All Chapters of The Billionaire's Regret: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

The clock on the wall hit two in the afternoon when it struck me that half the day had already vanished and I hadn’t managed to properly break down even a single personal crisis.The damn perfume box had been shoved into my desk drawer hours ago. Drawer shut, lock turned. Containment protocol for emotional biohazard. I’d even stacked a pile of catalogs on top of it, as if glossy paper could restrain the past. If I didn’t look at it, it didn’t exist. My version of a scientific theory.Now I’m sitting in the office meeting room, its walls half glass, half oak panels I’d chosen myself. On the table lay a tablet, a laptop, folders, and three human beings whose deadlines depended entirely on my emotional weather.“So,” I said, pointing at the sketch on the screen. “The transition from the foyer to the Antibes boutique lounge is still noisy. I don’t want the client feeling like they’re walking through different Instagram filters every five steps.”Luca, my part-time architect, spun his pen

Afternoon clung to the glass like a sticker that refused to peel off. Monte Carlo’s sun had already tilted, sliding through the big kitchen window and bouncing off the stone countertops, making everything look more expensive than what I paid for it. From the small speaker in the corner, a two-thousand-something boyband flooded the room.“♪ Baby you light up my world like nobody else… ♪”I stabbed the chicken with a fork, pushing it onto the hot pan. Oil hissed. The scent rose immediately, mixing garlic, lemon, and whatever Salma called her “secret seasoning” even though I was pretty sure it was just salt and judgement.“Seriously, Jazz?” Salma shook the olive oil bottle over the tray of vegetables. “One Direction again?”“Watch your mouth,” I shot back. “This is modern music history.”“I thought that was the Beatles,” she said calmly.“The Beatles never made me question God when Zayn left the group.” I nudged the volume up, waiting for my favorite part. “This song is a masterpiece, Sa

A little past nine, the house had dropped a level in volume.From the hallway, I could still catch the faint sound of Poppy and Adrian. Her door was cracked open just enough for their voices to slip through.“…and then the dragon realized,” Adrian murmured, his English smooth and soft, “that the little princess didn’t actually need saving. She just needed… a snack.”A tiny laugh popped out. “Like me,” Poppy said. “I don’t need prince. I only need gelato.”“Exactly,” Adrian replied. “And maybe some vegetables, once in a while.”“Lies,” Poppy muttered.A page turned, then her voice came again, lower now, wrapped in that sweet French accent that was almost too adorable for the kind of politics she usually discussed.“Daddy, after this, you sing ‘Story of My Life,’ okay? Soft. So I can sleep.”“Deal,” Adrian said.I nudged my bedroom door a few centimeters closer. Enough to muffle them, leave only a low hum like white noise. If I kept listening, my brain would start making unhelpful comme

The first thing I felt was weight.Not existential. Actual weight, solid and thudding right into my ribs.“Uuugh…” The sound crawled out of me half-dead. The blanket flipped back, and morning light slapped my face through the curtains I hadn’t bothered to close properly last night.“WAKE UUUUP, LAZY PEOPLE!”Okay. Not just weight. Volume too.Poppy.She jumped again, this time landing on Hazel’s stomach. Hazel groaned like someone hit with a rubber bullet, her reading glasses (which were somehow still near her pillow) sliding to the floor.“Why is there an elephant on my bed…” Hazel mumbled, barely conscious.“I’m not elephant, I’m unicorn,” Poppy shot back with her tiny accent. “Wake up. It’s morning. The sun is awake. You are late.”“Late for what?” Rhea groaned from my other side, voice rough and gravelly. She slept on her stomach, her sheet mask from last night now a horrifying creature slumped beside her pillow. “I’m unemployed in Monaco, sweetheart. Nothing is late.”Poppy spun

Luc, it turned out, was not the kind of client who only liked the sound of his own voice.Once I shared my screen, he leaned forward a little, chin propped on his hand. In the small corner box sat another man, Julien, wearing a headset and the expression of someone whose bloodstream ran on spreadsheets, and a woman from the branding team, Claire, who stared at the moodboard on the slide like she was evaluating an outfit.“So,” I began, cursor moving to the first slide, “my initial intuition: the people who will live on your hill are already saturated with hotels that scream wealth. They don’t need another UFO chandelier or sofas begging for attention. They need spaces that make them forget they are supposed to be stressed.”Luc gave a small crooked smile. “We’d like that,” he commented. “Most of our buyers only get home after wrestling with the world.”“We can’t control the world,” I replied. “But we can control what they see once the door closes.”The slide shifted. A hilltop view, t