All Chapters of Once His Wife, Now His Regret: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

“It seems you all have no idea of what the Wellington name represents in this city? In this industry? You are standing here talking to one of the most…”“Ma’am. I’m going to need you to lower your voice.”“Lower my voice? Why? Because you don’t want people to know…”“If you continue to obstruct the entrance, I’ll be required to have you removed from the premises.”The words were barely out of the officer’s mouth before her palm connected with his cheek.The sound cracked through the night air. Cameras clicked. The crowd gasped.“What did you just say to me?” my aunt shrilled. “How dare you threaten me? Who do you think you are? Do you have any idea who I am…”She reached out and jabbed a finger at his chest. Diana quickly stood up from where she was sitting, “What are you doing? Do you actually want us dragged out? Do you know how humiliating that would be?”“Why would I be dragged out?” my aunt snapped. “If anyone should be removed, it’s these incompetent fools who dare tell me I

For a second, I considered letting it ring out. I didn’t have the patience for him this morning. But I answered. “Hi.” “For fuck’s sake, Charlotte, where have you been?” His voice was tight with anger. “I’ve been calling you since yesterday. Your phone was off. I was twenty-four hours away from filing a missing persons report.” Wait. Was he really concerned about me or… “My phone died,” I found myself saying slowly, almost stammering because I couldn’t believe Clyde was just worried about me. “And when I came out, no one was there. I didn’t have a ride. So I ended up staying at the nearest hotel.” I lied. “You were too stranded to come home, but you had money for a hotel?” I closed my eyes briefly. Not this again. “Please, I’m not in the right headspace for this right now. Why did you call?” There was a pause. When he spoke again, his tone had shifted — less frantic, more deliberate. The kind of calm that meant he had been sitting with something for hours. “Th

I looked at the bank of dead elevators in the headquarters building of one of the largest companies in the city, and breathed through the particular kind of rage that comes not from anger but from the crystal clear recognition that someone thinks I was easy to stop.Mr. Walter stepped toward a passing staff member. “Excuse me. Which elevators are currently operational?”She glanced between us. “They’re all under maintenance at the moment, I’m afraid.”“All of them?” Mr. Walter asked in a surprised tone.“Yes, sir. We apologize for the inconvenience.”I turned to her. “Then what is the fastest route to the seventh floor?”There was a hesitation. A flicker of discomfort. “The… the stairs, ma’am.”Of course. The stairs.I turned to Mr. Walter, who was already looking at me with the expression of a man who was beginning to understand that the women he was dealing with today had thought of everything. His face had gone slightly grey.“How long will it take you?” I asked him.“I’m sixty-thr

“Give Claira half of everything,” Kate demanded.The boardroom was empty now. Just the two of us.“That’s all I’m asking. Because I think she deserves that much, at the very least.”A small, disbelieving laugh slipped out of me.After everything they had just tried to do to me… she still had the audacity to sit there and make demands.Absolutely not.I crossed one leg over the other and folded my arms beneath my chest. “And why exactly should I do that?”She exhaled slowly, as though steadying herself.“Because you have no idea what these years were like for her. Living in your shadow. Trying to earn the approval of a man who could never quite see her because he was always looking for someone else.”Her voice had taken on the weight of genuine grievance, and I found myself wondering, briefly, how much of it was even manufactured. “Your father raised her. Seventeen years of her life she spent in that house, trying to be good enough. And when he died…” she paused “…he left her nothing b

I stared at the girl who was now standing before us, then slowly turned my head to him, curiosity pulling at me.He looked at me, then at the child, and cleared his throat. "Charlotte, meet my daughter, Hailey."“Hailey, meet Charlotte.”His daughter?So I’m going to be a…step mom or something?But there had been no information about him being married, no whisper of a child, no trail of anything that would have suggested this. And yet here she was—small and real.Something settled strangely in my chest. And my mind drifted, involuntarily, to Clyde. To the years no one had known about our marriage. To the years no one had known I was Genevieve's mother. That silence had been deliberate. And carefully constructed.And I thought…Could the same be true of Alexander Vaughn? Could there be a wife kept at a distance, a life lived in the shadows, a woman treated the way Clyde had treated me? Could he….after everything…be the same kind of monster that I had barely escaped from?I shifted slig