All Chapters of The Billionaire's Regret: Chapter 251 - Chapter 260

“Mommy,” Poppy said more quietly, “why did your face get quiet?”I looked at my daughter.It should’ve been a small question. Just the voice of a four-year-old who had just woken up, hair still looking like the result of a failed negotiation with a pillow, Bunny in her hands, cardigan sitting crooked on him. But somehow, in the same room where Sebastian was standing far too still and Luca was pretending to be busy with his tablet, the question felt like a spotlight.I lifted my chin slightly and did what Belsky women had always done when their entire lives had just been set on fire with one tiny match.Lied with imaginary lipstick on.“I’m thinking about taxes,” I said.Poppy blinked.Sebastian didn’t.“Taxes?” Poppy repeated, like I’d just named a contagious disease.“Yes. Taxes. The scariest thing after broccoli and people who say beige is a lifestyle.”Poppy looked at Bunny.Then at the little cardigan now wrapped around the stuffed rabbit.“Bunny gets taxes?”“Not yet. But if Bunn

“No.”My gaze sharpened on Sebastian.Beyond the glass, the Monaco sea was dark and calm, as if the world wasn’t currently conducting one of the least ethical social experiments ever devised on my life. The city lights glittered far below, beautiful, expensive, useless. Inside the penthouse, the security panel on the wall flickered every now and then with a soft blue light before going dark again. Luca’s voice came faintly through his comm somewhere in the distance, too low for me to make out, and from the direction of Poppy’s room, I could hear Salma saying something in the tone she usually reserved for telling small children and foreign governments to stop creating problems.Sebastian didn’t move.His right hand was still beside his glass of water. His black phone lay on the marble. His gray T-shirt stretched across shoulders that looked far too relaxed for a man who had just been confronted with proof that he’d been holding our divorce hostage for five years like someone storing an

I didn’t know which of us moved first.Maybe it was the sea outside. Maybe the security panel blinking once on the wall. Maybe it was my own breathing, suddenly too close, too rough, like it belonged to someone else standing inside my body without permission.Sebastian stayed in front of me.And I never married Kelsey, and I never messed around with her behind your back.The words were still hanging there. They didn’t fall. Didn’t disappear. Didn’t turn into something I could kick under the table and pretend had never happened.I stared at him.Sebastian Romano, standing in the kitchen in a gray T-shirt with the face of a man who had just thrown a lit match into a room full of gasoline and was waiting to see whether I would scream or burn politely.I opened my mouth.Nothing came out.Which was irritating, because I had a reputation to maintain. I could usually find an insult during minor medical emergencies, family disasters, or whenever someone said the word beige with conviction. B

The knock at the door came with the rhythm of someone who had never paid taxes and therefore still had the courage to face life.Knock. Knock-knock. Knock.I opened one eye.Mistake.Morning light immediately stabbed my retina with personal hatred, and my head reminded me that last night I had cried myself to sleep with my face smashed into a pillow like the victim of a melodrama that didn’t have enough budget for a stunt double.I groaned and pulled the blanket over my head.The knocking came again. “Mommy.”I didn’t answer.“MOMMY!”No.“Mommy, I know you’re alive because the door doesn’t smell dead.”I opened my eyes under the blanket.What?“And I have a complaint.”Of course she did.I pulled the blanket down a little and stared at the ceiling. The digital clock on the nightstand read 8:17.My dignity, if my estimate was correct, had died sometime around three in the morning. No family at its bedside. Private funeral. White flowers. Cause of death: Sebastian Romano and male decis

The night Sebastian said he had to fly to Zurich for a board meeting. The night I had spent five years believing was one of the most blatant lies my husband had ever told me.Beside the booking timestamp was another record.Flight manifest.Sebastian Romano.Zurich.Arrival logged 19:08.Security accompaniment confirmed.I stopped.No.I went back to the first page.The date of the chat.Then the booking.Then the manifest.I started doing the math like a crazy woman with an excellent manicure. “This one…”“Yes.”“You were in Zurich.”“Yes.”“And the hotel in Milan was booked under your name that same night.”“Yes.”I looked at him. “You can fly.”“Not in eleven minutes.”His dry sarcasm didn’t even make me angry this time.I went back to reading.Next page.Paris.The security log showed Sebastian entering a private board dinner at 20:02 and leaving at 00:17.The beauty chat sent a message at 21:31.The linked desktop session was active from the office.I rubbed my fingertip across m