All Chapters of The Billionaire's Regret: Chapter 261 - Chapter 270

It came so simply that I lost my answer for a second.He looked straight at me, “You read a room faster than most of the people I pay to do it. You built your company from nothing. You can make three people think an idea was theirs when you planted it in their heads ten minutes earlier.”I opened my mouth.“And you always know when I’m lying.” Apparently, he wasn’t finished.I gave a small, bitter laugh. “Not always.”“I wasn’t lying about Kelsey.”“No. You just gave me approximately zero point zero percent of the information. Very different. Legal must be proud.”“I made a bad decision.”“Several.”“Correct.”I stared at him suspiciously. “Who are you and what have you done with Sebastian Romano?”“I know.” He shifted his mug slightly to the side. “And I never regretted marrying you.”He didn’t look away. The man who, five years ago, couldn’t manage one honest sentence when I needed it most was now sitting across from me with slightly messy hair and stubble along his jaw, saying some

A few hours later, our lives managed to pretend everything was normal for long enough that I almost took it personally.We ate lunch without anyone mentioning Kelsey, the father of Kelsey’s baby, the failed divorce, or the fact that my husband had apparently spent five years not cheating on me while still finding several highly innovative ways to destroy our marriage. Poppy ate half a bowl of pasta, three pieces of melon, then decided the carrots were too “aggressively orange” to eat and lined them up along the edge of her plate like political casualties.After that, all the sugar, drama, and princess castle negotiations finally came to collect.Now Poppy was asleep on the living room sofa, her little body curled on her side, one chubby leg sticking out from under the throw blanket and Bunny wedged beneath her chin. Her long hair spilled across the cushion, her bangs messy enough to nearly fall into her eyes, while one hand still held the edge of her cardigan like she had fallen aslee

Asshole.Because it didn’t even sound like some apology performance. No sad smile, no speech about changing for me, no man-who-just-discovered-a-relationship-advice-podcast monologue.I’m learning.And damn it, somehow that worked better than every order he had ever given me.I got up from the chair and picked up Luca’s tablet from the desk again, reading the request one more time until my eyes landed on the word THUMBPRINT.Poppy’s little thumb.The thumb that had been covered in pasta sauce at lunch because she refused to use a napkin until I threatened to wash her hand myself.The thumb she used to swipe through princess castle ads.The thumb that still occasionally found its way into her mouth when she was very sleepy and thought no one was watching.Someone wanted it as a key.I handed the tablet back to Luca. “What time is the flight?”Sebastian didn’t smile. “Eight-thirty.”I looked at the clock on the wall. “You had the jet ready before you asked me?”“The jet is always ready.

We arrived in New York while the sky still hadn’t decided whether it wanted to become morning.From inside the car, the city was nothing but flashes of light behind tinted windows, wet sidewalks, traffic lights changing colors for almost no one. Then, little by little, the tall buildings disappeared as the convoy turned into a quieter neighborhood and trees began taking over the view.Poppy had fallen asleep twenty minutes before landing and never really woke up again. Even when Sebastian lifted her out of the car, she only made a small sound of protest before wrapping both arms around her father’s neck, her chubby cheek pressed against the shoulder of his black sweater while Bunny was trapped between them like an illegal passenger.I got out after them.Then I saw the house.Romano Mansion.Five years was long enough to make me forget certain details.Apparently, not long enough to make my body forget the place.The pale stone mansion still stood behind black iron gates, its tall win

Poppy apparently could forget all about being mad over the brown room in under three minutes, as long as someone was stupid enough to show her that her bedroom had a walk-in closet.“It has a house inside the house.”“It’s a closet,” I said from the doorway.Poppy had already made it five steps inside before turning around with wide green eyes, Bunny dangling from one hand while the other opened a drawer like she’d just inherited a kingdom. Her room didn’t have a pink canopy yet, diamonds that were “not too many because that’s tacky,” or a single princess element that met the standards of our tiny dictator, but it was still far too luxurious for a four-year-old who had slept with one sock on last month because the other one apparently “needed privacy.”The bed was large and low, with a cream headboard and a white duvet that looked soft enough to swallow one child along with all her criminal activity. There was a small sofa by the window, a fireplace that security had thankfully alread