All Chapters of His Billion-Dollar Regret: The Forgotten Wife Returns: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

20 Chapters

CHAPTER 1 — COLD SHEETS, COLDER HEARTS

POV: Yessica | Location: New York"Conference call in twenty."Lewis didn't look up from his phone.Yessica set his plate down. Eggs perfect, bacon crispy, coffee at exactly the temperature he liked. Three years of mornings and he still hadn't learned to say thank you like he meant it."I made your favourite," she said."Mm." Scroll. Scroll.She sat across from him with her own coffee and watched him eat without tasting. His thumb moving across the screen. The Singapore deal. Always the Singapore deal."I thought we could have dinner tonight," she said. "There's a new Italian place on—""Can't. Harrington account.""Tomorrow?""Singapore team arrives. All week." He stood. Left half his breakfast untouched. Reached for his jacket."Lewis—""I'll be late tonight." He was already checking his watch. "Don't wait up."The elevator doors closed.The penthouse went quiet.Four hours of preparation. Eight minutes of presence. Gone.Yessica picked up his plate. The eggs were perfect. The bacon

Last Updated : 2026-03-23

CHAPTER 2 — THE MORNING AFTER

POV: Yessica | Location: New YorkSeven days.Seven days since the test, and she still hadn't told him.She'd planned it a hundred different ways. The right moment, the right words, the right version of Lewis sitting across from her long enough to actually hear it. But the right moment kept not arriving — he came home after midnight or not at all, and she lay in the guest room with her hand on her stomach, waiting.Tonight was their anniversary.Three years. One thousand and ninety-five days.She'd started at four o'clock. White tablecloth, his mother's china, candles already lit by six. Filet mignon from the French butcher he liked. His favourite Bordeaux breathing on the counter. The pregnancy test in a small silver box beside her plate.At nine forty-seven, his key turned in the lock.She'd been sitting in the dark for nearly four hours.Lewis flipped on the light. Froze."What's all this?""Our anniversary," she said.The silence that followed had a specific quality — she'd learned

Last Updated : 2026-03-23

CHAPTER 3 — UNSPOKEN TRUTHS

POV: Yessica | Location: New YorkShe should have gone back to sleep.She knew that. She was lying in the dark in the guest room with her hand on her stomach and her phone face-down and the silver box on the nightstand, and the rational thing — the self-preserving thing — was to put the pillow over her head and not hear any more than she already had.She didn't move.Catherine's voice again, carrying through the wall with the particular clarity of a woman who had never once considered that walls were thin:"You married beneath yourself. I said it at the time. Your father said it. You were twenty-nine and flattered and she was pretty enough to distract you from that.""Mother—""I'm not being unkind. I'm being accurate." A pause. "Three years, Lewis. Three years and what has she contributed? No connections. No business sense. No understanding of what this family requires. She throws dinner parties you don't attend and waits by the phone like a secretary.""That's not fair.""Fairness is

Last Updated : 2026-03-23

CHAPTER 4 — BREAKING POINTS

POV: Yessica | Location: New YorkThe Harrington dinner was three days after the anniversary.Lewis mentioned it Tuesday morning with the same tone he used to mention board meetings — logistical, assumed, her attendance implied without being requested."Eight o'clock. Le Bernardin. David Harrington and his wife. Wear something appropriate."She wore the navy dress. Had her hair done. Sat in the car beside him while he reviewed notes on his phone and didn't look at her once on the thirty-minute drive.The silver box was still on the guest room nightstand.She'd moved it to the drawer.Le Bernardin was the kind of restaurant that cost enough to make ordinary people feel grateful to be there. Yessica had stopped feeling grateful for these rooms somewhere in her second year of marriage.She smiled at the right moments. Said the right things."Mrs. Sterling, you look radiant," David Harrington said."Thank you." She took her seat.The chair beside Lewis was empty. Set for a fourth person wh

Last Updated : 2026-03-23

CHAPTER 5 — SILENT STORMS

POV: Yessica | Location: New YorkThe cramping started at two in the morning.Not the vague discomfort she'd been telling herself was normal for eight weeks. This was sharp. Wrong. The kind of pain that arrived with its own specific grammar — urgent, insistent, impossible to argue with.She stumbled to the bathroom in the dark.Turned on the light.The blood was unmistakable."Lewis." Her voice came out strange. Too small. "Lewis."He appeared in the doorway in twenty seconds — hair dishevelled, eyes unfocused, moving on instinct. He took one look and went completely awake."What happened—""Something's wrong." She gripped the counter. "The baby. Something's wrong."He had his phone out before she finished the sentence. "I'm calling an ambulance—""Just drive me." Another cramp hit. She bent forward. "Please. It'll be faster."One second of hesitation. Then: "Can you walk?""Yes. Go."He went.He ran two red lights on the way to the hospital.Yessica sat in the passenger seat with her

Last Updated : 2026-03-23

CHAPTER 6 — UNEXPECTED REVELATIONS

POV: Yessica | Location: New YorkLewis left for Dubai on a Tuesday.He stood in the guest room doorway at six AM with his luggage behind him and his coat on, and he looked at her in the bed with the IV bruise still visible on her arm, and he said:"I'll call every day.""Okay," she said."If anything changes—""I'll contact Dr. Patel immediately.""And you'll call me.""Yes."He lingered. The specific hovering of a man who knew the right thing to do and couldn't quite make himself do it."Lewis." She looked at him. "The car is waiting."He left.She heard the elevator. Then nothing.The penthouse expanded around her into its usual enormous silence.Bed rest was a particular kind of prison.Not the physical constraint — she could move, she could sit up, she could walk to the kitchen and back. The prison was the stillness. The enforced proximity to her own thoughts with nothing to fill the space between them.She lay in the guest room and watched the ceiling and counted hours.Lewis cal

Last Updated : 2026-03-24

CHAPTER 7 — THE CONFRONTATION

POV: Yessica | Location: New YorkShe sent the message at seven AM.Not impulsively — she'd been awake since five, lying in the grey pre-dawn with the draft on her phone and her hand on her stomach and the silver box in the drawer, running the decision forward and backward until it stopped feeling like a decision and started feeling like the only logical conclusion to everything that had happened since the anniversary.I need the referral you mentioned. Family law. When you have a moment.She pressed send.Put the phone face-down.Got up.Made breakfast for herself — just herself — and ate it standing at the kitchen window, watching the city below. Lewis's bedroom door was still closed. He'd been on calls until late; she'd heard the murmur of his voice through the wall at midnight.Rafferty replied at seven forty-three.Of course. Diana Osei — Osei & Partners. She's the best I know. Tell her I sent you. She'll take the call today.Below that: I hope you're all right.She stared at the

Last Updated : 2026-03-25

CHAPTER 8 — CHOICES AND CONSEQUENCES

POV: Yessica | Location: New YorkYessica stepped back from the door.Not an invitation. Just space.Catherine took it as one anyway, moving into the penthouse with the ease of a woman who had always considered it more hers than anyone else's. She looked around the living room — unhurried, assessing — the way she looked at every room she entered. Cataloguing. Calculating the current state of affairs against the version she preferred."You look better than I expected," Catherine said."I was on bed rest for a week.""I know." She set her bag on the console table. "Lewis told his father. His father told me." She said it without apology — information moved through the Sterling family the way water moved through pipes; simply, inevitably, by design.Yessica stayed near the door."What do you want, Catherine?""To talk." She looked at the sofa. "May I sit?""You're already planning to."A pause. Something moved across Catherine's face — not quite amusement. The closest she got. "You've chan

Last Updated : 2026-03-25

CHAPTER 9 — DANGEROUS DECISIONS

POV: Yessica | Location: New YorkThe elevator doors were about to close."Going somewhere?"Yessica's hand tightened on the suitcase handle.Lewis stood in the penthouse doorway, tie loose, eyes on the bag at her feet. Not her face. The bag."Early appointment." The lie came out smooth. Three months of practice."At six AM." Not a question."The doctor moved it."He stepped closer. One step. She didn't move."That's a big bag for a doctor's appointment."Her heart slammed against her ribs. The baby kicked once, sharp. Even she knew."Lewis—""Where are you going, Yessica?"The elevator doors slid open behind her. Empty. Waiting.She looked at her husband. At the man she'd tried to love for three years. At the man who'd made it impossible."Somewhere I can breathe," she said.He didn't move."What does that mean?""It means what it sounds like.""You're leaving." Still not a question. His voice was flat. Careful."I was going to be gone before you woke up." She'd planned it that way.

Last Updated : 2026-03-25

CHAPTER 10 — THE RECKONING

POV: Lewis | Location: New YorkThe letter was on the kitchen counter.Lewis had read it four times before he noticed his hands were shaking.By the time you read this, Claire and I will be somewhere you can't follow.He set it down.Picked it up.Read it again."Yessica." Her name came out broken. Into the empty penthouse. Into the silence that answered him.He called her phone.The number you have dialed is no longer in service.He called again.Same message.Lewis stood in the kitchen for a long time, holding his phone, staring at the counter where the letter sat next to the coffee pot she always left on.She'd planned this.Every detail. Every step.While he was reviewing contracts. While he was having dinner with clients. While he was sitting across from her thinking they had time.She'd already been gone.He drove to Pippa's apartment at noon.She opened the door, saw his face, and started to close it."Pippa. Please—""No.""Five minutes. Just tell me she's okay.""She's better

Last Updated : 2026-03-25

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