Novel & Cerita Delayed Regrets: He Regretted Only After Her Death

"Mrs. Sterling, are you sure you're ready to end this marriage of twenty years and give up the custody?" "Yes. File it. I’m done." I said calmly through the phone as I scrubbed at a stubborn grease stain on the granite island. For twenty years, I poured my entire being into this family. I managed the households, handled the children's education , and stood by my husband's side, supporting his rise in the syndicate without complaint. But my husband Alexander brought his young adopted sister Chloe to the interview, saying, "My success today is all thanks to my adopted sister." Even my own children looked down on me, calling me common and crude housewife. They had formed an alliance with his ever-present "auntie," the woman who seemed to think she was the true lady of the house. I signed the divorce papers and walked away, leaving them to become the "perfect family" they clearly wanted. But that when the family panicked…

Melissa Jones, the so-called 'fake' heiress, lost her memory trying to save me. Her memory was stuck at the time she was 18, back when our lives had not yet been set right. Everyone told me to be the bigger person. In the new family portrait, I was the only one missing. My biological mother tried to comfort me, "Shirley, be reasonable. It's just a photo. We will make it up to you later." I applied for the vice president position year after year, only to be rejected five times in a row. Then, when Melissa said she wanted to learn the business, my brother, Maverick Jones, approved it immediately. Afterward, he turned to me and said, "You should give way to Melissa. You're the reason she lost her memory. I'm helping you make up for it." When I went into labor and needed my husband, Charles Smith, to sign the consent for a C-section, he was one floor above me, accompanying Melissa to a follow-up appointment. I called him seven times. He declined every call. In the end, my seven-month-old baby suffocated. Even in a wheelchair, I went to demand an explanation. However, outside the hospital room, I heard Melissa crying. "Back then, you all agreed I should pretend to have amnesia. I'll never randomly decline calls for Charles again. I just want to stay by your side for three more months." There was a moment of silence. Then, Charles and the others agreed. At that moment, I was not angry. I just felt something inside me turn completely empty. I turned around and accepted my adoptive parents' request to return to Nebula City. This time, I would give these people what they wanted.

An earthquake struck suddenly during our honeymoon. I suggested that we flee immediately. My husband’s former lover mocked me for being cowardly and paranoid. So, my husband dismissed my fears. I had no choice but to continue sightseeing with them. A fractured steel frame crashed down with an earsplitting clang and smashed into his former lover. She clung to me desperately as the rebars drove into my ribs one by one. Before I could cry out, my husband kicked me down when he saw his former lover in danger. “You wretch! If you hadn’t suggested this honeymoon spot, Lena wouldn’t have gotten hurt! “You knew there’d be an earthquake today. You did this on purpose!” The rebars pierced deeper into my ribs and made every breath I took excruciatingly painful. My husband pushed me aside, lifted his former lover into his arms, and stormed off without glancing back. “Before the aftershock hits, I’m taking Lena to the hospital! Then, I’ll call for rescue. “Stay here and reflect on your actions. This is your punishment for scheming against Lena!” I waited all night. He did not know that the torrential rains of the monsoon season had flooded the area. What awaited him was the bloated corpse of a pregnant woman.

I was a human, but my husband Damien was one of the noblest vampires. When I was two months pregnant, I was kidnapped by a traitorous vampire whom Damien had banished, and tortured to death. But my husband Damien, was with his first love Vivienne, accompanying her for her Blood Withering treatment. This is an extremely rare vampire disease that requires human blood of a rare blood type for treatment. Three days ago, he demanded I give my blood to Vivienne. When I refused, telling him I was two months pregnant with our child, his eyes had turned cold. "Stop lying," he had snarled. "You're just being selfish, trying to let Vivienne die." He drove me to the edge of the territory and left me there — a human, alone in the wilds after dark. "Find your own way back since you're so heartless." I stood there in the darkness and was taken by Silas — a rogue vampire Damien had once condemned to punishment. He cut off my limbs. With cruel satisfaction, he called my husband. But Damien simply didn't believe it. His response was brief and cold: "Whatever it is, Vivienne's treatment is more important. She needs me right now." Silas let out a dark laugh. "Well, well... Seems like the great Enforcer values his ex over his own wife." When Damien arrived at the crime scene hours later, he was horrified by the brutality inflicted on the corpse. He raged at the killer for being so savage to a pregnant woman. But he didn't recognize that the mutilated body before him was his own wife — me.

Always unwanted, never desired. All my life, that’s what I experienced. An illegitimate daughter to a struggling cruel businessman, living under the shadow of the golden child Mira. The perfect one, always seeking adventure and freedom. So much so that she ran away from her responsibility: the arranged marriage with Tristan Blake. The deal that will save the business. I had to step up. Not just because I had to do it, but because I’m in love with Tristan. Only for him to call me a gold-digger and drop me as soon as I bring him the news of my pregnancy with twins. Now I have to leave and file for divorce. What none of them know is that I will return, with my genius babies and my title as an heiress….

I supported Ethan Mitchell and loved him for eight whole years. I thought I concealed my feelings well, but little did I know that after Ethan became a business magnate, the first thing he did was send me to a ladies’ finishing academy. He looked at me coldly, his arms wrapped around his fiancée. "When you've rid yourself of those filthy thoughts, then you can come out." A year later, I finally forgot him completely. However, Ethan came to regret everything.

My wife was a surgeon. She saved plenty of lives in her career. However, the only person she failed to save was me. When I was involved in an accident with her long-time crush, she immediately saved him instead. I had been dead for three months, and that was when she realized the person who had been messaging her during this time was not me and started to panic.

After getting fired from my company, I returned to the countryside, spending my days playing rummy with my grandmother, but my entire family went insane, searching for me everywhere. It was because my younger sister, the family's prodigy jewelry designer, couldn't come up with a single design after I left. In my previous life, at the National Jewelry Design Competition, she managed to produce designs identical to mine before I even finished mine. Everyone assumed I had copied her work. Even my own family testified in her favor. The company accused me of misconduct and plagiarism, claiming my actions had tarnished their reputation. I was fired on the spot and ordered to pay a huge fine. My family, seeing me as nothing but a burden, threw me out of the house. Crushed by the weight of family betrayal and public judgment, I fell into depression, only to be killed on the street by one of my sister's obsessive fans. As my consciousness faded, I couldn't understand why my sister managed to create the exact same design before I did. When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day I just signed up for the National Jewelry Design Competition.

My fiancé suddenly announces he's marrying my sister instead. And just as my world collapses, the cold, noble Twinkle Oriven kneels before me with a diamond ring in hand. He confesses he's loved me for years. We get married. For three years, he's gentle, considerate, and flawless in every way. Then, one day, I accidentally overhear a conversation between him and a friend. "Twinkle, Amelie has everything she has ever wanted. Isn't it time to end this fake marriage?" "Since I can't marry Amelie, it doesn't matter who I marry. All that matters is that it keeps her life undisturbed." In the chapel where he prays every day, the wallpaper is covered with one name—Amelie Ashcombe. I hear him pray to the heavens. "May all the good in the world belong to Amelie. I'd trade my own happiness for her peace and joy. I don't ask to have her in the next life… I just want her to remember me." So this is the truth behind three years of a seemingly perfect marriage. I erase my identity and stage a fake death. From now on, Twinkle and I are nothing.

Mabel James’s fairy-tale marriage to the wealthy Hoss family shatters when her husband Ethan and his “best friend” Hailey steal her place, and her baby, leaving her humiliated and heartbroken. Five years later, now a successful stylist, Mabel returns to New York to hunt for the truth, only to find the clues traced to Damian Croft: a charming, dangerous man with ties to Ethan who may be the ally she needs, or the one who’s been manipulating her all along. Torn between revenge, a fight for her child, and an unexpected spark with Damian, Mabel must decide who to trust before everything she’s rebuilt is taken away.