Too Late For Regret: My Ex-Husband's Downfall
Colette Bentley gripped her terminal leukemia diagnosis, her world shattering. Her only comfort was that her husband, Edwardo, was the country's foremost hematologist.
But when she called him, desperate for a lifeline, she didn't hear his reassuring voice. Instead, she heard the playful voice of her own sister, Cleo.
"Edwardo, hurry up. The water's getting cold..."
As Colette stood outside an exclusive club hours later, collapsing in a pool of her own blood, Edwardo was busy pressing Cleo against his car and gifting her diamonds.
He ignored Colette's emergency calls, coldly texting back that he was too busy to be bothered.
When Colette miraculously secured a single, priceless vial of an experimental drug to save her own life, Edwardo broke into her private safe and stole it.
He fed her life-saving medicine to his mistress to treat a minor symptom, smiling proudly as he claimed he knew Colette wanted to help.
"I confirmed it was the VX-7 compound and gave it to Cleo. The effect was miraculous."
He had completely erased her existence, casually sentencing his own wife to death to play the hero for the woman who ruined her marriage. How could a doctor who swore to save lives be so monstrous?
But Colette wasn't going to die quietly in the shadows.
She slapped the smug smile off his face, extorted a hundred-million-dollar divorce settlement, and walked into a rival research institute. This time, she chose to live for herself.
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Chapter 7
Edwardo dragged her down the corridor to a deserted alcove by a large window overlooking the city. His grip on her arm was bruising.
"What is your problem?" he hissed, his voice low and furious. "Are you trying to humiliate me in front of my colleagues? In front of your own mother?"
She wrenched her arm free. "Humiliate you? Edwardo, you live a lie. Doesn't it ever get exhausting?"
He blinked, misinterpreting her words. "I know I've been working too hard. I know I've been distant. But you can't use Cleo's health as a weapon to get my attention."
He still thought this was about him. That she was a child throwing a tantrum.
The absurdity of it all was breathtaking. She was done with words. She pulled the divorce agreement from the envelope and shoved it against his chest.
"Sign it."
He stared at the words "Divorce Agreement" at the top of the page. His fury morphed into disbelief. "Divorce? Are you out of your mind? Because I asked you to give your sister some blood?"
He truly didn't see it. He couldn't comprehend a world that didn't revolve around his desires.
"I'm divorcing you because I'm tired of the lies," she said, her voice dangerously calm. "I'm tired of your selfishness. And I'm tired of the smell of another woman's perfume on your clothes."
Panic flared in his eyes again, hotter this time. "I don't know what you're talking about. You're being hysterical. You need to rest." He tried to push the papers back at her. "I'm not signing this. Our marriage is fine. You just need to calm down."
She knew then that reasoning with him was pointless. She pulled out her phone.
"You won't sign? Fine." She began to dial. "I'm sure Genevieve would be very interested to hear about you and Cleo. In the parking garage. At The Elysian Club."
She said the name of the club, and his face went white. The carefully constructed mask of the brilliant, benevolent Dr. Lucas shattered. He knew. She knew everything.
His anger wasn't about the affair being discovered. It was about losing control.
Just then, a nurse hurried down the hall. "Dr. Lucas? It's your sister-in-law. She's having a panic attack."
He was trapped. His mistress was demanding his attention. His wife was demanding his signature. He was fraying at the seams.
"What do you want?" he snarled, the words torn from his throat.
"I want you to sign the papers. Then we are done." She held out the agreement and a pen.
He snatched them from her, his movements jerky with frustration. He wanted this to be over. He wanted her to go away so he could get back to Cleo.
He was thinking about the prenup. He was thinking she would get nothing. Signing this was just a formality, a way to appease her tantrum. He could always win her back later. He was that arrogant.
Fueled by impatience and fury, he flipped to the last page. He glanced at the section headings, his eyes skipping over the detailed addendum. He saw the title-'Clarification of Non-Marital Asset Contribution'-and scoffed internally. It looked like standard boilerplate re-confirming she couldn't touch the Lucas Family Trust. He was too angry and impatient to read the dense paragraphs that followed, which cleverly outlined a one-time payout in exchange for her 'contributions' to the family's public image and a total dissolution of all claims. He didn't see the devil in the details. He saw what he expected to see-a standard division of assets as outlined in their prenup.
He uncapped the pen and scrawled his name on the signature line. Edwardo Lucas. A signature worth one hundred million dollars.
Colette took her copy, her hands perfectly steady. The marriage was over. Seven years, ended in a sterile hospital corridor.
She looked at him one last time, at the man she had promised to love forever. He was a stranger.
"Goodbye, Dr. Lucas," she said.
Then she turned and walked away, not looking back as he rushed into Cleo's room.
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9.3
Alyssa Gregory slept with Benton Steele, a recently disgraced and bankrupt heir, just to humiliate him.
She threw a massive check at his bare chest, treating the former prince of Wall Street like a cheap escort.
But Benton didn't take the charity.
Instead, he manipulated her anger, tricking her into signing an ironclad contract that surrendered absolute control of her entire trust fund to him.
When her abusive mother found out she had funded a penniless outcast, she slapped Alyssa across the face.
Her mother froze all her bank accounts, locked her inside her bedroom, and arranged to sell her off to a degenerate politician.
Desperate to escape, Alyssa climbed down her balcony, falling fifteen feet and shattering her ankle on the stones below.
Stripped of her money and freedom, she dragged her broken body to a VIP club just to publicly declare that Benton belonged to her.
She thought she was the boss, playing a rebellious game with a broken man.
But when Benton effortlessly carried her away from the club and locked her inside his rundown apartment, the terrifying calculation in his dark eyes shattered her illusion.
How could a man stripped of his entire empire still radiate such suffocating, violent power?
"You bought me," Benton whispered, his massive frame trapping her against the sofa. "That means I have to take care of you."
Physically trapped and completely broke, Alyssa stared into his consuming eyes, her mind racing to find a way to turn the tables.
9.5
On the day she discovers she is pregnant, Amara is handed divorce papers by the man she loved for three years. Betrayed by her husband and her best friend, she walks away with nothing-except the secret growing inside her.
But what Ethan Cole doesn't know is that the woman he abandoned is not weak... and not alone.
When Amara returns as a powerful heiress, no longer the woman he could control, Ethan begins to regret everything. But as secrets unravel and the truth about her pregnancy comes closer to light, one question remains-
When he finally finds out the child is his... will it already be too late?
9.5
My husband, Colton, the Wall Street mogul, slid annulment papers across the table, coldly discarding me and our unborn child. He thought he was getting rid of a useless wife, but he was actually throwing away the secret architect of his entire empire. Now, I'm ready to make him pay for every insult, every lie, and every single secret I've kept.
For three years, eight months pregnant, I secretly saved Colton's ten-billion-dollar company from collapse, enduring a cold, transactional marriage.
One night, he shattered that illusion, serving annulment papers and callously discarding me and our unborn child.
I signed, leaving luxury behind. Exposing his butler's fraud, I escaped. Colton later found his wedding ring gone and, on his desk, my SEC compliance fixes—proof I was his hidden genius.
Blindsided, he realized he’d destroyed his own empire. His mother then called, gloating. The injustice ignited a fierce resolve within me.
The next morning, I launched Kidd Legal Consulting. I'd use forty-seven folders of Farmer Capital's un-patched loopholes to force a fair settlement, securing my daughter's future.
8.1
He was powerful.
He was terrifying.
Said to be cruel and unjust...
7.1
After the one-night stand with a man who refused to tell her his name, Charlotte would figure out on TV that the man she had s*x with the previous night was the heir to a billionaire empire.
At the same time, Jace Norman-the infamous playboy heir-faces a public scandal that threatens his inheritance. To protect the family empire, his ruthless father forces him into an immediate contract marriage.
And just like that Charlotte would get married to the spoiled, reckless son of the most powerful billionaire in the city.
That One night, Room 55 and Five thousand dollars she desperately needed would change her life forever.
Weeks later, Charlotte discovers she's pregnant.
But before she can process the truth, her manipulative boyfriend claims the child is his and begins blackmailing her.
As their fake marriage becomes dangerously possessive, secrets begin to spiral. An ex-boyfriend demanding money. Jace's jealous college lover is determined to destroy Charlotte. Charlotte's sister is hiding betrayal behind sweet smiles. And a billionaire father who will eliminate anyone to protect the Norman name.
When a forged DNA test claims the baby isn't Jace's, the empire turns on Charlotte.
But the truth is far darker than any of them realize.
Because someone has been orchestrating every lie from the beginning.
And when Jace finally discovers the baby is his...
He will have to choose between his father's empire-
Or the woman carrying his heir.
9.8
I spent ten years locked in an asylum, heavily sedated, until my wealthy family dragged me back to their Hamptons estate. I pretended to be a brain-damaged lunatic to survive.
They didn't bring me back out of love. The Holden family was bleeding money, and they desperately needed me dead to inherit my massive trust fund shares.
My step-cousin Cristian was the mastermind behind the purge. First, he tried to quietly murder our billionaire grandfather with a mutated toxic orchid. Then, he ordered a guard to drop a deadly Gaboon viper into my bedroom in the dead of night. My father was a spineless coward, my mother was drugged into a stupor by the family doctor, and my brother was a crippled addict. They all stood by as I was thrown into the freezing mud, treated like garbage.
"She is a disgrace to this family! Get her back to the asylum immediately!"
My uncle roared, completely unaware that my brain was forged in a decade of clandestine warfare. But the strangest part wasn't my hidden combat skills. It was that my blood relatives could suddenly hear my cold, tactical inner thoughts.
Through my silent, telepathic broadcasts, I exposed Cristian's poison to my grandfather, woke my mother from her chemical haze, and turned my paralyzed brother into a ruthless, blood-soaked protector. Still playing the shivering, crazy girl, I smiled in the dark. The real war had just begun.