All Chapters of The CEO’s Regret: My Ex-Wife is the Hidden Tycoon: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

The rain against my office windows sounded like a thousand shards of glass breaking at once. It was fitting. Today, I was shattering the last three years of my life, and I felt nothing but a dull, persistent itch in the center of my chest."Sign it, Seraphina. My patience has a limit, and you reached it months ago."I didn't look up from my iPad. I kept scrolling through the quarterly projections for Thorne Industries, though the numbers were starting to blur. I could feel her standing there, on the other side of my desk. She was always so quiet, so still. Sometimes I forgot she was even in the room. That was the problem. A man in my position didn’t need a shadow; he needed a sun—someone like Melanie, who could command a room and navigate a boardroom as easily as a ballroom."Is it because of the merger with the Sinclair Group?" her voice was a soft, steady thrum. It wasn't the trembling whisper I had expected. "Or is it because Melanie Sinclair is finally back from Paris?"I finally

The walls of my world weren't just closing in; they were being sold off at auction.Forty-eight hours after the gala, I sat in the back of a dingy taxi, staring at the front page of the Aurelia Financial Times. The headline was a jagged blade to my throat: THORNE INDUSTRIES IN FREEFALL: CEO UNDER INVESTIGATION."Drop me here," I rasped.The driver pulled up to the curb of a glass skyscraper that made my own corporate tower look like a Lego set. This was the Vance Global Headquarters. It was a cathedral of power, and I was a heretic coming to beg for mercy.My lawyer’s words from this morning echoed in my head: “Xander, the ‘anonymous’ evidence Seraphina leaked is surgical. It’s not enough to convict you yet, but it’s enough to freeze your assets for years. You’re broke. Unless the Vance Group signs a ‘Statement of Non-Contention,’ the Feds will tear you apart.”I walked through the lobby, my shoulders tight. I didn’t have a suit anymore; it had been seized along with my penthouse. I w

My mother.The woman who had whispered poison into my ear about Seraphina for three years—calling her a social climber, a parasite, a "nobody"—was now standing in the heart of the Vance sanctuary like she owned the floorboards.The rain felt like needles now. I didn't wait for permission. I bypassed the main entrance and sprinted toward the service door I’d seen a maid use earlier. My "Intern" badge was a curse, but it was also a skeleton key; the Vance security system recognized my biometrics as a low-level employee and clicked open.I moved through the shadows of the mansion, my heart a frantic drum. I reached the third-floor library and pushed the heavy oak doors open."Mother?"The Dowager Thorne, Beatrice, didn't flinch. She turned slowly, her silk gown rustling. She looked younger, energized, as if the "eviction" I’d been told about was nothing more than a spa day."Xander," she sighed, swirling her Bordeaux. "I told you that you didn't have the stomach for this world. You were

The black SUV roared through the mountain pass, tires screaming against the wet asphalt. Beside me, Julian Vance drove with a cold, surgical precision, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. I slumped in the passenger seat, clutching my side. Every bump in the road felt like a serrated blade twisting in my kidney."Hold on, Thorne," Julian gritted out. "We’re five minutes out.""The safehouse," I wheezed, my vision tunneling. "If they knew the location... how?""My mother’s reach was deeper than we thought," Julian replied, his voice dark. "She didn't just have Thorne loyalists. She bought off the security detail I assigned to Seraphina. She’s not just after the diamond anymore, Xander. She’s erasing the witnesses."The "safehouse" appeared through the treeline—a brutalist concrete villa perched on a cliff overlooking the Atlantic. It should have been a fortress. Instead, the front gates were twisted metal, and the scent of ozone and gunpowder hung heavy in the air."Stay in the ca

The decision was a cold blade through my heart. I looked at Xander, his chest rising and falling with the mechanical rhythm of the ventilator, and then at the elevator doors where Beatrice’s legal vultures were already circling for the kill."Julian," I whispered, my voice sounding like it belonged to someone else. "Stay here. Do not let them touch him. Use the Vance security team—use every bullet if you have to. If Xander dies while I’m gone, I’ll never forgive you."Julian gripped my shoulder, his eyes burning with a mixture of shock and lethal intent. "I'll hold this floor, Seraphina. But Melanie... she’s a snake. If this is a trap to get you alone, you won’t make it back.""I have to take the risk," I said, stepping into the elevator. "Because if Arthur Thorne is alive, he’s the only person in the world who can save Xander’s life and his soul."As the doors slid shut, I felt the weight of the Blue Diamond in my pocket. The deeds to the Northern Territories—the leverage my mother-i