Too Late For Regret: My Cold Husband's Tears

The $50 million lawsuit notice on my phone screen was a violent, pulsing red. My father’s corporate espionage had finally caught up to us, and he was ready to throw me to the wolves to save his own skin. To survive, I signed a contract marriage with the predator himself—Alaric Hunter, the very man currently dismantling my family’s legacy. But the moment we left City Hall, my father turned into a monster. He called the hospital and canceled the private care for my dying mother, moving her to a miserable state ward just to break my spirit for "disobeying" him. "I will find the money," I hissed, even as my throat threatened to close from the paralyzing stress. "You’ll come crawling back when that monster dumps you!" my father roared, leaving me standing in the rain with nothing but a battered suitcase. My ex-boyfriend, the man who actually falsified the documents that framed me, mocked me from his Ferrari, while Alaric’s own business rivals planted hidden cameras in our new penthouse to watch our every move. I was a legal shield, a corporate asset, and a target all at once. I didn't understand why Alaric was suddenly paying my mother’s medical bills in secret or why he looked at me with such chilling intensity. Was I just a tool for his voting shares, or was he the only person in this city who actually wanted me safe? I looked at the files Alaric left on the marble counter, filled with evidence against everyone who had ever hurt me. I was done being the victim of a hostile takeover; it was time to show them what happens when a Hunter’s wife decides to start hunting.

I stood at the altar, ready to bind my soul to Holden, the man I had loved since we were pups. But the moment his stepsister, Jaidyn, let out a shrill scream, he ripped his hand away from mine. He abandoned me in front of the entire pack, cradling her in his arms and claiming his wolf had chosen her over me. The humiliation didn't end there. When I tried to leave, Holden kidnapped me. He locked a silver collar around my neck, searing my skin and cutting off my connection to the world. He dragged me to a filthy dungeon, ignoring my screams, and began draining my blood to "save" Jaidyn. As my life force faded into the IV bag, I watched Jaidyn smirk behind his back, her "wounds" healing instantly. Holden called me a monster for hurting her, blind to the truth. To him, I was just a weak, latent wolf—a spare blood bag for his mistress. But they made a fatal mistake. They didn't know that the "weakness" inside me was actually a dormant power waiting to explode. And they certainly didn't know that my rejection of Holden had already summoned a new mate. The terrifying Lycan King, Alphons, was coming. And when he arrives, he will burn their world to the ground.

After five years of a cold, empty marriage to tech titan Arlo Hatfield, I tricked him into signing our divorce papers, disguised as a grant application for my astrophysics fellowship in Chile. Just as my escape was within reach, I discovered I was pregnant. At the same time, I found Arlo doting on his childhood sweetheart, Brielle, who was faking her own pregnancy to win him over. In the hospital, suffering from a real pregnancy complication, I watched as Arlo rushed to Brielle' s side, completely ignoring my pain. He was so blinded by her lies that he didn't even realize I was carrying his child, assuming I'd just had a minor stomach flu. "Corinne, darling, are you alright?" Brielle cooed, her eyes glinting with victory. "Arlo and I just got the most wonderful news. Our little one is doing so well." He never even looked back at me. I saw the truth then: I was invisible to him, and so was our child. His world was built on power and lies, and there was no place for us in it. So I fled. I took our baby and disappeared to Chile, building a new life among the stars, far from his suffocating shadow. I thought I had finally escaped. Years later, after a catastrophic earthquake, he found me. Bruised, broken, and desperate, he begged for forgiveness. "I didn't know," he pleaded. I looked at the man who had shattered my world and held our child closer. "You didn't care to know," I said, my voice as cold as the space between galaxies. "And now, you've lost everything."

Allie Mclean secretly booked a sensory-friendly movie screening for her autistic brother, Devon, a rare act of defiance against her controlling fiancé, Griffin Ryan. Griffin, a powerful real estate heir, found out and retaliated by remotely torturing Devon with strobe lights and discordant screeches, forcing Allie to watch her brother' s terror. He held her captive, making her witness Devon' s agony, all because his new obsession, an intern named Kassie, claimed Allie had given her a "funny look." The cruelty escalated, always tied to Kassie' s whims. If Kassie complained, Devon suffered. When Kassie feigned a car accident, Griffin forced Allie, who was anemic, to donate blood for Kassie, only to have it discarded. Allie' s world shattered. She realized Griffin saw Devon as a weapon and her as a disposable possession. The final blow came when Griffin, at Kassie' s false accusation, brutally killed Allie' s beloved horse, Starlight, right in front of her. This monstrous act ignited a cold, clear rage within Allie, pushing her to her breaking point. She knew she had to escape, not just for herself, but for Devon.

For three years, I was a substitute for my twin sister, married to the powerful Donovan Blackwood. It was a contract. My payment for enduring his coldness was fifty million dollars and my freedom. But my husband had a woman he truly loved, Chloe Sanders. At her request, he pushed me into the freezing ocean. When we both fell from a yacht, he screamed for the rescuers to save her first, leaving me to drown. He even traded me to a torturer to get her back. Through it all, I endured. Not for love, but for the money. He mistook my silence for devotion, my endurance for love. He never realized that every cruel act didn't break my heart, it just ticked down the clock on my sentence. Now, the contract is over. The fifty million dollars is in my account. I left the wedding ring on his pillow and walked away without a backward glance. I thought it was the end. But I underestimated his obsession. He's just now realizing the truth, and he's coming for me. He thinks he can apologize. He thinks he can get me back.

I remembered the day Liam Hayes proposed, his eyes full of sincerity, promising to love me more than life itself. Three years later, that world collapsed around me in a damp, abandoned warehouse. "Choose, Liam. Your wife or your childhood sweetheart," the man with the gun said, his voice flat and bored. Liam stood, caught between me, tied to a chair, and a weeping Olivia White. I watched silently as he untied Olivia, his whispered "I'm sorry" a physical blow. He walked her out, his back to me, leaving me bound. Just as tears broke through my carefully maintained calm, the kidnapper cut my ropes, telling me he wasn't a murderer, just a man who believed in consequences. He looked me in the eye. "For what it's worth, he's an idiot." My heart was a hollow, aching void. I had survived, but what was left? My husband had walked away, choosing another. Then, the police swarmed in, and Liam was there, rushing back, pulling me into a suffocating embrace. He said he was sorry, that he was here. But I felt nothing. I woke in a hospital, Olivia by my side, Liam fussing over her. He even blamed me for being out late. The final blow came when I found out Olivia was pregnant with his child, after years of my own struggles with infertility, and his mother shrieked that I was "barren." The injustice was a cold, hard knot in my stomach. How could love turn into this betrayal? Why was I, his wife, continually abandoned for a shadow from his past? Was this all a twisted joke? Then, the ultimate cosmic joke: I discovered I was pregnant with Liam's child. I confronted him, giving him a final, brutal choice: "My baby, or her baby. You can only have one." He chose her. I walked away, no longer needing anything from him, ready to build a life free from his choices and his chaos.

From childhood, Stephanie knew she was not her parents' real daughter, but out of gratitude, she turned their business into a powerhouse. Once the true daughter came back, Stephanie was cast out-only to be embraced by an even more powerful birth family, adored by three influential brothers. The second ruled the battlefield. "Stephanie's sweet and innocent; she would never commit such crimes. That name on the wanted list is just a coincidence." And the youngest controlled the markets. "Anyone who dares bully my sister will lose my investment." Her former family begged for forgiveness-even on TV. Stephanie stood firm. When the richest man proposed, she became the woman everyone envied. The eldest ran the boardroom. "Cancel the meeting. I need to set up the art exhibition for my sister!" The town was turned upside down.

Being second best is practically in my DNA. My sister got the love, the attention, the spotlight. And now, even her damn fiancé. Technically, Rhys Granger was my fiancé now-billionaire, devastatingly hot, and a walking Wall Street wet dream. My parents shoved me into the engagement after Catherine disappeared, and honestly? I didn't mind. I'd crushed on Rhys for years. This was my chance, right? My turn to be the chosen one? Wrong. One night, he slapped me. Over a mug. A stupid, chipped, ugly mug my sister gave him years ago. That's when it hit me-he didn't love me. He didn't even see me. I was just a warm-bodied placeholder for the woman he actually wanted. And apparently, I wasn't even worth as much as a glorified coffee cup. So I slapped him right back, dumped his ass, and prepared for disaster-my parents losing their minds, Rhys throwing a billionaire tantrum, his terrifying family plotting my untimely demise. Obviously, I needed alcohol. A lot of alcohol. Enter him. Tall, dangerous, unfairly hot. The kind of man who makes you want to sin just by existing. I'd met him only once before, and that night, he just happened to be at the same bar as my drunk, self-pitying self. So I did the only logical thing: I dragged him into a hotel room and ripped off his clothes. It was reckless. It was stupid. It was completely ill-advised. But it was also: Best. Sex. Of. My. Life. And, as it turned out, the best decision I'd ever made. Because my one-night stand isn't just some random guy. He's richer than Rhys, more powerful than my entire family, and definitely more dangerous than I should be playing with. And now, he's not letting me go.

My Luna became an alpha after I rejected her : she was my Luna. I rejected her. Now she's stronger than ever and she has my son. Amelia's world shattered the day her daughter died-and her mate, Alpha Aiden of the Red Moon Pack, divorced her to reunite with his ex-girlfriend. Cast out, disgraced, and accused of poisoning her own child, Amelia was stripped of her title and driven from her pack. The next morning, her lifeless body was found at the border.They all believed she was dead.But she wasn't. Far from the ashes of betrayal, Amelia rebuilt herself-rising from rejection and ruin to become the first female Alpha of Velaris, the most powerful and respected pack in the realm. She also carried a secret Aiden never discovered:She was pregnant-with his son.Years later, fate brings them face to face once more. A deadly disease is spreading through the packs, and the only one who can stop it is the renowned doctor they thought had died. When Aiden sees the boy at her side-his eyes, his blood-he realizes the truth.He didn't just lose his Luna. He destroyed the mother of his child.And now, she's everything he's not-stronger, wiser, untouchable. Will she heal the pack that betrayed her?Will she ever let him near her heart again?Or is his punishment simply living with the consequences?

I was finally brought back to the billionaire Vance estate after years in the grimy foster system, but the luxury Lincoln felt more like a funeral procession. My biological family didn't welcome me with open arms; they looked at me like a stain on a silk shirt. They thought I was a "defective" mute with cognitive delays, a spare part to be traded away. Within hours of my arrival, my father decided to sell me to Julian Thorne, a bitter, paralyzed heir, just to secure a corporate merger. My sister Tiffany treated me like trash, whispering for me to "go back to the gutter" before pouring red wine over my dress in front of Manhattan's elite. When a drunk cousin tried to lay hands on me at the engagement gala, my grandmother didn't protect me-she raised her silver-topped cane to strike my face for "embarrassing the family." They called me a sacrificial lamb, laughing as they signed the prenuptial agreement that stripped me of my freedom. They had no idea I was E-11, the underground hacker-artist the world was obsessed with, or that I had already breached their private servers. I found the hidden medical records-blood types A, A, and B-a biological impossibility that proved my "parents" were harboring a scandal that could ruin them. Why bring me back just to discard me again? And why was Julian Thorne, the man supposedly bound to a wheelchair, secretly running miles at dawn on his private estate? Standing in the middle of the ballroom, I didn't plead for mercy. I used a text-to-speech app to broadcast a cold, synthetic threat: "I have the records, Richard. Do you want me to explain genetics to the press, or should we leave quietly?" With the "paralyzed" billionaire as my unexpected accomplice, I walked out of the Vance house and into a much more dangerous game.

I was at my own engagement party at the Sterling estate when the world started tilting. Victoria Sterling, my future mother-in-law, smiled coldly as she watched me struggle with a cup of tea that had been drugged to ruin me. Before I could find my fiancé, Ryan, a waiter dragged me into the forbidden West Wing and locked me in a room with Julian Sterling, the family’s "fallen titan" who had been confined to a wheelchair for years. The door burst open to a frenzy of camera flashes and theatrical screams. Victoria framed me as a seductress caught in the act, and Ryan didn't even try to listen to my pleas, calling me "cheap leftovers" before walking away with his pregnant mistress. When I turned to my own family for help, my father signed a document severing our relationship for a five-million-dollar payout from Julian. They traded me like a commodity without a second thought. I didn't understand why my own parents were so eager to sell me, or how Ryan could look at me with such disgust after promising me forever. I was a sacrifice, a pawn used to protect the family's offshore accounts, and I couldn't fathom how every person I loved had a price tag for my destruction. With nowhere left to go, I married Julian in a bleak ceremony at City Hall. He slid a heavy diamond onto my finger and whispered, "We have a war to start." That night, inside his secret penthouse, I watched the paralyzed man stand up from his wheelchair and activate a screen filled with the Sterling family's darkest secrets. The execution had officially begun.

For eight years, Cecilia Moore was the perfect Luna, loyal, and unmarked. Until the day she found her Alpha mate with a younger, purebred she-wolf in his bed. In a world ruled by bloodlines and mating bonds, Cecilia was always the outsider. But now, she's done playing by wolf rules. She smiles as she hands Xavier the quarterly financials-divorce papers clipped neatly beneath the final page. "You're angry?" he growls. "Angry enough to commit murder," she replies, voice cold as frost. A silent war brews under the roof they once called home. Xavier thinks he still holds the power-but Cecilia has already begun her quiet rebellion. With every cold glance and calculated step, she's preparing to disappear from his world-as the mate he never deserved. And when he finally understands the strength of the heart he broke... It may be far too late to win it back.