Best Regret Stories & Novels Collection

My husband is the most generous man in all of Pittsburgh.
He donates his entire paycheck to the community every month and says to the camera with tears in his eyes: "When your neighbors are freezing, you can't just worry about whether there's enough money in your own pocket. You have to show some heart."
But where the camera can't see —
A gas company shutoff notice sits on the kitchen table. His m...

In my previous life, I was the heir adored by the entire Golden Moon Pack. My sister, Delphine, was cast out with our disgraced father, left to struggle for survival in the frozen wastelands of the North.
Ten years later, on the eve of my coronation as Luna, Delphine, driven mad by jealousy, infiltrated the temple and set it ablaze with black fire.
She clutched my throat and dragged me into death ...

Mira Alcott does not fall in love. She gets paid.

For two years she has worked as a professional stand in fiancée, hired by wealthy families to attend the events their real heirs cannot face. She smiles for the cameras. She charms strangers. She goes home alone.

Her newest client is different. Julian Voss never shows his face. He speaks to her through a hidden earpiece, feeding her lines, warnin...

An accident took my sight when I was a child. From that day on, my world was nothing but darkness.

When I was little, Derek, my childhood sweetheart, held my hand and swore he would be my eyes and protect me for the rest of my life.

But as we grew older, he began to see me as a burden just because I was blind. He fell for my bright, outgoing younger sister, Lilith.

He often hid my cane and watc...

The day my husband Alaric drained fifty years of my starlight, the unformed child in my womb, stripped of the life force that sustained it, began tearing through me in a frenzy.
The priest knelt before the obsidian altar, begging. He said I was a rare starborn bloodline—that bearing a child was already a gamble with my life, and forcibly draining fifty years of starlight would cost me not only the...

"Your wife is just making up another excuse to ask for money."

With just one sneer from his trusted female assistant, my husband hung up my desperate call for help on that stormy night.

Safe in his warm conference room, he scolded me for being unreasonable and told me to "let the rain cool your head."

What he didn't know was that on that freezing night, because of his assistant's vicious lie...

In the bridal suite of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Kian and Kael stood before me. Two identical faces, two identical groom suits.
"Renata, can you tell which one is me?"
In my past life, I instantly pointed to Kian, the arrogant Voss heir.
He smiled, took my hand, and led me to the altar, swearing his eternal love in front of New York's most powerful families.
After the wedding, he spoiled me like...

My fiancé, Nathan, always said that decisions shouldn't be based on closeness, but on urgency.
At a car crash scene, he rushed my best friend, Roxanne, to the hospital first because her cuts looked deeper. When my mother was dying of cancer, he gave her hard-won experimental medication to Roxanne’s mother instead, claiming her condition was more critical.
Time after time, I convinced myself he was...

On the first day of college, most freshmen worry about making new friends. I had to figure out how to pay my own parents for a plate of lunch.
With every penny of my tuition and living expenses strictly controlled by them, I stood empty-handed in front of their campus Gospel food truck. But my mother didn't want cash.
She wanted a public spectacle to cure my "sinful depression."
My younger sist...

I died on the fourth night after Thanksgiving.
A blizzard had swallowed the entire town, and I was locked in an unheated attic.
My broken leg had turned black with infection. Every breath felt like swallowing broken glass. I tore four fingernails from their beds, but I still couldn’t claw my way through the door.
With the last of my strength, I held my old iPad against the frost-covered window.
O...

For six years, Chloe gave Vincent Sterling everything.

She buried her dreams, abandoned her future at Oxford, and became the perfect fiancée his powerful family demanded. In return, Vincent refused to marry her, never touched her—and gave all his tenderness to another woman.

Selina was the one he protected. The one he believed. Even when she stole Chloe’s jewelry designs and claimed them as her ...

I catch my husband in bed with the live-in housekeeper.

He shoves her behind him. "She's only twenty. Barely out on her own, doesn't know any better. Can't you be the bigger person here?"

His mother points a finger in my face. "You're an orphan. If we hadn't taken you in, you'd still be out on the street begging."

"Be smart about this. Make room for Kaylee, so we can all live under one roof in ...

My twin sister and I were born on the same day. She got the love. I got the debt.
Some doctor told my parents I stole Colette's immune system in the womb, and after that, the rule was simple: every time she got sick, I had to hurt worse. Fever meant the basement. Below freezing, no blanket, no socks, door padlocked from the outside.
*I was seventeen and I weighed under seventy pounds. My teeth...

The whole city is waiting to see me, Evelyn Parker, make a fool of myself at my seventh engagement party.

Six years ago, I declared before the city's social elite that I wouldn't marry unless my fiancé put the ring on my finger himself. Mason and I grew up together. I never doubted that he would.

The first time, he said he had left the ring at home. The second time, his assistant had brought the...

Twelve months of internship, top of my class in every evaluation. I showed up at Vanguard Systems to finalize my hire, and Ryan Caldwell blocked the door.
"The Aegis research position and security clearance nomination went to Madison. Five hundred thousand. Sign the NDA and walk away."
Madison Cole stood beside him. She knew her scores didn't come close to mine, yet a federal project access badge ...

For five years, my husband told me I was lucky. A human with no magic, no name, no worth — and he, the Dark Elf King, had taken me in anyway.
I believed him. I swallowed every insult in his court. I let his nobles call my son a halfbreed bastard.
Then he promised our boy he'd come to his fifth birthday, and instead he knocked him across the garden for biting the woman he'd been sneaking off to eve...

The poor girl my family funded is known as a "clumsy sweetheart."
Before the CIF Volleyball Finals, she spiked my drink with banned stimulants.
I was reported for doping, stripped of my UCLA scholarship, permanently banned, and expelled in disgrace.
When I confronted her, she cried innocent tears:
"Scarlett, I just wanted you to have enough energy to win... I didn't know it was banned."
My boyfrie...

I died the day before my brother Beckett’s state equestrian qualifiers.

Just because Beckett had mistakenly taken sedatives and fallen into a coma, my mother firmly believed that I—a worthless, sickly burden—had deliberately poisoned him out of jealousy to ruin her perfect son's future.

Ignoring my fatal immunodeficiency, knowing that even a microscopic trace of wasp venom would kill me, she dra...

Ten years ago, I took a knife from a crazed patient to save Gideon, losing my ability to ever become a mother.

Ten years later, he is America's most celebrated "Charity Doctor." Over the years, he brought home three pitiful orphans and asked me to treat them as my own.

I poured my heart and soul into raising them, until the eldest smashed a vase into my face.

Lying in my hospital bed, I over...

Ever since the day Roman pressed a gun to my head and condemned me as his parents' murderer, I became the most lowly prisoner in this estate.
 
He didn't kill me. Instead, he kept me in line using my dying mother's medical bills and my adopted sister, Callie, as leverage.
 
For three years, he paraded various women into the master bedroom, leaving me to change their tangled sheets; he ground my di...

"I'm six weeks pregnant with Asher's baby," my husband's mistress texted me, attaching a photo of a torn condom wrapper on my husband’s desk.
"If he really loved you, what am I?"
I just called a secret number.
"Are you sure you want to activate the Ghost Protocol?" my brother asked over the encrypted line.
"Once done, your identity is erased. You will cease to exist."
"Do it," I replied coldly....

On Ivy’s wedding day to her fiancé James, Alexander, the ruthless Lycan King feared throughout the kingdom, storms in, tears her from the altar, and forces her to be his wife.

Believing Ivy responsible for his fiancée’s death, he vows to make her pay.

“You destroyed the love of my life,” he snarls. “So it’s only fair that I destroy yours.”

However, as their marriage unfolds, Ivy looks nothin...

Three days ago, a car crash took my baby. I spent three nights in the hospital alone. My husband never came.
His assistant told me he was in Europe. He wasn't. He was home on the couch I picked out, holding Elodie while she cried about the thunder.
She's his "sister." No blood, no adoption, just his money. That night she was wearing my pajamas and the necklace I designed for our third anniversary....

I am a mermaid.

To walk toward him, I swallowed a dark potion, shedding my tail for a pair of legs.
Every step felt like treading on sharp blades, yet I endured it all willingly.
He took me in, promising to protect me for the rest of my life.

Then, his ex-lover returned.

She orchestrated one accident after another to frame me—a slashed costume, a staged fall down the stairs... And every singl...

Four years ago, I got mauled by a rogue wolf saving my Beta husband Derek. The attack left me unable to carry pups.

He held me that night, covered in my blood, and swore through tears that kids never mattered to him anyway.

Four years later, he's sleeping with Paige, a she-wolf I took in out of kindness six months back.

"Every family needs an heir. You can't give me one, so Paige offered. Just ...

I was born with the purest Moon Goddess bloodline, destined to be the most revered princess of the Crescent Moon Pack.
 
Yet, in my past life, every drop of my wolf essence was drained from my veins while I was still breathing.
 
Right before I died, my father's adoptive sister, Ella, stood over me. Her smile was as sickeningly sweet as poison.
 
"Years ago, I swapped you for a stillborn with your...

The sun dipped below the ocean, and the Sea Goddess temple stood empty. My fifth betrothal ceremony with the Crown Prince, Edric, had ended exactly like the previous four: without my groom.
 When Edric and my mother finally arrived, she grabbed my freezing hands. "Leonora, your father was injured. Edric was busy at the royal infirmary." "Be generous. Don't blame him."
 I bit my lip. "And last time...

"As I lay bleeding in the rain, my fiancé and my sister whispered in French, laughing about how much they paid those masked men to violate me and how perfectly they orchestrated my attack.
What they didn’t know?
I spent the last year secretly mastering French to surprise him on our honeymoon.
So, I leaned into his arms, tasted my own blood, and smiled.
Let them build their empire of lies... be...

My pre-wedding party was in full swing.

 

Yet, the center of attention wasn't me, but Julian's childhood sweetheart, Blair. She had just announced she was auctioning off her "first kiss."

 

My fiancé, Julian, bought that kiss without a second thought.

 

Amidst the roaring cheers of the crowd, they locked lips. They looked like the perfect match, made in heaven.

 

In that moment, I didn't c...

My boyfriend Jams was poor, but he insisted on spoiling his Golden Retriever.
The dog ate premium raw meat; we ate expired discount bento boxes.
The dog slept in a custom climate-controlled kennel; we squeezed into a leaky trailer.
James always said, "Max is our baby, we can't let him suffer."
To make ends meet, I took a second job waitressing at an exclusive country club.
Only to see James sittin...

I spent sixteen years bleeding to protect my family, only for them to harvest my power to keep my sister alive.
My sister wanted my fiancé, so my family gave him to her.
My sister wanted my magic, so they pinned me down and carved the dragon scale straight out of my chest.
When she wanted the ultimate power of the Dragon Priestess, they framed me for a crime I didn't commit and chained me in a ...

For a whole year, my husband's childhood friend treated my high-end boutique like her personal closet.

Bags that ran a few thousand dollars, couture gowns worth tens of thousands. She took whatever she wanted and walked out, never once saying the word "money."

The store bled cash month after month. When I finally hit my limit and told her to pay up, she slapped me across the face in front of a r...

For three years, I paid so my sister could rebuild her life — her rent, her lawyers, her hospital bills, the shop she now runs in my name. Lucas, my fiance, always told me it was the right thing to do. I believed him, because believing him was easier than admitting how tired I was. I flew home two days early to surprise him. Instead, I opened my own front door and found my sister in his lap, weari...

During the Yearbook photoshoot, the photographer smiled and gestured for the couples to move closer together.
But Daniel pressed his hand against my shoulder and pushed me straight to the edge of the group, then turned and pulled Harper to his side.
"Harper and I are this year's Valedictorian and Salutatorian. It makes sense for us to stand together—it'll look better for the Yearbook spread."
This...

I woke up on the same morning I was about to send another payment for my daughter's education.
In my last life, I paid for everything. Every year, without missing a payment.
Tuition. AP tutoring. Summer program deposits. Medical bills. Birthday gifts. The education fund.
Not one payment late. Not one skipped.
I only found out the truth after I died. My daughter wore a blazer that hung off her like...

I thought I was the happiest woman in the city.

My husband would gently help me into my shoes, rest his hand on my belly and whisper to our baby. My father would tie on an apron and cook dinner just for me.

Then a video from an unknown number shattered everything.

Inside a chapel, the four of them stood side by side.

My husband holding the hand of my father's mistress's daughter. My father arm...

My billionaire husband handed me a pill and a separation agreement.
"Take this temporary amnesia drug. You'll forget me for a few weeks while I marry Chloe to fulfill her dying wish. Don't worry, I'll give you the antidote later."
He expected me to scream, cry, and beg him to stay.
Instead, I swallowed the pill dry and calmly packed my bags.
Day 3: I tossed my heirloom Cartier engagement ring t...

Six years. No love. No children. No complications.
That was the deal Orlena Stewart signed with billionaire Brent Caldwell. A contract marriage to save her dying father, raise his adopted nephew Eli, and disappear quietly when their time was up.
She followed every rule.
Until she broke the only one that mattered.
With six months left on their marriage contract, Orlena discovers she is pregnant wit...

"There is no us. There hasn't been for six years."
"You dropped divorce papers at my feet, Aidan. In front of cameras and everyone who mattered. Your mistress called me trash, and you stood there and said nothing."
"He is not yours, Aidan. He has a father. If I had been pregnant with your child back then, I would have gotten rid of it. You don't deserve anything from me."
Six years ago, Evelyn bel...

"MATE!!"
I caught the scent of my mate.
I thought the Moon Goddess had finally answered my prayers. I followed it through the crowd, ready to claim my mate, the woman with curves in all the right places.
Instead, I found Blake, a man with no curves at all.
I am Alpha Nate, the most powerful wolf in the region, and I have built my entire reputation on hating everything Blake represents. The Moon Go...

"Is lying the only skill you have left? Don't play dead until you actually land in a coffin!"
That was what my billionaire brother roared as he crumpled my stage-four cancer diagnosis and threw it at my face.
To him, I was a spoiled brat who needed a brutal reality check.
He engineered a fake DNA test, gave my identity to a manipulative orphan girl, and watched me get dragged to a disciplinary ...

Seven years ago I gave up my inheritance and went door to door with Nolan—a broke director shooting street documentaries—my belly out to here, begging investors to take a chance on him.

Everyone said I'd thrown my life away on him.

Seven years later he's a name everyone knows. And Emily, the first love who walked out when he had nothing, is back in Chicago with her daughter.

That afternoon I ca...

My husband's first love, Celine, lured me to a remote cabin under the guise of an "apology."
 
She then poured gasoline all over the porch and locked the door from the outside.
 
In my past life, the moment the fire began to spread, I desperately called my husband, Julian—a fire captain—for rescue.
 
He smashed the door open and saved me.
 
Ironically, Celine's scheme backfired, and she died of sm...

In my boyfriend Arthur's world, everyone could be labeled with an ER triage tag: green for minor, yellow for observation, red for critical.   As the emotionally stable one, I was forever the green tag in his life.   But my best friend, who cried and threw tantrums, was the red tag he never left the side of.   Two years ago, with my mother on the verge of death from heart failure on one side, and m...

My son died on his fifth birthday, waiting for a father who never showed up.
I found out why at the lake—Cole had his mistress pinned against the boathouse wall while our five-year-old took his last breath alone in a clinic bed.
Selene was pregnant. Selene was Grayridge. And Selene knew exactly what she'd done to my son before I ever said a word about a curse.
Cole hit me for defending myself. The...

I was snatched at three.
By fourteen, I was missing both legs, half-deaf, and half-blind.
When my billionaire blood family finally brought me to their Texas ranch, the fake heiress cornered me.
"Try any tricks to steal my place," she sneered, "and I’ll break your legs."
I just unhooked my prosthetics and let them drop to the floor.
When my biological brother grabbed my shoulder, hissing a warn...

I spent fifteen years taking beatings in the Bronx hellhole — beatings meant for my mother.
She's a Manhattan heiress now. Chanel suits, a daughter on her arm, and eyes full of disgust whenever they land on my hollowed-out frame.
"You're just like your disgusting father. A sewer rat. You've always reeked of something rotten."
What she doesn't know: on that rainy night fifteen years ago, I wrapped ...

My name is Evelyn. I grew up in the slums. Now, I'm the wife of Victor De Luca, head of New York's most feared mafia family.
Outsiders say I left him for money when he had nothing, then shamelessly came crawling back once he rose to power.
Only Victor and I know the truth. He paid five million dollars to drag me back, chain me here like a dog, and lock me away.
He married me, trapped me in this es...

I had been Lucan Ferretti's wife for five years. I had also been the woman who took a bullet meant for him.
Four years of fertility treatments. Four years of empty rooms where a nursery should have been. Then, the day I finally get a positive test, I find something else: two secret sons, funded by my husband's money, waiting in a house I was never supposed to find.
Their names? The ones Lucan and ...

On my birthday, my husband hands me a snow-white hamster with a smile and says keeping it in the house will bring us good luck.

My seven-year-old son names it Snow.

But the second I see its red eyes, my blood runs cold.

Because in my last life, I got the exact same gift on this exact same day.

Back then I treated it like something precious. I fed it the best food, bought it the biggest cage, c...