My Billionaire Ex-Husband's Regret

The autumn wind cut through Rachel York like icy blades, slicing straight to the bone. Her thin frame shivered beneath the same worn sweater she had been wearing the day she was sent to prison three years ago. The cuffs were frayed, pilled with age, and the once-deep color had faded to a tired, washed-out gray.

She stood before the grand, ornate wrought-iron gates she knew so well, every ounce of strength in her body spent just to get here.

Three years.

Three years of stolen freedom. Three years of carrying a crime she did not commit, serving time in someone else's place.

Her fingers, cold and stiff, pressed the doorbell. From inside came the muffled thrum of music and bursts of laughter, sounds so warm and alive they made her feel, for a moment, like she was dreaming.

What day was it today?

The intercom crackled to life. The butler's voice came through, hesitant. "Who is it?"

"It's me. Rachel York."

Her voice was dry, rough from disuse, the words rasping out like sandpaper.

A pause. Then a metallic click, and the gates began to slide open.

The closer she came to the brightly lit mansion, the louder the laughter and music became. Through the towering glass windows, she saw the dazzling brilliance of crystal chandeliers, light spilling like molten gold across polished floors.

She felt like an uninvited shadow at a royal ball — a Cinderella who had stumbled in too late, carrying nothing but the cold and the ruin clinging to her.

Rachel pushed open the heavy front doors. Warmth and noise rushed over her, only to vanish in an instant as the laughter and music died. A hundred pairs of eyes turned toward her, sharp and unblinking, like spotlights.

Surprise. Confusion. Disdain. Amusement. The air thickened with the weight of their stares.

The grand hall was dressed like a dream — flowers, balloons, ribbons strung in arcs of color. In the center stood an enormous tiered cake, lavish and impossible to miss.

Beside it, glowing under the attention of the crowd, was Laura Smith in a pristine white gown, her hand looped around the arm of a man.

Sebastian Lancaster.

Rachel's husband.

He stood tall in a perfectly tailored black suit, his striking features carved in stone. His expression was unreadable — until he looked at Laura, and something almost imperceptible softened in his eyes.

Then he looked at Rachel.

The warmth vanished. In its place was a cold, flat indifference… and buried deep within it, a flicker of something darker. Disgust.

Her chest tightened under that gaze, a dull ache spreading like frost.

Laura's hand flew to her mouth in feigned shock. "Rachel? You… you're back? Today isn't—"

She stopped mid-sentence, as if something had just occurred to her, and shrank back behind Sebastian as though Rachel were a dangerous animal.

Sebastian's arm slid protectively around Laura's shoulders, the movement smooth, intimate.

His voice was glacial, stripped of any trace of familiarity. "Who told you to come here? Get out."

A low murmur rippled through the guests.

"That's Rachel? The woman who cheated on Sebastian and nearly drove the Lancaster Group into bankruptcy?"

"I thought she was serving five years. How is she out already?"

"God, what a scene. Does she even know what day it is?"

The words came like a rain of needles, each one cutting deep, until humiliation and fury rose and broke over her, drowning her in their weight.

Three years ago, in this very house, she had drunk from a glass laced with something she couldn't taste. She'd woken bruised, disoriented, and in a stranger's bed — only to find Sebastian standing in the doorway, his face twisted in fury.

The city had branded her a whore, a woman too weak to resist temptation. Sebastian's disappointment had curdled into rage.

Soon after, a project Laura had been managing imploded, costing millions. Every shred of evidence pointed to Rachel as the saboteur.

She had tried to explain, but no one listened. The case went to court.

Before the trial, Sebastian had cornered her with an ultimatum. Her father's medical bills were drowning them.

"You've already ruined Laura's career," he'd said coldly. "I won't let you destroy anything else. Plead guilty to embezzling company funds, and your father will get the best treatment money can buy."

For her father's life, Rachel had signed away her own.

The stain of infidelity. The weight of a felony. She had carried them alone.

And now, on the day she walked free, she had come home to find her husband throwing a glittering birthday party for the woman who had taken everything from her.

He hadn't even remembered she was being released.

Rachel looked at Sebastian's arm around Laura, at the contempt in the eyes of the guests, and felt the last trace of warmth drain from her veins.

"This is my house," she said.

Her voice was quiet, but it cut through the silence like a stone dropped into still water.

Sebastian's brow tightened, as if he had only just remembered. But the ice in his gaze didn't melt — it deepened. "So what? Are you here to beg for a drink? Or to ruin another one of Laura's good days?"

He pulled Laura closer. "You're not welcome here. Leave. Now."

Rachel stood frozen, her hands and feet numb. She looked at the man she had once loved, at the woman who had framed her, at the glittering room full of strangers who would never know the truth.

The faint hope she had carried all the way here — that maybe, somehow, something could be salvaged — shattered in that moment, crumbling to ash.

She drew in a breath of cold, sharp air, forcing back the burn in her throat and the sting in her eyes. Ignoring the stares, she met Sebastian's gaze.

"Sebastian," she said, her voice steadier now, though it trembled at the edges, "I'll go. But give me my son."

The room went still, even more than before. A few guests glanced at each other in confusion, whispering.

Sebastian's expression darkened, his jaw tightening. He flicked a glance at the butler, Mike Johnson, who had been standing silently nearby.

Mike hesitated. "Mr. Lancaster, this…"

"Take her," Sebastian ordered, his tone leaving no room for argument. His eyes locked on Rachel's, cold as steel. "See him, and then get out. For good."

The venom in his words made her chest constrict, but the thought of her child outweighed everything else.

She stumbled after Mike, not sparing another look at Sebastian or Laura.

Mike led her without a word, not toward the bright, lavish bedrooms of the main house, but down a dim hallway. The further they went, the colder the air became, tinged with the faint smell of damp and dust.

Her heart sank with every step.

At last, Mike stopped before a low, weathered door. It looked like it belonged to a storage room, long forgotten.

With a sigh, he pulled a ring of keys from his belt and unlocked it.

"He is inside," Mike said quietly, and for the first time that night, there was something like pity in his voice.