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His Regret Came Too Late for My Heart
NovelShort
Hoàn thành
When my mother lay at death’s door, I turned to my then-fiancé, Ethan Harris, pleading for his help — but he walked away and married Elara Moon instead. With time running out and options exhaust...
Chương (4)
第1章
I was on my way to Marcus’s office, the small plastic stick trembling in my palm. Two clear lines stared up at me from the test. In the other hand I had the keys to the country house I’d spent months arranging for him — a surprise I’d been saving. All through the drive I’d rehearsed the reveal: perhaps I’d thrust the keys and the test at him the moment I saw him, letting his face show the shock and joy; or maybe I’d wait until after dinner, present it as a quiet, perfect moment between us.
None of those plans survived the moment my knuckles touched his office door. I was poised to knock when voices drifted to me from within, casual and certain. I paused, the words fuzzy at first, then snapping into focus.
“Nora doesn’t need to know,” someone said. “It’s all behind us now.”
My hand froze on the handle. I pressed closer to the wood, heart thudding against my ribs. The next line cut through me like a fist.
“You reallocated her mother’s organ to save Elara Moon’s sister. You deceived Nora, and because of that lie her mother is gone.” The voice was flat; there was no tremor in it. It belonged to David.
My knees went soft. Elara Moon. The name lodged in my throat and twisted. Elara — the woman who’d once held Marcus’s heart. Elara — the one Ethan had chosen over me years ago. Elara — the woman Marcus had never truly stopped loving.
I leaned against the door, an invisible audience to a betrayal I’d never imagined. Inside, Marcus answered with that calm, practiced indifference I’d come to mistake for strength.
“I did what was necessary,” he said. “Elara and her sister were our priority. Nora’s mother was already beyond help.”
“So you had her killed?” David hissed.
“I did what I could,” Marcus countered, voice stripped of remorse. “I saved Elara’s sibling, and I married Nora. Isn’t that payment enough?”
“You’ve been living a lie for five years, Marcus. Pretending to be the perfect spouse. That poor woman adores you,” David spat.
Marcus’s tone dropped to a clinical flatness. “Nora is a convenience. I fulfilled my obligation to her. If she ever learns the truth…then I’ll deal with it. If I must remove her from the equation, I will. Everything else is irrelevant so long as Elara is content.”
The pregnancy test fell from my fingers and clattered to the floor, the tiny plastic a betrayal in my hand. I could no longer breathe properly; the room spun. For years he’d doted on me, lavished me with gifts and careful attention, built a life that had felt safe and whole. I’d believed in him. I’d believed the warmth in his eyes. Today those beliefs were crushed into shards.
I turned on my heel, flung the mansion keys into the nearest bin as if they burned, and fled. The corridors became a smear of color as tears blurred everything. My chest constricted with each ragged breath; panic made my steps uneven. I didn’t stop until the hospital parking lot swallowed me and the car door slammed behind me. My knuckles dug into the wheel until they whitened.
I drove through a haze of salt and fury, windshield streaked with tears. Words replayed like a cruel recording. My mother — gone because of a choice made for another woman. Marcus had taken her life and handed it to someone else. The thought bowed me forward; my foot slammed on the brake too late. The world lurched violently; light turned to bloom and then to black.
When I came to, the antiseptic sting of a hospital room washed over me. Pain lanced through my head and muscles, every nerve replaying the crash. The fluorescent lights above made my eyelids ache. Then I saw him: Marcus, seated at my bedside, his fingers intertwined with mine like a lifeline.
“Nora,” he said, voice raw, eyes rimmed red. “What happened? Why were you driving like that? You could have died.”
He bent and kissed my palm, then my forehead, with a tenderness that felt rehearsed. Tears tracked down his face. “Don’t ever scare me like that again. I couldn’t bear it.”
He looked at me as if his life pivoted around me. The performance — the grief, the fear — was flawless. He whispered I love yous and promises over and over, each one slipping into the space where the revelation still burned.
I forced a small, brittle smile and lied. “I’m okay,” I murmured.
Relief softened his features, and he leaned in to kiss me again, murmuring how much I meant to him. For a few minutes I let him cradle the illusion, let him believe I had not heard. I let him mistake my silence for ignorance, my tears for pain, not comprehension.
Beneath that practiced calm, my mind was already assembling a plan. Marcus Elwood had robbed me of my mother, of the future I’d wanted. He had traded my family for the favors he’d paid and the obsessions he’d cultivated. He had betrayed me in the deepest possible way. Leaving him wasn’t sufficient. Mere departure wouldn’t balance the ledger.
If he thought I’d accept being discarded and returned to nothing, he had miscalculated. I would take from him what he had taken from me. He would learn, in exact measure and in the currency he understood, what it meant to be ruined. I would not let him keep living in the neat little world he’d built atop the ruins of my life.
Outside the hospital window the afternoon light fell flat and indifferent on the city. Inside, Marcus’s hand squeezed mine once, intensely, a blend of apology and ownership. I returned his clasp with a quiet I hadn’t known I possessed. The smile on my lips was small and cold.
“I’m fine,” I said again, but the words no longer matched the woman who had walked into his office that morning. The woman leaving that room carried with her more than grief — she bore a vow.
第2章
Marcus told me he’d be out of town for a business trip.
“Just a couple of days,” he’d said, kissing my forehead like the doting husband he pretended to be. “I’ll miss you.”
I smiled and waved him off, pretending to care. The moment his car disappeared down the driveway, I got to work.
I’d spent the last few days observing his routines, watching where he kept his most guarded possessions. It didn’t take long to find the safe hidden behind a painting in his office.
The code? That was easy. Elara Moon’s birthday.
The lock clicked open on my first try.
Inside, everything I needed was neatly organized.
There were documents from the hospital—agreements signed for organ donation, records of the surgery, and proof that he’d authorized the transfer of my mother’s organ to Elara’s sister.
Tears stung my eyes, but I forced them back.
Beside the hospital records were a series of financial transactions. Payments made to my ex-fiancé, Ethan Harris. For business, the receipts claimed. But I knew better now.
My hands trembled as I sifted through them. Jewelry, designer clothes, vacations. He’d disguised them as corporate gifts, but every single one had been for Elara.
I found another pile of receipts. These were for me—the necklaces, the rings, the dresses. For years, I had thought they were lavish, extravagant even. But compared to Elara’s gifts, they were nothing.
The realization hit me like a punch to the gut. He had never loved me. I had been nothing more than a placeholder. A convenient wife to shield his obsession with Elara.
I sat down on the floor, surrounded by his lies. For a moment, I felt the tears spill over, hot and bitter.
But then I clenched my fists.
I wasn’t going to cry. Not anymore.
I took out my phone and began photographing everything. The hospital agreements, the financial transactions, the receipts—all of it. I captured every detail.
At the bottom of the safe, I found a folder labeled “Future Assets.” Inside were investment plans, property deeds, and insurance policies. I made copies of those too.
When I was done, I closed the safe, leaving everything exactly as it had been.
I walked out of the estate without looking back.
The lawyer’s office was my next stop.
“Mrs. Elwood,” he said, startled when I walked in unannounced. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I need a divorce agreement,” I said calmly.
His eyes widened. “Does Mr. Elwood—”
“No,” I interrupted. “He doesn’t know. And I’d like to keep it that way for now.”
He hesitated, but then nodded. “We already have a template prepared. All I need is your signature.”
He handed me the papers, and I skimmed through them. Everything was in order.
I signed my name at the bottom with a steady hand.
“Send it to him after I’m gone,” I instructed. “No earlier.”
“Gone?” he asked, confused.
But I didn’t explain. I left the office and headed to my next destination.
The building was tucked away in an alley, its sign faded and barely legible.
This was the place.
An underground agency specializing in making people vanish.
I pushed open the door, and the smell of cigarettes and damp paper filled the air. A man behind the counter looked up, his face shadowed under a hood.
“You lost?” he asked.
“No,” I said firmly. “I need your services.”
His eyes narrowed. “What kind of services?”
“I want to disappear,” I said. “Completely.”
He leaned back, studying me. “You know what you’re asking for?”
“Yes.”
He smirked. “And what makes you think I can help you?”
I reached into my bag and pulled out a stack of cash. The bills were crisp, untraceable.
His smirk widened. “Now we’re talking.”
He motioned for me to follow him to a back room. The walls were lined with monitors, and the hum of machinery filled the space.
“Here’s how it works,” he began. “We’ll fake your death. A car crash, drowning, whatever you want. Once it’s done, you’ll get new identification, a new life. No one will ever find you.”
I nodded, my resolve unshaken.
“I want it to look like a suicide,” I said. “Something believable. No loose ends.”
He handed me a clipboard. “Fill this out. We’ll handle the rest.”
第3章
The headline caught my attention before I even realized I was reading it.
“Marcus Elwood and Elara Moon spotted together at an exclusive auction — old flames reignited after years apart.”
For a heartbeat, my world simply stopped. A sharp, suffocating pain bloomed in my chest as I stared at the screen, unable to process what I was seeing.
There they were — Marcus and Elara — elegantly dressed, their smiles polished, their chemistry undeniable. They stood close, angled toward each other as though the rest of the room didn’t exist. His eyes lingered on her, and hers shimmered with that same softness I had once thought was reserved for me.
Every news outlet had the same photos — Elara’s fingertips brushing against Marcus’s sleeve, the way he tilted slightly toward her, caught mid-laugh, caught mid-betrayal. Together, they looked picture-perfect, the kind of couple photographers couldn’t resist: timeless, magnetic, disgustingly in love.
And to think — he had told me he was on a business trip.
There was no business meeting. That auction wasn’t about contracts or clients. It was a date — one broadcast to the entire world.
I scrolled further down the page, my hands trembling as the article gushed over their “undeniable spark,” describing the way their connection “transcended time.” Each word felt like a blade twisting deeper. My pulse raced; my throat constricted until breathing became a conscious effort.
The phone slipped from my fingers and hit the couch with a dull thud. My vision blurred as my chest heaved, air catching painfully in my lungs. The denial I’d been clinging to shattered completely. The truth was there, merciless and irrefutable.
And yet, through the haze of heartbreak, my mind reached for one thing — the baby.
My trembling hand rested over my abdomen. I inhaled deeply, eyes squeezed shut. Inside me grew a small, untainted life — innocent and blameless, a part of me that Marcus could never touch or destroy. Whatever pain I carried, it didn’t belong to this child. This baby was light — my one unbroken thing.
I had to stay strong. Not for him. Not even for myself.
For my baby.
That’s what took me to the hospital.
The antiseptic scent of the clinic did little to steady me, but when the doctor smiled and guided the ultrasound wand over my stomach, I felt the air return to my lungs. The rhythmic flicker of a tiny heartbeat filled the room, steady and beautiful.
“Everything looks perfect,” the doctor said, turning the screen toward me. “You’re carrying a healthy baby.”
My eyes flooded, but the tears that slipped down my cheeks weren’t of despair. They were warm, cleansing. For the first time in what felt like forever, I felt something other than pain.
I felt hope.
When I left the hospital, I knew what I had to do.
Elwood Enterprises — the company Marcus had built and I had supported from the shadows — rose before me like a monument to deceit. Once, I’d felt proud walking through its glass doors; today, I felt like a stranger trespassing in her own life.
The lobby buzzed with employees moving briskly from one task to another. Their polite greetings faltered when they saw me, the whispers just beneath the surface too loud to ignore. I tightened my grip on the resignation letter I held.
Spotting an assistant, I approached. “Is Mr. Elwood in his office?” I asked, keeping my tone neutral.
The young woman hesitated. “Yes, ma’am, but I’m afraid you can’t go in right now.”
“Why not?” I demanded, arching an eyebrow. “I’m his wife.”
She flinched. “Mr. Elwood has… an important visitor, ma’am. He requested privacy.”
My stomach turned. “A visitor? Who?”
“I’m sorry,” she said softly, eyes darting away. “I’m not authorized to say.”
He hadn’t even told me he was back. He hadn’t even bothered to pretend anymore.
“I’m his wife,” I repeated slowly, my voice dropping to a quiet threat.
She shook her head, apologetic but firm. “I can’t disobey his orders.”
Fine.
I forced a polite smile, thanked her, and walked away — but I didn’t leave. Instead, I slipped down the hall, my steps soft against the marble floor. The corridor to his office stretched ahead like a path I already knew would end in ruin.
The door was slightly ajar. I paused, every instinct screaming at me to turn back.
But I didn’t.
I pushed the door open just enough to see inside.
Marcus stood near his desk, his hand resting lightly on Elara’s waist. Their faces hovered dangerously close. And then, in slow motion, his lips brushed hers.
The air left my lungs. It was as if the floor had vanished beneath me.
They kissed — fully, deeply — oblivious to everything else. The warmth in his eyes, the way he leaned in, the quiet sigh she let out — it all told me what I’d been too afraid to believe.
I wanted to scream. To tear the room apart. To ask him why.
But instead, I lifted my phone with shaking hands and pressed the shutter.
The photo captured everything: her satisfied smirk, his gentle touch, the betrayal carved into a perfect still frame.
It was enough.
I slipped away without a word, leaving the resignation letter on my desk — a silent ending to a marriage already dead. Once inside my car, I stared at the photo again. The image blurred through my tears, but the proof was undeniable. I uploaded it using a dummy account and sent it straight to Ethan Harris — Elara’s husband. Let the truth destroy them all.
Back at the mansion, I gathered every trace of Marcus — every gift, every token, every lie disguised as love. The jewelry, the letters, the dresses. I carried them downstairs and fed them to the fire. The flames roared to life, crackling as years of pretense turned to ash.
And then, without warning, she appeared. Elara Moon stepped out from the shadows, her expression serene, her smile venomous. She kicked one of the burning boxes, sending sparks and half-charred photos scattering into the air like confetti.
“Elara!” I shouted, startled. “What are you doing?”
She blinked innocently, feigning surprise. “Oh, sorry! I slipped,” she said lightly, still smiling. “Are these your memories? You’re burning them? How poetic. Or maybe,” she tilted her head, “you finally realized how worthless you are to him?”
My lips pressed into a thin line. “Excuse me?”
“I mean,” she said sweetly, voice dripping with cruelty, “you couldn’t even save your mother. You let her die, remember? How useless can one woman be?”
Her words sliced through me like a blade. My vision blurred with fury.
Before I could think, my hand struck her across the face. The sound echoed, sharp and final. The force wasn’t even hard — but Elara stumbled backward, her heel catching the edge of a smoldering box.
And then she fell — into the fire.
For a moment, the world went silent except for the hiss of burning paper and the scream that tore through the air.
第4章
I froze for half a heartbeat, startled by the chaos unfolding before me. I hadn’t even registered what was happening when a shadow surged from behind, shoving me aside. I hit the floor hard as the man rushed past—Marcus—and he went straight to Elara, cradling her in his arms like she was made of glass.
I’d thought my heart had reached its breaking point long ago, but the sight of him holding her, his voice rising in fury—not concern for me, but for her—proved me wrong.
“What’s wrong with you, Nora?” he barked, anger sharp in every syllable. “Elara just came to greet you, and you struck her out of nowhere!”
His glare cut through me like ice. There was no warmth left in those eyes, no trace of affection. For the first time, I saw what I truly was to him—nothing but a burden.
I swallowed hard, forcing myself to stand. “She provoked me, Marcus. She mentioned my mother and called me worthless,” I said, my voice trembling but steady enough to sting. “What did you expect me to do? Sit there quietly while you still refuse to explain what really happened back then? You told me the operation failed, and that was it!”
For a brief moment, I saw panic flicker across his face—real and raw—but it was gone as soon as it appeared. He straightened, his expression smooth again. “What explanation do you need? I told you already. The surgery didn’t work because of your mother’s condition. Why are you acting like I’ve kept something from you?”
Because you did keep something from me, I wanted to scream. But I couldn’t—not yet. Revenge had its own timing.
Before I could respond, he cut in again, his tone hardening. “No matter what, that doesn’t give you the right to hit her. Elara was being polite. You owe her an apology.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but Elara spoke first, her voice sweetly composed, the perfect victim. “It’s fine, Marcus. Really. She probably still resents me for what happened between Ethan and me. I can’t blame her. If she needed to slap me to get it out of her system, then so be it. Don’t scold her on my account.”
The two of them turned away before I could say another word. Halfway across the hallway, I heard her whisper softly, just loud enough for me to catch. “If she hates me this much, maybe it’s better if we stop seeing each other. I don’t want to make things difficult for you.”
That was it. The final crack. Whatever thread of emotion I had left for Marcus snapped completely.
I stood there, fists clenched so tight my nails dug into my palms. The love I’d held onto for five years—burning, desperate, foolish—finally turned to ash.
A few hours later, my phone buzzed.
I’m sorry, love. I didn’t mean to upset you by asking you to apologize. Elara’s in charge of the Harris project—I didn’t want to risk our contract. Once everything settles, I’ll make it up to you. I told you I’d get you a gift, didn’t I? Don’t be angry, please.
I stared at the message, a bitter laugh escaping my lips. He didn’t care about me. Not then, not now. He was still doing everything for her. I tossed the phone aside, gathered the bag I’d already packed, and left the house without a second glance.
The hotel room I checked into was small and cold, but it was silent—and that was all I wanted. For once, no lies, no performance. Just me and my resolve.
I had barely unpacked when my phone rang again. It was one of the employees from Marcus’s company.
“Ma’am, where are you?” she asked nervously. “The investor meeting is about to start—are you on your way?”
I was about to tell her I wasn’t coming when a voice filtered through the background. Marcus.
“Call a team of specialists,” he ordered briskly. “Elara needs treatment immediately.”
I blinked, stunned for a moment, before a humorless laugh escaped me. Treatment? For what—her pride? She’d barely been scratched. Yet he was ready to spend millions for her comfort.
I hung up. “Tell him I won’t be attending,” I said curtly.
Moments later, my phone lit up again—Marcus this time. I didn’t want to answer, but curiosity got the better of me. I pressed the call button silently, not saying a word. He didn’t realize I’d already picked up; his attention was on someone else.
“Sir,” his secretary said, “are you certain you want to revise this contract? The loss could exceed tens of millions. The board might—”
“Do it,” Marcus interrupted. “I made Elara a promise. If she wants it changed, it gets changed.”
The line went quiet after the secretary left. Then his voice softened, switching effortlessly into his husband act.
“Hey, love,” he said sweetly, as though nothing had happened. “They told me you missed the meeting. Are you okay?”
“I’m not feeling well,” I replied, my tone deliberately weak.
“Then rest,” he said quickly. “I’ll cancel the rest of my schedule and come home soon.”
I didn’t bother answering. He wouldn’t come back—not when Elara was around. I spent the rest of the day in silence, waiting.
Evening arrived, and still no sign of him. I scrolled idly through my phone, half-distracted, until a live stream caught my eye—an influencer showing off dresses at a luxury boutique. I almost scrolled past… until a familiar figure appeared in the background.
Marcus. Standing beside Elara. Holding up a dress against her body, laughing. Smiling.
My heart turned to stone.
This was the moment. I called my lawyer first. “Send the divorce documents to his assistant immediately,” I said. “Do not wait.” Then I contacted the agency—the one that specialized in disappearances. “We move tonight.”
Later, I would hear how the news reached him. How his secretary had burst into his office, pale and trembling.
“Sir,” she stammered, clutching her tablet, “there’s an issue. Madam Nora apparently found out the truth about her mother—and she’s filed for divorce.”
I could almost see his expression: confusion, disbelief, then dread.
Moments later, another staff member came running in, breathless. “Sir! There’s been a report—Madam Nora… she’s gone. They said she ended her life because she couldn’t bear what you did to her mother.”