Too Late For Regret: The Ruthless Wife
My sister stripped me of my entire life in a single night. She bought out my company, froze my bank accounts, and left me with absolutely nothing.
As a final twisted psychological test, she forced me into a hyper-realistic VR simulation. When I opened my eyes, I was trapped in the body of "Heloise Vance"—a miserable, bullied wife in the elite Mercer family.
My new reality was an absolute nightmare. My alcoholic husband lunged at me with his fists.
"You think you run this house? You're my wife. You do what I say."
My tyrannical mother-in-law raised her hand to slap me, treating me worse than a stray dog while demanding I serve them.
Even my parasitic biological parents showed up at the estate, demanding a million dollars to cover up my brother's crimes, threatening to ruin me if I didn't pay.
They all looked at me with pure contempt, expecting me to cower, cry, and beg for mercy just like the real Heloise always did.
They thought I was just a weak, helpless punching bag they could abuse without consequence.
But they didn't know the soul inside this body had changed.
I wasn't the pathetic Heloise; I was Cora Sawyer, the ruthless heir to a corporate empire.
If my sister wanted me to play this sick survival game to escape, I would gladly burn the entire Mercer family to the ground first.
Chapters
Share
Chapter 6
The morning sun streamed through the massive windows of the Vance estate living room.
Cora sat on the white leather sofa, her legs crossed. She held a porcelain cup of black coffee in one hand and a financial magazine in the other. She looked completely relaxed.
The heavy front doors swung open.
Leland walked in. He reeked of cheap cologne and stale alcohol. Clinging to his arm was a young woman in a skin-tight pink dress. Her blonde hair was teased high, and her makeup was heavy.
This was Brandi. Leland's mistress.
Leland had brought her to the main house to reassert his dominance after the humiliation at the wedding. He wanted to see Cora break.
Several maids were dusting the room. They froze, lowering their heads, pretending not to see the scandalous scene.
Brandi swayed her hips as she walked over to the sofa. She sat down right on the armrest next to Leland, crossing her legs to show off her thighs. She looked at Cora with a smug, challenging smirk.
Cora didn't look up. She slowly turned a page of her magazine.
Brandi's smile faltered. She hated being ignored. She dramatically raised her right hand and fluttered her fingers near her face.
"Oh, Leland, honey," Brandi cooed in a high-pitched, grating voice. "This bracelet is just so heavy. It's exhausting wearing it."
She thrust her wrist forward, right into Cora's line of sight. A thick, gold bracelet covered in diamonds glittered in the sunlight. It was shaped like a panther.
"Cartier," Brandi announced loudly, making sure the maids heard. "Limited edition. One hundred and eighty thousand dollars. Leland says I'm the only woman who deserves it." She looked at Cora's bare wrists and laughed. "I guess some wives just aren't worth the investment."
Leland puffed his chest out. He pulled a cigar from his pocket and bit the end off, waiting for Cora to burst into tears.
Cora finally lowered her magazine.
She looked at the bracelet. Her eyes locked onto the stones for exactly two seconds. With her advanced degree in gemology, it took her less than a heartbeat to spot the flaws.
Cora let out a soft, breathy laugh. She set her coffee cup down on the glass table.
She stood up and walked over to Brandi. She looked down at the mistress.
Suddenly, Cora's hand shot out. She grabbed Brandi's wrist in an iron grip.
Brandi yelped in pain. "Hey! Let go of me!"
Leland frowned and took a step forward. "Heloise, back off-"
Cora ignored him. She used her free hand to tap a manicured fingernail against the largest "diamond" on the panther's head.
"Notice the fire," Cora said. Her voice was loud and clear, carrying across the entire living room. "See how the light refracts blue and yellow? A natural South African diamond reflects white and gray. This is Moissanite. Cheap, synthetic Moissanite."
Brandi's face paled. She tried to yank her arm away, but Cora held it tight.
"It's the lighting in here!" Brandi stammered.
Cora twisted Brandi's wrist over, exposing the inside of the band. She pointed her finger at the engraved logo.
"Look closely," Cora commanded. "An authentic Cartier piece has a hidden security mark inside the 'C'. This one is blank." Cora traced the letters. "And the engraving of the logo is wrong. The tail of the letter 'r' should have a nearly imperceptible, elegant curve. This one is completely straight. It's a detail only the highest-end forgeries miss."
A maid standing near the fireplace let out a loud snort, quickly covering her mouth to stifle her laughter.
Cora delivered the final blow. She hefted the bracelet slightly. "And the weight is completely wrong. This isn't eighteen-karat gold. It's gold-plated brass. The plating is already rubbing off on the clasp."
She let go of Brandi's arm and took a step back. Reaching over to the glass coffee table, she pulled a tissue from a dispenser and meticulously wiped every single finger, looking at Brandi like she was carrying a disease.
Brandi clutched her wrist against her chest. Her face was stark white. She looked up at Leland, her eyes wide with panic. "Leland? You said..."
Leland's face went from pale to a deep, ugly crimson. The cigar fell from his lips and bounced on the rug.
He had bought the fake on the black market for five hundred dollars. He thought his stupid, uneducated wife would never know the difference. Now, he was exposed as a cheap fraud in front of his staff.
His fragile ego shattered.
"Shut up!" Leland roared at Brandi.
He lunged forward and slapped Brandi hard across the face. The sound cracked through the room.
Brandi screamed and fell onto the floor.
"Get out of my house, you stupid cow!" Leland screamed, his veins popping.
Brandi scrambled to her feet, sobbing hysterically. She ran for the front door, her heels clicking wildly. She tripped, losing one shoe, but didn't stop. The heavy door slammed shut behind her.
Leland stood in the middle of the room, breathing heavily. His fists were clenched.
Cora picked up her coffee cup. She took a slow sip.
"Your taste in women," Cora said softly, "is exactly like your bank account. Cheap and fake."
She turned and walked up the grand staircase, leaving Leland standing in the ruins of his pride.
You may also like
8.1
She thought patience would earn her love.
She was wrong.
After years of waiting for her best friend to finally see her, she meets the one man she should never want-his older brother. Dark, forbidden, and dangerously perceptive, he sees through every excuse she's ever made for being overlooked.
Now she must choose between a safe fantasy that keeps breaking her heart and a dangerous truth that offers no escape once it begins.
Because the brother who looks at her like that?
He doesn't believe in halfway love.
9.6
Areli was the hardest-working medic in the Blackridge Clan, but her efforts only earned her the title of a useless burden.
Her supposed lover, Eugene, and her senior mentor, Gloria, lured her to the edge of the deadly Blackwind Cliff and shoved her straight into the abyss.
She miraculously survived the freefall, only to return and find Gloria standing before the entire clan, wearing a mask of fake sorrow.
"Look! The traitor is back! She eloped with wild males!" Gloria shrieked.
Eugene stepped up, looking heartbroken, and publicly accused her of betraying his love.
The crowd erupted, raining hisses and boos upon her, completely ignoring the horrific, life-threatening bruises that covered her battered body.
They blindly believed the lies, treating her like garbage while Gloria secretly plotted to poison her water and destroy her completely.
Areli felt a chilling sense of betrayal. How could the man who claimed to love her watch her fall with such cold eyes?
To make matters worse, her modern biochemist instincts revealed a terrifying truth: she was unexpectedly pregnant with the child of a savage Warlord she had encountered in the wild.
In this brutal, primitive world, showing any weakness was an absolute death sentence.
But she wasn't going to cower or run away.
Refusing the Warlord's offer to simply rescue her, Areli calmly placed a highly toxic herb on her drying rack and left her tent flap open.
The bait was set. Now, she just had to wait for the screams.
9.5
Carin survived a horrific escape pod crash only to wake up in the mud of an uncharted, barbaric alien planet.
Before she could even process the pain of her fractured ribs, she was captured by towering, wolf-headed warriors who stripped her of her protective gear and threw her into a filthy slave pen.
Because she lacked animal ears and a tail, the clan's arrogant elites mocked her as a repulsive deformity, beating her with spears and forcing her to shovel toxic dung in the deadly Blade Beast pens.
The other female laborers violently bullied her and stole her only scraps of food, leaving her starving and defenseless in a brutal society where the strong preyed on the weak.
"If you're unclaimed at the mating ceremony, they force you into the breeding program, and you'll be nothing but a vessel until you die."
She was terrified, exhausted, and completely unequipped to survive this nightmare, but after a miraculous farming system suddenly awakened in her mind, she knew she desperately needed a powerful shield to protect her secret from the greedy tribe.
During the chaotic mating ceremony, amidst the cruel laughter of the entire clan, she stepped directly in front of Brannon—a terrifying, sterile, mutant outcast despised by everyone—and boldly claimed the deadly warrior as her mate.
9.1
The best way to get back at a cheating bastard? Make him sick to his stomach for the rest of his life!
Days before her wedding, Corinne caught her fiancé cheating with his coworker in what she thought was their future home.
Furious, she tore everything apart, ended the engagement, and decided on a bold revenge plan.
To make him regret it for life, she set her sights on marrying his powerful uncle. Confident in her scheme, she tried to win over the cold, untouchable man, only to realize too late that she had mistaken his identity.
The man she married was far more dangerous than she imagined!
Corinne decided to make a quick escape. "Let's get a divorce. We're clearly not right for each other... "
He cornered her with a knowing smile, "Not right for each other? Funny, that's not what you said last night in bed. Want me to remind you how wrong you are?"
7.0
My marriage ended at a charity gala I organized. One moment, I was the pregnant, happy wife of tech mogul Gabe Sullivan; the next, a reporter' s phone screen announced to the world that he and his childhood sweetheart, Harper, were expecting a child.
Across the room, I saw them together, his hand resting on her stomach. This wasn't just an affair; it was a public declaration that erased me and our unborn baby.
To protect his company's billion-dollar IPO, Gabe, his mother, and even my own adoptive parents conspired against me. They moved Harper into our home, into my bed, treating her like royalty while I became a prisoner.
They painted me as unstable, a threat to the family's image. They accused me of cheating and claimed my child wasn't his.
The final command was unthinkable: terminate my pregnancy. They locked me in a room and scheduled the procedure, promising to drag me there if I refused.
But they made a mistake. They gave me back my phone to keep me quiet. Feigning surrender, I made one last, desperate call to a number I had kept hidden for years-a number belonging to my biological father, Antony Dean, the head of a family so powerful, they could make my husband's world burn.
9.8
I was an unwanted foster kid taken in by the Goodwin family, about to marry into the wealthy Cantu family to secure my adoptive father's power.
But at my rehearsal dinner, my adoptive mother drugged my champagne, intending to have me assaulted and ruined.
The next morning, my fiancé and my sister burst into my hotel room with a swarm of reporters, pointing fingers in manufactured horror.
"You filthy whore! The engagement is over!"
My fiancé roared for the cameras, while my sister sobbed about my betrayal. They had brought the press to publicly slaughter me, justifying their own secret affair while my adoptive family cursed me as a disgusting stray.
For years, I had endured their toxic abuse, only to be thrown to the wolves so my sister could steal my life. They truly believed I was just a helpless pawn they could crush and discard.
But they didn't know I had anticipated their trap and deliberately walked into the bed of Dorian Underwood—the ruthless billionaire and the only man the Cantu family actually feared.
As I calmly hit 'send' to broadcast my fiancé's explicit sex tape to every reporter in the hallway, I met Dorian's dark, predatory gaze.
I wasn't just surviving anymore; I was going to tear both their empires to the ground.