Too Late For Regret: His Discarded Rose

On the night of our engagement party, I thought I had finally escaped the dark shadow of my mother's scandalous past.

But my fiancé, Ashton, shattered my world with a single, cruel demand.

He coldly announced he was marrying a wealthy executive for a business alliance, and I was to remain his secret lover in the shadows.

He weaponized my mother's tragic suicide, claiming my ruined reputation made me unfit to be his official wife.

When I firmly refused and threw the ring back, his new fiancée shoved me, shattered her own emerald brooch, and framed me in front of the arriving elite guests.

"Look at her! A scandalous woman just like her mother!"

Ashton didn't defend me. He pulled her close and watched impassively as the crowd poured wine over my head and kicked me to the marble floor.

I curled up in the cold rain, unable to comprehend how the savior who once protected me from bullies had become my absolute worst tormentor.

Why did he pull me out of the darkness only to bury me in it himself?

But I refused to let history repeat itself and end up dead like my mother.

Bleeding and drenched, I dragged myself up and climbed onto a private helicopter waiting on the roof.

I left him and that cruel city behind forever.

Eighteen years later, when I stood at the pinnacle of my industry with a loving husband by my side, a ruined, emaciated Ashton finally found me, begging for a single glance.