Regret After Divorce: I Lost The Best Her

River Davis was a confident girl with shy tendencies, who wanted to enjoy her last summer before going to college at Princeton in the fall. Jace Durand a young artist on the rise from London, at the age of 19, didn’t know what hit him when he saw the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Love and happiness is all they knew for three long months, until a plane crash and 4 years apart changed everything.

Dakota Stelter and I tumbled down that steep ravine together. I lay there bleeding and broken, only to watch my boyfriend scoop her into his arms and walk away without a backward glance. He left me. In that moment, in every way that mattered. While everyone fussed over Dakota's scratches, no one even checked if I was still breathing. When I was finally rescued and recovering at the hospital, my boyfriend didn't even visit. I was hurt. So I moved on. Piece by piece, I rebuilt myself without him. But then he became distraught. Suddenly, he was sobbing, telling me he had always loved me.

My boyfriend of three years had a secret true love: my vicious best friend. For her, he swallowed my family business whole, froze every cent I had, and crushed my dignity into the dirt. When my father lay dying from a brain hemorrhage, I begged him for $50,000 to save his life. He refused cold-heartedly. At the exact moment my father died on the operating table, he was busy spending millions on rare jewelry for her. I didn't show up to our engagement party. Instead, I sent a "gift" that played on the big screen. That arrogant man went completely insane in front of the whole world.

In the three years since I became Zander's mate, I've tried to kill myself ninety-nine times. Kidnapped by a rival pack in my youth, years of torture nearly destroyed me. I clawed my way back to the Crescent Moon Pack, only to find my place had been taken by an adopted daughter, Vivian. My Beta parents doted on her, and my fated mate—the Alpha himself—had eyes only for her. I begged them, told them my kidnapping and my suicide attempts weren't accidents, but all I ever heard was: "Ember, you're delusional. You just wandered off and got lost." "You tried to drown yourself in the river." The people closest to me, and not one of them believed me. Until the ninety-ninth time. Another "suicide." When I woke up three days later, I rubbed my aching head. My eyes were vacant, my own gaze foreign to me. I had forgotten who I was, forgotten the humiliation I'd endured, forgotten the desperate girl who had thrown away her dignity for a scrap of her Alpha's affection. At the pack ceremony, while everyone waited for me to fawn pathetically over Zander, a single tear slid down my cheek for reasons I couldn't comprehend. I wiped it away and, under the shocked stares of the entire pack, announced calmly: "Zander," my voice was steady. "I don't love you anymore. So I, Ember of the Crescent Moon Pack, hereby reject you as my mate." "This little act again?" Zander sneered, his eyes glinting with the same casual contempt they always held for me. But he didn't know. This time, I was leaving him for good. It wasn't until I vanished completely that the ones who'd never believed me were the ones who truly went mad.

Grace is forced into marriage with Damon Croft, the Rival Alpha who swore to destroy her father’s bloodline by entering what looked like a revenge marriage arrangement only to for it to become a curse-bound marriage. Where neither could leave. In a world ruled by Lycans, fated mates are rare…and even cruelly binding and what escalates things is that Damon doesn’t hide his hate for her. He doesn’t love her and he only wished to make her pay for her fathers sins, one day at a time but the moon goddess mark upon them complicates things and Damon swears he’ll never accept it. Grace, born mute and treated as a ghost in her own home refuses to beg for his mercy. Every time he tries to break her, she finds another way to defy him and every act of defiance blurs the line between hatred and obsession. Until everything is at stake and what they think they know is not what they know. Their whole lives have been someone’s needlework of manipulation and greed. She can’t stand him but he can't get enough of her.

The love that I knew wasn't like the ones written in a book. It wasn't beautiful and magical. It doesn't bring butterflies in my stomach and it doesn't make me feel special. It doesn't feel like home, I do not feel secure. It does not make me feel safe and worthy. The love that I experience doesn't feel like love. I'm not really sure if it is love because it made me doubt, insecure and made me feel unloved. And all I experienced was pain. No it was torture. To see him love someone else when all I could do is to love him and let him love her. Now I don't know if I could ever love someone else, after him.

The day I recovered from my mental illness and got discharged, my parents held me in their arms with tears of happiness. My sister gave me a teddy bear and said she had been waiting for me to come home. I comforted my parents who were crying and accepted the gift from my sister. I slowly got used to ordinary life and became the real daughter of the Schmidt family. To show their preference for me, my parents transferred the family business into my name on my sister’s 18th birthday. But I cruelly murdered the family of three who cherished me on this day.

To save my husband, I drank until my stomach bled. Despite making it to the hospital, no one would treat me—all because he, a prominent surgeon, forbade anyone from attending to his own wife. In a previous life, he had saved me, a deed that fate cruelly repaid: the same day he saved me, his beloved, Lily Evans, tragically died during surgery. Consumed by regret, he lamented, "If I hadn't saved you, she might still be alive." On my birthday, in a twisted celebration, he intoxicated both me and our daughter. In a horrifying turn, he used his surgical skills to ruthlessly stab us both. As I lay bleeding, I begged for our daughter's life, pleading with him to spare her, his biological child. He coldly justified his brutality by claiming that being tied to me caused him to miss his chance with his true love. Fueled by a desperate need to protect my daughter, I fought him ferociously. He inflicted thirty-eight merciless wounds on me before turning his murderous intent towards our child. As I faced death, my last sight was of him, his decision clear as he once again chose his lost love over his living family.

My family is the oldest healing bloodline in the Frostmoon Pack, and I am the most promising talent to become the pack's Chief Healer. My destined mate, who promised to mark me on my 20th birthday, instead chose my stepsister Eliza on the very day that was meant to be mine. Then Alaric Blackwood, the legendarily powerful and cold Alpha of the Blackwood pack, openly pursued me after I was abandoned. For five years after becoming his mate, he treated me with tender care and bone-deep devotion. He told me not to work so hard as a healer and to focus on being his Luna. Until I accidentally overheard a conversation between him and his loyal Beta. "Alpha, Eliza has already become Chief Healer. How long will you continue pretending to love Amara?" "It doesn't matter since I can't be Eliza's mate anyway. Besides, as long as I'm with Amara, she won't interfere with Eliza's happiness." Every night, he prayed to the Moon Goddess, and every word was filled with longing and love for Eliza. "May the Moon Goddess bless Eliza. May she find peace in body and spirit." "May the Moon Goddess grant Eliza all she desires, and protect all that she loves." ... "Eliza, we're not destined for each other in this life. I only pray we become fated mates in the next." Only then did I realize that my mate—his body belonged to me, but his heart belonged deeply to my stepsister. I've prepared a fake identity and planned a staged death at the hands of rogue wolves. From now on, we will never meet again, in this life or any other.

Layla Hayes is used to surviving. Raised by adoptive parents who treated her like a burden, she learned to keep her head down, keep quiet, and dream of escape. When her long-term boyfriend cheats and leaves her with nothing, one wild night in a bar is supposed to be her only rebellion — a kiss of freedom before going back to hell.But the stranger she gives herself to isn’t just anyone. He’s Colden Frost. Elusive tech billionaire. Ruthless CEO. The media calls him the Ice King for a reason.So when he offers a flash contract marriage—cold, clinical, and signed in ink—Layla says yes. She wants out of her old life, and she doesn’t care if her new husband has a frozen heart.Only he’s not the monster the tabloids claim. He’s just… never home. Never warm. Never hers.But slowly, walls begin to thaw. And Layla realizes the man she married may be the one thing she never thought she'd find:Safety.