Chapter 8: The First Regret?

Fedora stared out of the floor-to-ceiling window of her penthouse, the city lights blinking like a million tiny promises. From here, she could see everything—the world she had conquered, the empire she had built. And yet, tonight, all she could feel was the weight of it pressing down on her.

The latest scandal had died down, but the damage was done. It wasn’t just the media frenzy or the legal maneuvers—it was something deeper. A crack in the foundation she had spent years perfecting.

For the first time in a long time, Fedora asked herself a question she had always avoided: Had she built a business? Or a prison?

The money flowed effortlessly. Another client. Another contract. Another staged engagement, perfectly curated to withstand scrutiny before dissolving on schedule. It was a flawless system—one that had made her rich, powerful, and untouchable.

But it was also a system that never let her leave.

The irony was sharp. She had designed Bridal Fix to give men an easy exit, an escape from inconvenient realities. But what about her? Where was her escape?

Tyler’s words still echoed in her mind, years later. “You’re not attractive to me again.” And Cynthia’s cruel laughter: “Fedora, you wasted time. He needed it now, and I was available.”

They had made her feel like she wasn’t enough. That she wasn’t beautiful enough, wasn’t worthy enough, wasn’t someone a man would choose and keep. And so, she had built Bridal Fix—not just to profit off men who needed a wife for convenience but to remind herself, over and over again, that she was desirable. That she was worth choosing, even if only for a little while.

But was she happy?

She had learned to wear the role like a second skin—charming, poised, the picture of the perfect partner. But the moment the deal was done, the moment the papers were signed and the payments cleared, she was alone again. No real attachments. No real love. Just a rotation of temporary vows and fleeting affection.

She had spent years proving a point. But had she won?

Or had she just built herself a prison?

***

A new request landed on her desk that morning—a billionaire in need of a discreet wife for six months, just long enough to secure an inheritance clause. The contract was lucrative, the kind of deal she should have been excited about.

Instead, she felt nothing.

Nothing but exhaustion.

That night, she dreamed of a different Fedora. A woman who had chosen a simpler path. A woman who had fallen in love for real, who didn’t have to rehearse wedding vows like lines in a script, who didn’t measure relationships by billable hours.

In the dream, she wasn’t negotiating terms or analyzing the length of a contract. There were no expiration dates, no carefully drafted exit strategies. Just love—pure, uncalculated, unbought. She wasn’t someone’s temporary solution; she was someone’s only choice. And for the first time in a long while, she felt weightless.

She woke up with an unfamiliar sensation curling in her chest—regret.

It unnerved her. She had never regretted a deal before. Not when she signed her first contract. Not when she slipped off her first wedding ring. Not when she walked away from clients, from marriages, from lives that had never really been hers.

But this time, she wasn’t walking away. She was standing still. And that was far worse.

Her parents had married well. Not for convenience. Not for image. They had married for love, the kind that still lingered in the way her mother spoke of her father, even years after his death. She had grown up watching a man put his wife first, cherishing her like she was the rarest jewel in the world. He had looked at her mother as if she were the center of his existence, as if no other woman could compare—not in beauty, not in spirit, not in presence.

That was the love she wanted. The love she had never found.

She wanted a man who would make her his first priority, who would worship the very ground she walked on. A man who would hold her like she was the most precious thing he had ever touched, love her like his life depended on it. She wanted to be the woman a man looked at—even in a room full of the most beautiful women, even in a sea of Nollywood’s most revered goddesses—and see only her.

But that wasn’t her reality. Instead, she had built an empire where love was a transaction, where devotion had an expiration date, where she was never anyone’s forever.

And for the first time, she wasn’t sure if she had won the game she had so carefully mastered—or if she had lost something far more important in the process. 

***

She picked up her phone, her fingers hovering over a name she hadn’t dialed in years.

Tyler.

She didn’t love him. She didn’t even hate him anymore. But he was real. And real felt like a foreign concept in her world of rehearsed emotions and contractual affections.

Two weeks ago, he had found her. After all these years, after all the damage, he had stood before her with the same pleading eyes, the same voice that once made promises and broke them just as easily. He had asked for forgiveness and told her about the divorce proceedings between him and Cynthia—as if that changed anything, as if it erased the past.

For a moment, a dangerous moment, she considered it. Reaching out. Asking him for a drink, a conversation, a glimpse into a life she had long since buried.

But then she remembered.

She remembered the hollow ache of betrayal, the nights she spent questioning her worth, the whispers of self-doubt that had taken root in her soul like a poison. She remembered walking in on them—her best friend and the man who had sworn she was his world. She remembered the sharp sting of humiliation, the way they had both looked at her, as if she were the fool for ever believing in something so fragile as love. She could remember, like yesterday, the hollow feeling of depression, anxiety, and frustration she went through those months. How she became anorexic by default. Food was foreign to her - she couldn't keep anything but liquids down. Talk about the therapy sessions. The hell she went through is not something that can leave her consciousness, no matter the time given for healing. The job she lost as a result of the trauma she went through? Countless times, she contemplated self-harm. The list is endless!

No.

Time had lessened the pain, but it had not erased the lessons.

The lesson learned is one hundred percent engraved in her mind and cannot be erased. No matter how many times she tried, the memory remained vivid, even though she doesn't feel too hurt by it anymore; yet, it is as sharp as a two-edged sword in her mind.

'Once bitten, twice shy,' they say.

But to Fedora, once was a mistake. Twice? Was definitely a sin!

Some doors should remain closed, some bridges should stay burned, and some people should never be given a second chance to wound you. The past had already taken enough from her—her trust, her innocence, and the girl who once believed love was real and could be unbreakable.

She put the phone down. This wasn’t about Tyler. It wasn’t even about the business.

It was about Fedora.

Had she spent so long pretending to be someone else that she no longer knew who she was? Had she built her empire not just as a business but as a shield—one that kept her safe from the vulnerability of ever being truly seen, truly loved, truly hurt again?

The question lingered in the air, unanswered.

And for the first time, Fedora wasn’t sure if she wanted to know the answer.