Too Late to Regret: The Dead Wife Who Owns His Empire Now
Damien Hayes was a workaholic, and as an illegitimate son who had clawed his way to the top, he seemed to care about nothing but Hayes Realty.
For three years of marriage, Lydia Carter had always been waiting for him.
She waited during dates, waited on anniversaries, waited for prenatal checkups, and even waited for the surgical abortion.
What she finally received was a livestream of Damien throwing an extravagant birthday celebration for another woman.
Devastated, she was caught in a chain car accident, convincing Damien that she had died with the wreck.
Yet Lydia survived against all odds and unexpectedly became the sole heir of the world's richest man.
The moment she set foot back on her homeland, she swore she would make Damien taste a pain sharp enough to pierce the heart.
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Chapter 4
Raging flames tore through half the sky. Some people were shouting in shock, others gasping desperately for air.
These were the final fragments of memory after the violent collision.
Lydia's eyelids fluttered again and again, yet it felt as though her entire body was restrained, unable to move no matter how hard she tried.
She faintly heard voices speaking, unfamiliar ones, laced with foreign accents.
"She's suffered extreme psychological shock. Instinctively, she doesn't want to wake up, but physically, she's mostly out of danger."
"You mean she could wake up at any time? That's wonderful."
"No, no. What I mean is, she may also never wake up."
Those words yanked Lydia's drifting consciousness back in an instant. Her heart clenched, her fingers twitched slightly, and she snapped her eyes open.
White filled her vision. Slowly, it sharpened into focus. A high ceiling, walls so starkly white they sent a chill through her.
Standing before her was a doctor with a high-bridged nose and deep-set features. His striking blue eyes carried an inexplicable calm.
Meeting her gaze, he shrugged lightly and smiled toward the young man standing beside him.
"Oh, I lost. She woke up this quickly. Looks like the shock wasn't quite enough."
Lydia struggled to sit up, but her body had no strength. She quickly fell back onto the bed.
The young man reached out at once to steady her, his voice gentle and calm. "Careful."
Lydia blinked, utterly confused by the situation before her. Memories began surfacing bit by bit, and she parted her lips involuntarily.
The sound that came out was hoarse, completely unlike her former voice.
"I… wasn't I dead?"
The doctor's smile deepened as he suddenly leaned closer. "Yes, ma'am. But I pulled you back from Death himself."
He picked up a stack of documents from the bedside, his expression turning serious. "Any interest in signing my hospital on as the Sterling family's permanent private medical facility?"
The young man quickly stepped in to stop him. "Stop messing around, Henry."
......
It took Lydia some time to piece together everything that had happened.
The young man's name was Julian Sterling.
At the moment the horrific crash occurred, Julian's car had been right behind hers.
He and several others quickly got out to help, but the fire was too intense. They barely managed to drag Lydia out of the car and move her to safety.
The violent impact left Lydia unconscious. She had suffered severe head trauma, along with burns to her shoulder, elbow, and other areas.
In fact, she had been undergoing emergency treatment at this private hospital overseas for a full three months.
Lydia listened to all of this in a daze.
After a long while, she looked up at Julian in confusion.
"You saved me… then why didn't you take me to a nearby hospital? Why bring me overseas? M-my husband… where is he?"
Thinking of Damien, her throat tightened. She suddenly grabbed Julian's arm.
"He doesn't know I'm here, does he? Otherwise, he would have come looking for me."
But after hearing that, Julian's expression darkened visibly.
He lowered his shoulders slightly and turned on the television.
Over the past few months, he had recorded every piece of news related to Lydia. Now, he played them for her one by one, in chronological order.
When the obituary for Lydia was released, she was visibly stunned.
"He… he thinks I'm dead?"
Soon, she grew increasingly silent.
She watched the funeral end in haste. Damien held a black umbrella, leaving shoulder to shoulder with Ava.
She watched Damien mention her in front of reporters, his expression heavy with grief, though the wedding ring was long gone from his finger.
Lydia trembled as tears fell onto the blanket. She rubbed the wedding ring still on her finger.
Julian hesitated before speaking.
"Actually, more than half a year ago, I started tracking your life. I knew very clearly what you were going through, and what had been happening."
He pulled out a stack of photos and placed them in front of Lydia.
In those photos, there were shots of Damien holding Ava, and others of him bending down to wipe sweat from a little boy's forehead…
As Lydia looked at them, an uncontrollable chill spread through her body, leaving her shaking.
"This is… this is Ava's child."
Julian corrected her calmly. "No. In fact, this is Damien and Ava's child. He was born one year after your marriage. He's two years old now."
The truth drained all color from Lydia's face.
One year after the marriage.
While she had been full of hope, baking small treats for their newlywed life and ironing Damien's suits, he had already been with Ava.
Those photos laid bare every hollow moment and hidden underside of the past three years.
During the moments she waited for Damien, he had been staying close and intimate with Ava.
Her teeth chattered uncontrollably.
She remembered waking up groggily late at night for water, seeing Damien come upstairs in his pajamas.
He had answered so casually, "Couldn't sleep. Just walking around."
In reality, Ava had already been staying in a room downstairs at the time.
Lydia's tears wouldn't stop falling. She wiped them away, only for more to spill over again.
For the first time, Lydia felt grateful that she was still alive. Otherwise, she would have died without ever knowing the truth.
Yet confusion slowly spread through her heart.
She looked straight at Julian. "Why were you tracking me?"
Julian pulled out a chair and sat down. His gaze and tone had never been more focused.
"Do you know Richard Sterling?"
Lydia grew even more confused, but answered honestly. "Yes. The world's richest man. An elderly tycoon. What does that have to do with me?"
Julian said quietly, "It has everything to do with you. He's the one who's been looking for you. For more than twenty years."
"Looking for me?"
Julian nodded.
"Lydia, your mother was Richard's only daughter. He has no other children. Which means you are now his only granddaughter."
Lydia stared at him in shock. How was that possible?
She remembered countless times when her father, drunk, had pointed at her and cursed, saying her mother was nothing but a poor, short-lived woman who sold drinks.
How could that possibly be connected to the world's richest man?
But the look Julian gave her was utterly serious.
"I followed you for half a year. All the investigation files and biological verification results prove it."
He reached out and took her ice-cold hand in his.
"He's been waiting for you all this time."
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9.2
In LA's Business world, Zane Calloway, thirty, turns cartel king after his father's gruesome murder, ruling The Atlas Group with a bloody fist. He learned how betrayal could ruin even the biggest empire and was hell bent on keeping Atlas Group. However when Sienna Carter, his new assistant got in the picture, he threw caution to the wind. To become the only one controlling the cartel, he would use Sienna who was a supposedly ghost from a dead cartel as bait for his enemies. Sienna Carter made his mission become even more complicated as she ignites a dangerous sparks in him. Twenty-five year old Sienna Carter just wanted to stay alive, running away from danger had been the only thing she was capable of since her family were murdered. All she had as a semblance of her old life was the locket her dying father had given her and when a new job pops up in Los Angeles, she gambled for it, hoping for her sake that it wouldn't lead her straight to the same hell she was running from.
However, she would soon realize that the Atlas Groups was going to be more than just a survival decision but the key to everything.
8.7
To escape my toxic ex-fiancé and the father who froze my assets, I entered a contract marriage with Barrett, a cold but protective corporate consultant.
I thought he was my safe harbor. I even confided my secret, ruthless strategy to take back control of my company from my ex.
But at the most critical board meeting, a mysterious new chairman dialed in.
The synthesized voice coming through the speakerphone systematically dismantled the board and took over the company, using the exact, word-for-word strategy I had only ever whispered to my husband in the dead of night.
My ex-fiancé turned pale with panic. The board members were stunned into silence.
And I sat there, my blood running completely cold.
The man who had held my hand in the hospital, who had slept in my bed, and who had promised to protect me, had just committed the ultimate corporate espionage.
Every tender touch, every late-night confession—was it all just a calculated move to steal my life's work? How could the only person who made me feel safe use my deepest vulnerabilities to orchestrate my ruin?
I packed up my files, walked straight out of that boardroom, and prepared to disappear from his life forever.
But when I fled to my best friend's apartment to hide, I looked out the window.
The ruthless mastermind who had just stolen my empire was standing completely still in the freezing downpour, waiting for me to come down.
8.6
Four years ago, I melted my skin into the asphalt to pull Julian Moretti from a burning wreckage. I spent years in the shadows, nursing him back to health, hiding my scars while he reclaimed his title as the Underboss of New York.
But on the way to our wedding, everything shattered.
Estelle Russo, the woman who caused the crash that ruined me, complained of a stomach ache in the limousine. Julian didn't hesitate.
He ordered the driver to stop on the shoulder of the highway.
"Get out," he barked at me, his eyes cold.
He forced me out of the car in my wedding gown, leaving me stranded in the dust and exhaust fumes just so Estelle could lie down on the seat.
"Take a cab to the church," he sneered before speeding away.
He didn't just leave me on the road; he abandoned me at the altar to hold the hand of the woman who had once tried to kill him. He called our relationship a "debt" he was tired of paying.
I stood there, the lace of my dress heavy with humiliation, realizing I was never his Queen—I was just his collateral damage.
I didn't call a taxi. Instead, I pulled a burner phone from my bodice and dialed the one number that would end his reign.
"The deal is live," I whispered. "He chose her."
I stripped off the wedding dress, climbed over the guardrail, and stepped into the black sedan waiting to take me to his greatest enemy.
7.6
I am the illegitimate, mute daughter of the wealthy Owen family, kept hidden in the attic like a shameful secret.
To save his failing company, my father decided to sell me off to a repulsive, predatory investor named Grossman.
At the family dinner, Grossman's sweaty hands roamed my bare legs while my half-sister Kaleigh intentionally spilled red wine on my dress, laughing as she watched me suffer.
When I grabbed a steak knife to defend myself, my father slammed his fist on the table.
"Sit down, or I will cut off the maintenance payments for your mother's grave."
My stepmother and sister sneered, treating me like a piece of meat meant to be sacrificed for their luxury. I was starved, locked away, and treated worse than a stray dog, all while my family paraded their high-society status to the world.
I couldn't understand why they hated me so deeply, or who really ordered the hit that killed my mother twenty years ago. The police reports were buried, and I was entirely powerless, trapped in a house of monsters.
But they didn't know that the night before, I had accidentally stumbled into the secret life of Burleigh Livingston—the ruthless, supposedly paralyzed billionaire who was faking his madness.
When Burleigh suddenly crashed our family dinner and threw a limitless Black Card on the table to outbid Grossman and buy me for the night, I didn't hesitate.
I grabbed the handles of his wheelchair, accepted his twisted deal, and prepared to use the devil himself to tear my family apart.
9.7
Elena Whitmore always knew falling for her brother's best friend was a mistake. But one stolen night with Grayson Hale changed everything, and cost her more than she ever imagined.
When he vanished without a word, she buried the past and built a life no one could touch. A life that included a daughter Grayson has never known.
Five years later, he's back. Wealthier. Colder. Determined to uncover why she disappeared, and why she's engaged to a man she doesn't love.
As old sparks ignite and buried truths begin to surface, Elena must decide if protecting her secrets is worth sacrificing the only man she ever loved.
7.2
Ade had sacrificed the life she loved, the things she liked doing to please James. But it was never enough for him. Somehow, the one woman he just couldn't get, was the price, she was the gem.
And so once the opportunity presented itself, Ade became a past chapter of his life. A reject.
Betrayed and scorned, Ade is on a quest to reclaim her life back and face off adversaries.
But now what is she to do with the two men in front of her. One of them her ex James who can't seem to forget her and keeps stepping in her way, and the other, a billionaire who wants her at all costs.