The 100-Point Plan For His Regret
For three years, I documented the slow death of my marriage in a black journal. It was my 100-point divorce plan: for every time my husband, Blake, chose his first love, Ariana, over me, I deducted points. When the score hit zero, I would leave.
The final points vanished the night he left me bleeding out from a car crash. I was eight weeks pregnant with the child we had prayed for.
In the ER, the nurses frantically called him-the star surgeon of the very hospital I was dying in.
"Dr. Santos, we have a Jane Doe, O-negative, bleeding out. She's pregnant, and we're about to lose them both. We need you to authorize an emergency blood transfer."
His voice came over the speaker, cold and impatient.
"I can't. My priority is Miss Whitfield. Do what you can for the patient, but I can't divert anything right now."
He hung up. He condemned his own child to death to ensure his ex-girlfriend had resources on standby after a minor procedure.
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Chapter 4
Ariana led the way into the restaurant, which was the same one where the accident had happened. It had been quickly renovated and reopened. She pointed out the new decorations, her hand resting possessively on Blake' s arm.
"I always dreamed of having a place like this, Blake," she said wistfully. "A space for art and beauty."
"I remember," Blake said, his voice soft. "You wanted high ceilings, exposed brick, and a crystal chandelier right in the center. You said it would 'drip starlight.' "
Ariana looked at him, amazed. "You remember that? I said that when we were seventeen."
"I remember everything you' ve ever said," he replied, and the sincerity in his voice was a knife in Caroline' s gut.
They were seated in a private booth. Blake took the menu, his eyes scanning it with practiced ease. "We' ll have the seared scallops, the truffle risotto, and the duck confit."
Ariana laughed, a light, tinkling sound. "Blake, you ordered all my favorites. You should ask Caroline what she likes." She said it with an air of sweet concern, but her eyes, when they met Caroline' s, were sharp with malice.
Blake turned to Caroline, a blank look on his face. He pushed the menu towards her. "Sorry. I… I don' t know what you like to eat."
Three years. For three years, she had cooked for him, ordered for him, packed his lunches. He had eaten the food she prepared every single day, and he didn' t know. He didn't know the simplest thing about her.
The humiliation was a physical force, pressing down on her, making it hard to breathe. She saw the smug satisfaction in Ariana' s eyes, the casual indifference in Blake' s. It was all too much.
"Excuse me," Caroline said, her voice tight. She stood up and pushed her way out of the booth. "I need some air."
She walked quickly towards the exit, desperate to escape the suffocating weight of their shared history. She heard footsteps behind her. It was Ariana.
"Let me show you the way to the powder room," Ariana said, her voice dripping with false kindness.
In the empty corridor, Ariana dropped the act. She blocked Caroline' s path.
"You should just give up, you know," Ariana said, her voice low and cold. "You see how he is with me. He remembers every little thing about me. He doesn' t even know your favorite food. You' re just a placeholder, Caroline. A temporary solution until I was ready to come back to him."
Every word was a confirmation of a truth Caroline already knew, but hearing it spoken aloud was still devastating.
"He loves me," Ariana continued, her smile turning cruel. "He built his career for me. He ran into a burning building for me. He' s giving up his future for me. What has he ever done for you?"
Caroline felt a wave of dizziness. The walls seemed to be closing in.
"What do you want, Ariana?" Caroline asked, her voice shaking.
"I want you to leave," Ariana said simply. "He' s mine. He has always been mine. You' re just in the way."
As she spoke, there was a loud creaking sound from above. Both women looked up. The large, ornate chandelier-the replacement for the one that had fallen before-was swaying ominously.
A collective gasp went through the restaurant, followed by screams.
Blake came running. His eyes darted between the two women and the falling chandelier. There was a split second of hesitation. A choice.
He lunged for Ariana.
He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her back, shielding her with his body as the massive fixture of crystal and metal crashed to the ground right where Caroline was standing.
The last thing Caroline saw before the world exploded in pain and went dark was Blake holding Ariana, his back to her, protecting the only person who mattered.
She woke to the blinding lights of a hospital ceiling. Every part of her body screamed in agony. Her head was bandaged, her arm was in a cast, and a sharp pain radiated from her abdomen. The room was empty. There were no flowers. No concerned husband. She was alone.
A nurse came in, her face grim. She checked Caroline' s vitals.
"You' re very lucky, Mrs. Santos. You have a concussion, a broken arm, and multiple lacerations. But you' re alive."
Caroline looked at the empty chair beside her bed.
She reached for the small purse on her nightstand. Inside, wrapped in a silk cloth, was the black journal. She found a pen. Her hand ached, but she wrote with grim determination.
-15 Points: He watched a chandelier fall on me and didn' t even try to help. He chose her.
A young nurse' s aide came in to change her IV bag. She saw the notebook. "What' s that?" she asked, her curiosity piqued.
"It' s a scorecard for my marriage," Caroline said, her voice flat. "When it hits zero, the game is over."
The aide leaned closer, her eyes wide. "Wow. You' re almost there. Only five points left."
Just then, the door opened, and Blake walked in. He looked tired and disheveled. He had been with Ariana. Of course, he had.
"What are you two talking about?" he asked, his gaze falling on the open journal in Caroline' s hand.
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9.5
The disgraced daughter of the Patton family is back from the countryside.At the news, everyone spurned her with contempt!
A good-for-nothing young lady, a crude village wench, a vicious devil...
Until one day--The world-famous life-saving medical sovereign is her.The enigmatic top forensic specialist is her.The grandmaster hacker hunted across the globe is also her.
One hidden identity of the young miss came to light after another.Shocked and dumbfounded, the crowd fell to their knees to beg for forgiveness.
In an instant, Evie was cornered by the mysterious powerhouse.Hartwell's voice lured and mesmerized:"Darling, you have countless secret identities. Would you mind taking on one more, being my wife!"
7.1
I was the Architect who built the digital fortress for the most feared Don in New York.
To the world, I was Brendan Wiggins’s silent, elegant Queen.
But then my burner phone buzzed under the dinner table.
It was a photo from his mistress: a positive pregnancy test.
"Your husband is celebrating right now," the caption read. "You are just the furniture."
I looked across the table at Brendan. He smiled and held my hand, lying to my face without blinking.
He thought he owned me because he saved my life ten years ago.
He told her I was just "functional." That I was a barren asset he kept around to look respectable, while she carried his legacy.
He thought I would accept the disrespect because I had nowhere else to go.
He was wrong.
I didn't want to divorce him—you don't divorce a Don.
And I didn't want to kill him. That was too easy.
I wanted to erase him.
I liquidated fifty million dollars from the offshore accounts only I could access. I destroyed the servers I had built.
Then, I contacted a black-market chemist for a procedure called "Tabula Rasa."
It doesn't kill the body. It wipes the mind clean. A total hard reset of the soul.
On his birthday, while he was out celebrating his bastard son, I drank the vial.
When he finally came home to find the empty house and the melted wedding ring, he realized the truth.
He could burn the world down looking for me, but he would never find his wife.
Because the woman who loved him no longer existed.
8.9
I was tossed into a dark alley like rotting garbage, bleeding and grieving the child I had just lost.
When I was finally brought back to my fiancé Angelo's penthouse, instead of comfort, I was met with absolute disgust.
His family declared me "unclean" after the kidnapping. Angelo coldly announced he was burying the scandal by marrying my sweet, innocent cousin, Carissa.
When we were alone, Carissa stood over my bed, her voice dripping with venomous delight.
"My father arranged the kidnapping. And now, Angelo and I can finally be together."
Before I could react, she forced a silver letter opener into my hand, deliberately stabbed her own shoulder, and let out a bloodcurdling scream.
Angelo stormed in, struck me across the face, and gathered a sobbing Carissa into his arms, looking at me with absolute revulsion.
The family matriarch appeared at the door, her cold eyes sweeping over the scene before she gave a chilling order to the maids.
"Clean this up."
They pinned me down and brutally drove the blade directly into my chest.
I choked on my own blood, staring at the man who had promised me the world as he turned his back, calling my murder a "mercy."
As my heart beat its final agonizing rhythm, I made a silent vow to the shadows that if there was a next life, I would have my vendetta.
When I opened my eyes again, there was no blood, only the soft silk of my nightgown.
I had returned to the day before my eighteenth birthday.
This time, I wouldn't play the desperate victim. I was going to ally with the Devil of Chicago and burn them all to the ground.
9.1
Elise thought her life was finally falling into place. She turned down her father's company to work as executive assistant to Marcus Grey-the boy she's loved since childhood, now the powerful CEO she's devoted her life to.
But when Marcus proposes to another woman, Elise's world crumbles. Enter Sebastian Deluca-Marcus's tattooed, ruthless, long-estranged brother. He's everything Marcus isn't: dangerous, magnetic, and determined to take back his place in New York.
But, there's something odd about him.
Something changed since he arrived.
Bound by family secrets and a mutual desire to expose Marcus's fiancée, Elise and Sebastian form an uneasy alliance. But as sparks ignite between them, Elise must choose: remain loyal to the boy she thought she loved, or risk everything for the man who sees her as more than a shadow.
Some loves are safe. Others are consuming. Which one will she survive?
7.2
Stepping out of the women's correctional center, Karli took her first breath of freedom in three years.
But the luxury SUV waiting for her didn't bring her home. Instead, her adoptive parents tossed a prenuptial agreement onto her lap.
They demanded she marry a violently unhinged, disfigured man so their company could secure a massive commercial deal.
When she refused, her adoptive mother slapped her hard across the face.
The blow brought back the suffocating nightmare from three years ago—how they had drugged her, framed her for a crime she didn't commit, and sent her to prison just so her stepsister could steal her fiancé.
Now, to break her again, her adoptive father ordered his bodyguards to drag her into the estate's freezing, pitch-black basement.
"You can rot in the dark without food or water until you sign that paper!"
Sitting on the damp cement, bleeding and shivering, a white-hot fury burned away Karli's panic.
They had stolen her youth, her reputation, and her grandfather's inheritance. She would rather die than be their sacrificial lamb again.
She smashed the basement window with a hammer, dragged her bleeding body through the shattered glass, and sprinted blindly into the stormy night.
Under the flickering neon sign of a convenience store, she grabbed the sleeve of a terrifyingly cold stranger.
"Are you single? Marry me right now."
She just needed a legal marriage to escape her family, entirely unaware she had just proposed to the most ruthless billionaire in Chicago.
9.6
For five years, Elyse loved Trevor with everything she had, yet it meant nothing when his former lover returned-pregnant.
Reduced to the city's joke, Elyse chose dignity and handed him divorce papers, walking away with nothing.
But when both women fell into the water, he didn't hesitate-he saved the other.
"I'm sorry... she's pregnant," he said, shattering what remained of her love.
She disappeared without a trace. Three years later, she returned as a world-renowned actress, radiant and untouchable.
When Trevor knelt before her, begging, "Don't leave me..." She only watched, her heart long turned cold.
He pleaded, "Please give me another chance, okay?"