All Chapters of FORSAKEN WIFE, NOW A BILLIONAIRE'S GREATEST REGRET: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

“He’ll come around, Mom. He just needs time.”LJ’s voice was soft, meant to be comforting, but it grated against the raw silence of the house. He had come back. Not the furious son from the hospital, but a weary man trying to glue the pieces of his family back together. He’d found me on the deck, sitting in the same chair Arthur and I had shared for decades, staring at a sunset that held no beauty, only the memory of what was lost.“Time,” I repeated, the word tasting like dust. “Time doesn’t rewrite history, LJ. It just makes the ink more permanent.” I gestured to the tablet on the table between us, its screen dark but holding the digital ghost of my confession. “That is permanent. What I did to him in that warehouse is permanent.”“You saved Chloe,” he insisted, his voice gaining a little steel. “You made an impossible choice. Dad knows that. He’s just… he’s traumatized.”“He’s not the only one,” I said, finally looking at him. The sympathy in his eyes was a new kind of agony. I did

The slam of the beach house door was a period at the end of a fifty-year sentence. I didn't look back. The salt-laced wind whipped at my hair and clothes, but I felt nothing. I was a ghost, untethered from my own history.I heard the door open behind me. "Mom, wait!" LJ's voice was strained, torn between the father crumbling inside and the mother walking away.I kept walking towards the dark car where Michael stood waiting, a silent sentinel. "Stay with your father, LJ," I said without turning. "The children need you here.""Where are you going?" he called out, desperation edging his voice.I had no answer. Home was a crime scene. The foundation was a lie. My marriage was a ruin. There was nowhere to go."Just drive, Michael," I said, sliding into the back seat. "Anywhere."We drove in silence for an hour, the city lights giving way to the darker, winding roads of the coastal hills. My mind was a static hum, a defense against the cataclysm. The photograph was seared onto my retina: my

“It’s not just about the money, Gwen. It’s about the poison.”Maria’s voice was flat, final, through the polished wood of the boardroom door. I stood alone in the hallway, the silence after the lock turned more deafening than any press corps. They were in there, deciding to euthanize my life’s work. Alistair hadn’t just funded the foundation; he had tainted it, turning every dollar of his donation into a venom that was now shutting down its heart.I couldn’t move. To go back out the service entrance was to walk into a gauntlet of cameras waiting for a glimpse of my defeat. To stay here was to bear witness to the final heartbeat of the foundation. I was trapped in the sterile, empty artery of a dying institution.The soft chime of the service elevator made me flinch. The doors slid open, and Michael stepped out, his expression grim. But he wasn’t alone.A woman followed him. She was perhaps in her late sixties, dressed in a simple, elegant black coat that spoke of understated wealth, n

The chorus of "ayes" was not unanimous, but it was decisive. The battle was joined. The air in the boardroom, once thick with funeral dirge, now crackled with the volatile energy of a war council.Maria’s gaze was no longer one of a subordinate, but of a field marshal. “Gerald, you’ll liaise with Lawrence. I want a preliminary injunction to freeze any attempt by Finch to withdraw his funds. We’ll argue they were acquired through fraud and are now evidence. Maria, you and communications will draft a holding statement. We are not commenting on Gwen’s personal history. We are announcing that the foundation is the victim of a malicious, targeted attack and we are pursuing all legal avenues.”She turned to me. “And you. You’re our chief witness. You’ll need to be prepped. Extensively. Every interaction, every email, every memory of Alistair Finch from law school to now. They will come at you, Gwen. They will drag everything about your life, your marriage, your son, through the mud. This wi

The "war room" fell into a hushed, focused rhythm. LJ, his initial storm quelled, was now hunched over a laptop with Maria, his legal mind—a quieter, more analytical version of my own—kicking in as he helped parse the public relations strategy. Lawrence was a whirlwind of legal jargon on the phone, and Eleanor stood sentinel at the whiteboard, a grim architect of our counter-attack.My phone, facedown on the desk, buzzed again. I flipped it over, expecting another text from a nervous board member or a relentless reporter.It was a video call. From Arthur.My breath hitched. We hadn't spoken since I walked out of the beach house. I hesitated for a moment, then, with a trembling finger, I accepted.His face filled the screen. He was in a room I didn't recognize—likely a hotel room—and he looked exhausted. The distinguished silver of his hair seemed dull, and the lines around his eyes were carved deep with a pain that had nothing to do with physical injury. But his gaze was clear, and it