Too Late To Want Me Back, Ex Husband!
For five years, Elara was the "peasant" wife, the woman who gave her kidney to save Shawn's life, only to be rewarded with his cold indifference and his family's verbal abuse. She was the dutiful housewife, hiding her true identity as the world's most feared cybersecurity genius, and the secret heiress to a global empire. She stayed for love. She stayed for the hope of a family.
But hope dies in a cold swimming pool.
When Shawn pushes a pregnant Elara into the water to save his mistress, he not only breaks her heart, he kills the only thing she had left to love.
Waking up in a hospital bed with an empty womb and a frozen heart, Elara is done playing nice. As Shawn prepares to discard her for his mistress, he's met not with a weeping wife, but with the arrival of five of the most powerful men in the world-Elara's brothers.
Now, the "peasant" is the predator. While Shawn's empire begins to crumble under a mysterious cyber-attack, he finds himself desperately chasing the woman he once despised. But Elara has already moved on to a man who never had to be taught her value.
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Chapter 7
SHAWN
It was Cassius's dry chuckle that finally broke the heavy silence in the room.
"Well, I'll be damned," he muttered, the words thick with cynical amusement. Another of those grating laughs escaped his lips before he finally met my gaze-one that darted pointedly from my face to the torn divorce papers littered across the ground.
"There is more from where that came from, Shawn," he said, his voice lowering. "Finally, you get to lie on the bed you have made for yourself. You, and your entire family. I don't think Silas Viking will be particularly happy when Elara tells him what she has gone through at both your hands and your family's. Neither would her brothers."
My mother paled even further as a small, pathetic squeak left her lips, her body still numb with the sheer force of the astonishing news.
Cassius turned on his heel to leave the room, and suddenly my tongue was loosened by the rising tide of panic.
"Why are you on her side?" I demanded. "Why will you prepare divorce papers for her? Do you like her, Cass?"
"Who wouldn't like Elara once they got to know her?" Cassius asked, turning aside just enough to fix a cold, pitying gaze on me. "You are the one that didn't know you had a diamond, and rather traded it for a mere, ugly stone..."
I heard Miranda's sharp intake of breath, the tiny whimper that followed immediately after, but I couldn't be bothered about her theatrics now. Instead, I closed the distance between my best friend and me, and grabbed his collar.
"Are you sleeping with my wife?"
"Are you deaf now, too?" Cassius's expression didn't even change in the slightest. "Either way, if it will soothe your queries, this is not the first time she asked for a divorce from you. She actually asked in the first year of your marriage..."
My hands fell off his collar limply, my arms coming to rest at my sides as the strength drained out of me. "What?"
"She mentioned you physically abused her?" Cassius shook his head, a look of profound disbelief crossing his features. "It was hard to believe that you would raise your hand on a woman, but knowing that you weren't pleased with the union, I was ready to save you both the stress... but she backed out the next day..."
When I brought her flowers.
I cussed mentally as I remembered that day with a sudden clarity. I looked at the screen again, and the dull ache in my chest increased until it was a physical weight.
How she had remained so docile, so quiet, while my family mistreated her for years eluded me. She was her father's jewel, for Christ's sake, and I had made a pathetic joke of her devotion... of her love.
Heavens, help me.
"Where is she!" I asked Cassius, my voice cracking with an urgency I hadn't felt in years.
He scoffed, the sound biting. "You want to know now? After you both threw her in the swimming pool and left her there to drown?"
How did he know that? My heart stuttered.
"There is no one foolish enough to antagonize your grandfather but you both, so I made the connection..." He paused, his jaw tightening as he gritted his teeth. "You are evil, Shawn. Knowing she has a phobia for water... you are evil."
"She pushed Miranda into the water knowing she couldn't swim!" I roared back. Frustration boiled in my heart like acid, my fists clenching by my sides so hard my knuckles turned white.
Cassius looked gobsmacked. He darted a look of pure bewilderment between me and Miranda's trembling form. "Miranda can't swim? Is that a joke, or what?"
My mother frowned. "She can't swim, Cassius. Truly."
Cassius looked at her with a loaded disgust that my mother-who wasn't used to such a glance from the boy she had always called her second son-staggered back a little.
"Cassius..."
"Are you stupid, or what? Is Miranda's pussy that sweet?"
I opened my mouth to rebuke the vulgarity, but I shut it instantly when I saw the genuine, mocking bewilderment in his eyes.
He pointed a rigid finger at Miranda. "She won third place in the swimming meet back in high school. Or did you forget?"
I shook my head slowly, trying to push past the disorientation, trying to shove aside the terrifying possibility that Cassius was telling the truth. "That's... not..."
"True?" Cassius completed for me, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Ask her then. She is right behind you."
I turned slowly toward Miranda. She was already crying, her fists bunched together against her chest as if in a desperate plea.
"Can you swim?"
I hadn't cared much for swimming meets back in high school-I hadn't cared much for anything but myself, to be honest-so I hadn't known if she was a swimmer or not.
I only knew that when I had seen her drowning last night, I had acted on a mindless impulse. I had saved her and felt justified-satisfied, even-when I pushed Elara into the pool. I had felt like the righteous wielder of karma.
But now...
"Miranda, can't you speak?" my mother asked, her tone wavering. "Tell him the truth... there is nothing to fear."
"True," Cassius agreed with a lethal coldness. "Knowing I can dig into our records back in high school in a heartbeat."
That statement seemed to push Miranda over the edge. She dissolved into large, heaving sobs, but unlike before, where I would have hurried over and tried to make her feel better, where I would have cursed out whatever was making her sad-I remained standing. I waited for her to speak.
"Miranda, answer the question..." I demanded, my voice turning harsh as her whimpering continued.
She looked at me with wide, wet eyes, like she couldn't believe I was turning against her, but she gave a frantic nod regardless.
"The push was sudden..." she rattled on, the words tumbling out fast and desperate. "So I couldn't... I just..."
She started crying again, but the sound was hollow now.
Cassius scoffed. "If I should take a guess, I would say you pushed yourself into that water, knowing that my foolish friend would come and save you, and then you blamed Elara."
He scoffed again, moving toward the door. "I'm out of here. This place disgusts me."
It hurt to watch him leave. We have been friends since high school, and because of Elara, he believed I was a creature of disgust.
Yet, could his guess be right? I wondered, the memory of Elara's final words before I pushed her flashing in my mind. She had called me a pawn. Miranda's pawn.
I looked at Miranda. She was still weeping, but I felt no need to touch her or offer a shred of comfort.
"Shawn, you have to believe me, I didn't do it..."
I looked away from her, looked at my mother instead. She looked somewhat confused, regretful even, but I knew her better than that; it was only because Elara wasn't the peasant we all thought she was.
I knew my mother was far too materialistic to ignore the Viking name.
I ruffled my hair in a fit of agitation. I needed to see Elara. She still loved me-wasn't that why she hadn't divorced me that first year? I needed to get her to stop this madness of divorcing me. I immediately pulled out my phone and called the florist.
"Get me ten dozen of your best roses. Deep red. The Gracefilled Hospital."
I knew she was there; my grandfather had mentioned his visit. Before I could call the old man, his name flashed across the screen in an aggressive pulse. Oh well. He must have seen the news.
"You brat! Have you seen the news?" his voice thundered.
Words wouldn't leave my tongue.
"Now, I'm sure that your foolish mistress pushed herself into that water, then blamed it on Elara... that fool! You better hope she forgives you for not visiting her in the hospital... you better hope, or else... and I don't want to see that Miranda around you again!"
The call ended, and I shut my eyes tight, the darkness doing nothing to soothe the ache in my chest. What would he do if he knew that I was the one who had pushed my wife into that pool?
I inhaled deeply, trying to calm the frantic beating of my heart. She had to forgive me, at least this once. I needed a way into the Viking empire. I called back my father, my voice sounding like a stranger's.
"What's her room number?"
"Room B17," he answered, then hung up immediately.
I knew he was angry, too. I didn't blame him. I had messed up, badly.
"Shawny, where are you going? Are you going to leave me here?"
"I will be back soon," I said, walking out without a single glance at Miranda.
I needed to go get my wife back.
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7.2
For three years, I was imprisoned by Anderson Hopper, the monster who forced me to watch my fiancé, Kendall, plummet into a freezing river.
But when I saw the morning news, I realized Kendall wasn't dead. He had returned as Eben Gill, a ruthless tech billionaire.
I risked my life to escape and find him, only to be met with eyes full of absolute hatred.
He publicly humiliated me, dragged me to the exact bridge where he "died," and sneered at the C-section scar on my stomach.
"Anderson Hopper's bastard," he spat, completely unaware that the baby was actually his—the very child Anderson had murdered in the operating room to break me.
To make matters worse, Anderson used Kendall's dying mother as a hostage to force me back into my cage.
I knelt on the freezing asphalt, begging the man I loved to just visit his mother, while he coldly ordered his driver to run me over.
I had lost my baby, my freedom, and my dignity, all to protect him from Anderson's blackmail. Why was I the one being tortured and treated like a traitor?
"Don't think your little kneeling stunt earned you my forgiveness."
He whispered those cruel words before walking away without looking back.
Staring at his cold, retreating figure, the last shred of my love finally turned to ash.
That night, under the cover of a torrential storm, I bypassed the estate's laser grids and walked out into the dark.
8.2
Karmen lived suffocating under a tight chest binder and a grotesque silicone scar, forced to disguise herself as her degenerate twin brother, Kem. Her only job was to maintain a fake corporate engagement with the ruthless billionaire Earl Calderon.
But her abusive father suddenly escalated his demands. He ordered her to steal Earl's revolutionary AI patents, threatening to cut off her mother's life-saving medical trust and abandon the real Kem in a locked Swiss psych ward if she failed.
The task was a death sentence. Earl absolutely despised "Kem." He treated her like a repulsive parasite, constantly threatening to break her neck. When he accidentally caught her without her wig, he mistook her for a deranged cross-dresser, forcing her to glue the dirty fake scar back onto her raw, inflamed face in sheer disgust. At home, her father hurled glass ashtrays at her, violently yanking her collar.
"Do whatever you have to do in that bedroom, Kem. I don't care how disgusting it is. Just get the signature."
Trapped between a fiancé who loathed her very existence and a father ready to sacrifice their family for greed, Karmen endured the agonizing physical pain of her disguise. She was exhausted, terrified, and running out of time as her brother's life hung by a thread.
But they all underestimated her. When the Calderon matriarch forced Earl to link his ultra-secure private phone with "Kem" to fake their romance, she unwittingly handed over the master key. Karmen wasn't just a helpless victim; she was the elite hacker Nyx, and she was going to tear their empire apart from the inside.
9.2
Arla was supposed to marry Clinton Freeman, the perfect fiancé who had promised to love her and protect her five-year-old son.
But instead, the cold steel of a dagger pierced her chest.
As she collapsed onto the freezing basement floor, she watched her adoptive sister Blair laugh.
"Look at her," Blair sneered, kicking her son's small, blue, lifeless body.
Clinton stood there, calmly wiping the bloody blade on a pristine handkerchief.
In her dying moments, the horrifying truth became clear. Her fiancé and her adoptive family had been plotting all along to steal her massive trust fund.
To break her, they had secretly tortured her child. Clinton had watched Blair pierce the little boy's arms with sewing needles, rewarding him with candy to keep him silent.
Arla's lungs burned with the taste of copper and ash.
She couldn't understand why the family she trusted could be so monstrous, or why they had to brutally murder an innocent child just for money.
The darkness swallowed her whole, drowning her in suffocating hatred and absolute despair.
Then, she gasped for air.
The concrete floor was gone, replaced by the silk sheets of a hotel penthouse suite.
Arla had been reborn to the exact night six years ago—the very day Blair first dragged her son into the dark attic.
This time, she picked up a solid silver letter opener, ready to burn them all to the ground.
7.1
For six years, I was the perfect, obedient wife to billionaire Hartwell Ware, enduring his coldness because I thought my love could eventually thaw his heart.
Then, my friend sent me a photo. Hartwell was at the airport, tenderly holding the waist of his first love, Eveline Craig.
He came home smelling of her synthetic rose perfume, accused me of stalking him, and coldly demanded a divorce.
His lawyer handed me a thick settlement agreement. It offered astronomical alimony and luxury properties, but it came with a humiliating ten-page non-disclosure agreement.
He wanted to buy my silence. He wanted to strip me of my rights to our son and gag me permanently, just so he could parade his new life with Eveline without any PR backlash.
Even now, he still thought I was a gold digger who had orchestrated a media scandal to trap him into marriage.
I stared at the man I had worshipped for two thousand days. My six years of desperate devotion had been nothing but a humiliating, one-sided delusion.
Hope was finally dead, and with it, my tears had completely dried up.
He expected me to cry, to beg, to negotiate for more millions.
Instead, I snatched the pen, crossed out the massive alimony, and signed my name on the dotted line.
"I am taking the basic child support, and not a single red cent more."
Leaving my five-carat diamond ring on the marble table, I walked out the door with nothing but my old suitcase.
7.5
I spent ten years blindly devoted to my husband, Kyler, building a perfect life together.
When I went into premature labor, he held my hand and promised everything would be fine.
But the moment I woke up in the VIP delivery room, the doctor coldly declared my newborn daughter dead.
Kyler rushed in, his face a mask of grief, insisting on taking her body away immediately to handle the arrangements.
If I hadn't heard my supposedly dead baby's telepathic voice echoing in my head, I would have handed her over.
She told me Kyler had poisoned my prenatal vitamins to induce early labor.
He bribed the medical team to fake her death so he could harvest her rare stem cells to save his sick mistress.
And worse, he had pulled the security detail from our eight-year-old son's school.
He was letting cartel kidnappers take my boy just to force me to sign over my family's billionaire trust fund.
The man I kissed every morning was a monster wearing my husband's skin.
How could he smile at me while planning to murder our children and drain my family's wealth?
The sheer terror and betrayal tore my heart into a thousand jagged pieces.
But I didn't scream or confront him.
Instead, I faked a hysterical breakdown, clutched my baby tight, and quietly contacted my family's private mercenary team.
"File the injunctions. I want him destroyed by morning."
8.7
Adelia thought she was just heading upstairs to rest in the hotel suite arranged by her caring stepsister.
But her champagne had been heavily drugged. In the pitch-black room, her rational thoughts melted away as she was violently pulled into the darkness by a terrifying stranger.
The next morning, the heavy suite door was kicked open, and blinding camera flashes shattered her world.
Her fiancé stormed in, hurling their prenuptial agreement directly at her bleeding cheek.
"You make me sick! Violating our agreement like this. You are a disgusting, unfaithful whore!"
Her stepsister squeezed to the front of the crowd, crying perfectly rehearsed tears of horror for the tabloid reporters, while her eyes gleamed with pure, unadulterated triumph.
Desperate and trembling, Adelia begged her father for help, explaining she had been framed.
But her father, the family CEO, only cared about his plummeting stock prices. He coldly stripped her of her inheritance, froze her trust funds, and had massive security guards physically drag her out of Manhattan.
She hadn't just been betrayed; she had been completely slaughtered by the people she loved most. As the elevator plummeted toward the lobby, her tears dried into a bloody, silent vow.
Six years later, Adelia stepped out of JFK Airport, flanked by her terrifyingly smart six-year-old twins.
She was no longer a disgraced, pathetic victim. She had returned as a legendary, untouchable ghost surgeon, ready to rip her family's empire apart.
And her very first move involves saving the life of the ruthless Wall Street predator who ruined her that night.