All Chapters of Billionaire's Regret : Chapter 221 - Chapter 230

An hour later, Claire walked into the bedroom to find Maya curled up on the edge of her bed, knees pulled tight to her chest, her whole body shaking with quiet, broken sobs that she had been desperately trying to keep buried."Baby," Claire whispered, crossing the room to sit beside her and wrapping her arms gently around her daughter's trembling shoulders.The moment Maya felt her mother's warmth, she crumbled, collapsing completely into Claire's shoulder as a fresh wave of tears tore through her. "Please, Mama," she sobbed, her voice cracking apart with raw, desperate longing, though Claire had no way of knowing how much of that panic belonged to the truth rather than the lie Maya was forced to live. "Please, I need you to understand. I need you on my side."Claire held her tightly, stroking her hair as her own heart broke. "I'm trying, baby. I'm trying. But since when? When did you fall for him?"Maya's breath hitched, a sharp gasp catching in her throat."Since the moment I saw hi

Maya sat frozen before the mirror, her breath catching in her throat with every shallow rise of her chest while Claire carefully pinned the last stray lock of hair into place, hands trembling with a quiet, betraying nervousness that no amount of forced composure could hide. Staring back through the glass was a face that hardly felt like her own, was swallowed up by pale lace, heavy makeup, and the hollow weight of a life slipping entirely out of her control."You look beautiful," Claire whispered, the words thick and fragile as tears gathered, glistening in the corners of her eyes.Maya forced her lips into the shape of a smile, feeling the fake warmth strain across her cheeks."Thank you, Mama," she murmured, her voice steady on the outside even as everything inside her was quietly shattering.Claire sank down beside her, gathering both of Maya’s hands into her own, holding them tight."I know this all happened so fast," she murmured softly, her thumb tracing Maya’s knuckles. "But w

Maya woke slowly, her mind drifting up from sleep into a cold, disoriented haze as she stared up at an unfamiliar room, pale grey morning light filtering softly through curtains and she felt like she was living a life that belonged to someone else rather than her own.She lay motionless for a long while, just listening.The house breathed with a different kind of sound than the home she’d grown up in, unlike her home that was always bubbling, this house was wrapped in a heavy, unnatural hush, the particular silence of a place built with too much space that ordinary human noise simply dissolved before it could ever reach her ears. She could hear nothing at all. No sound of her mother banging cupboards downstairs or humming softly to herself while watering the plants in the hall, no soft murmur of her father's morning radio playing low in his study.Just a silence, and the terrifying weight of everything that had happened yesterday settling heavily over her chest now that sleep could no

The smell of her mother's cooking reached Maya before the front door had fully opened, roasted lamb with garlic and something sweet baking in the oven.For a single, fragile second she stood frozen on the threshold, her eyes stinging with tears she had spent weeks refusing to shed. She had missed this house with a quiet, hollow ache deeper than she had ever let herself admit.Zane's hand settled against the small of her back as they stepped inside, a light, warm touch that felt so impossibly steady it almost made her collapse, but she forced herself to stand completely still beneath it because Claire was already hurrying down the hallway, her arms wide and her face glowing with pure, unbothered warmth."You're late," Claire said, pulling Maya into a tight hug that smelled of lavender and butter before turning to squeeze Zane's arm with affectionate familiarity. "I was about to send Jeff out to look for you.""That was my fault," Zane said smoothly, his voice dropping into that easy, p

The first night Zane did not come home, Maya told herself it did not matter, pushing down the quiet panic that tried to rise in her chest.She ate dinner in total silence at the endless dining table while the staff moved like ghosts around her, then retreated to bed early without daring to ask anyone where he was.The second night she told herself the very same thing, clinging to the lie like armor. But by the end of the first week, as the silence grew heavy and terrifying, she had completely stopped pretending.He was not at the office either. His door stayed locked every morning, and his assistant answered every single question about him with the same polished, rehearsed sentence, saying only that Mr. Anderson was away on business. Maya sat at her desk staring blindly at the empty corridor, hating herself for how her heart leaped in her throat every single time someone walked past. Her supervisor asked if she was feeling well, and she forced a hollow smile, whispering that she was