All Chapters of The Billionaire's Regret: Chapter 271 - Chapter 280

I woke up at 7:03 because apparently my body had a toxic relationship with alarms.My phone had only buzzed once on the nightstand when my hand blindly searched for the screen and shut it off before the second sound could happen. For a few seconds, I stayed flat on my back, staring at the still-unfamiliar ceiling while trying to remember what country I was in, whose house this was, and why there was another source of warmth on the right side of the bed.Then I turned my head.Sebastian was still asleep.That alone felt strange.I’d seen this man sleep hundreds of times before, back when seeing him in the morning was still part of a routine and not a psychological event. The strange part was that Sebastian usually woke up before the alarm, before sunrise, possibly before God finished putting together the day’s agenda.Even when we were married, I usually woke up to find his side of the bed empty, the shower already running or his coffee already half gone.Now he was still beside me.Fl

I sent a message to the group chat around 8:47, after Poppy had finished making the mansion garden look like a small excavation site and Sebastian had finally managed to get her back inside with the promise that flowers were not supposed to be picked just because “they looked ready.”ME: [I’m in New York.]Hazel read it in three seconds.Rhea in five.HAZEL: [Excuse me?]RHEA: [Since when does your life move cities without a press release?]I sent them the mansion address.HAZEL: [That’s the Romano address.]ME: [Congratulations. Your law degree is working.]RHEA: [JASMINE.]ME: [Come over if you want. There’s coffee. Excessive security. A mansion haunted by my interior design decisions from my twenties.]HAZEL: [I’m coming.]Rhea didn’t answer right away.I waited while standing by the island, watching Poppy try to fit two strawberries into her mouth at once, then got a message about a minute later.RHEA: [I’ll see.]That was it.I stared at the screen a little longer than I should h

By late afternoon, Poppy’s room no longer had any right to be called brown.After Hazel left, the mansion briefly turned into the most ridiculous renovation project I had ever seen completed within a matter of hours. An interior designer arrived with two assistants, followed by three contractors, several racks of fabric, boxes of lighting fixtures, wallpaper samples, rolls of carpet, and one man carrying a canopy catalog like the entire country was waiting for a royal decision.I stood in the hallway for five minutes holding my coffee and watched the whole operation move into the bedroom of a four-year-old who wasn’t even home.“All of this today?” I asked.The designer smiled far too calmly. “Mr. Romano asked for it to be finished before Miss Penelope comes home.”“What happens if she says tomorrow that she wants a room shaped like a unicorn?”Her smile wavered slightly. “We’ll... adjust.”I nodded slowly. “Welcome, then.”Around four, they finished.I went in just to make sure the m

Five days later, the biggest problem in my life should have been the fact that my daughter had two best friends after four days of school, and I, her own mother, was only informed while doing her hair that morning.“Two?”Poppy nodded while chewing toast, her long bangs still only half brushed and one sock apparently missing in another dimension. “One best friend for art. One for lunch.”I stopped with the hairbrush in my hand. “Friendship has departments now?”“It’s efficient.” Poppy turned to her father. “Daddy, I have music today.”“Good.”“But teacher said we have to share instrument.”“Tragic,” I muttered.Poppy nodded seriously. “I said I can bring my own.”“Of course.”“Drum.”I closed my eyes. “If a drum appears in this house,” I said without opening them, “I will burn someone’s trust fund.”Poppy did not yet have a sophisticated enough understanding of trust funds to feel threatened, so she simply put a strawberry in her mouth and demanded that Salma leave immediately because

Poppy managed to kidnap her grandfather about seven minutes after declaring the carousel hers.Not literally, although with my daughter, I felt the need to clarify.She dragged Papa Sebastian by the hand toward the back door while explaining that the mansion garden had a fountain, a “Lego jail,” and one patch of grass she thought would be perfect for a carousel race, even though none of those words combined into anything remotely safe.Sebastian followed behind them after Poppy turned around and pointed one small finger at her father.“Daddy too.”“I’m talking to Luca.”“Can do later.”Papa Sebastian looked at his son, and I caught something dangerously close to amusement on the older man’s face.Sebastian looked at Poppy.Poppy looked back.Three seconds later, Sebastian’s phone disappeared into his pocket.I shook my head. “Apparently the Romano Empire is very easy to defeat.”“Not the Empire,” he said as he walked past me. “Just me.”“More embarrassing.”“DADDY!” Poppy was already