth: she is the woman he has been searching for all his life. This time, the billionaire has nothing left to bargain with. Only regret. Only groveling. And the hope that love might survive the damage he caused.

Billionaire Romance Werewolf

Too Late For Regret: My Billionaire Husband

Chapter 4

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