The CEO's Regret: Too Late To Beg

Bennett introduced Elia as our "angel," the surrogate who would carry the heir his genetic condition supposedly prevented us from having.

But as he guided her to the sofa, fluffing a pillow behind her back while ignoring me standing in the cold draft, I realized the danger wasn't medical.

My suspicions were confirmed at the anniversary gala. I overheard Elia bragging in the restroom—she wasn't a clinical third party. She was his lover of fifteen years. I was just the "safe" wife on paper, the placeholder used to secure his inheritance until the time was right.

When Elia staged a fake fall near the champagne tower, Bennett didn't hesitate.

He roared at me, scooping her up to rush to the hospital for a "shock," leaving me standing alone in the foyer, blood dripping from a shard of glass embedded in my arm.

He didn't look back. Not for a second.

Sitting in the ambulance alone, I didn't cry. I didn't panic.

I realized I wasn't fighting for his attention anymore. I was calculating the cost of my freedom.

While he was holding her hand at the hospital, I returned to the empty house. I walked straight to his study and unlocked the filing cabinet containing the illegal financial records he thought I never checked.

He thought he was building a family.

He didn't realize he was handing me the weapon to dismantle his entire life.

Chapter 1

Bennett ushered the woman into our living room and introduced her as the vessel for our future, but the way his hand lingered on the small of her back told me she was already the center of his present.

"This is Elia," Bennett said. His voice held a warmth I hadn't heard in two years. "She's agreed to help us with the heir situation."

I looked at Elia. She was petite, with wide, innocent doe eyes that seemed to beg for forgiveness while demanding submission. She didn't look like a clinical surrogate. She looked like a secret kept in a glass box.

"It's nice to meet you, Kelsey," Elia said. Her voice was soft, like spun sugar.

I nodded, my throat too tight to speak. I was remembering the night Bennett sat me down, his face a mask of tragic resolve, telling me that his genetic condition made natural conception nearly impossible. He had told me that for my safety, for the sake of the Randolph legacy, we needed a third party.

I had cried. I had offered to take the risks, to undergo the hormone injections, the invasive procedures. I wanted to carry our child. I wanted to feel that connection.

"It's too dangerous for you," he had said then, kissing my forehead. "I can't risk losing you."

Now, watching him guide Elia to the sofa, fluffing a pillow behind her back before she even sat down, I realized the danger wasn't medical.

"Is the room temperature okay?" Bennett asked her, pointedly ignoring the fact that I was standing there in a thin silk blouse, shivering slightly from the draft.

"It's perfect, Ben," Elia smiled.

Ben.

I had never heard anyone call him Ben. To his family, he was Bennett. To his business partners, Mr. Randolph. To me, he was simply mine. Or so I thought.

I sat on the armchair across from them. I felt like a guest in my own home. They talked about appointments, about diets, about the timeline. Bennett leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his body physically shielding her from me, completely absorbed in her answers. I was a ghost haunting the perimeter of their conversation.

My mind drifted back to the early days. The pressure from his father, Mr. Randolph Senior. The constant lectures about the bloodline. Bennett had always seemed so burdened by it, so reluctant. I had comforted him, told him we would figure it out together. I had sacrificed my gallery openings, my art tours, just to be the supportive wife he needed during those stressful family dinners.

Now, looking at his animated face, I saw no burden. I saw eagerness.

"Kelsey?"

Bennett's voice snapped me back. His jaw tightened, looking at me as if I were a stain on an otherwise perfect picture.

"We need to clear out the guest wing," he said. "Elia will be staying with us for the duration. To ensure the baby is safe."

"Staying here?" I asked. My voice sounded hollow. "I thought we agreed on an apartment in the city."

"Plans change," Bennett said, waving his hand dismissively. "It's better this way. I can monitor everything personally."

Elia looked down at her hands, a small, triumphant smile playing on her lips. It was quick, almost imperceptible, but I saw it.

I stood up. The floor seemed to tilt beneath me, my legs numb and unresponsive.

"Do whatever you want," I said.

Bennett didn't even watch me leave. He was already pouring Elia a glass of water.

I walked into my studio and closed the door. The smell of turpentine and oil paint usually calmed me, but today it smelled like stagnation. I looked at the canvas on the easel. It was a chaotic mix of greys and blues.

I reached for my phone and opened the calendar. I scrolled back to the dates Bennett claimed he had fertility treatments. Then I opened his shared schedule, which he thought I never checked.

Business dinners. Late meetings. "Ben."

I felt a cold clarity wash over me. It wasn't panic. It was the absolute, freezing realization that I was standing on a trapdoor that had already opened.

I didn't cry. I walked over to the filing cabinet where Bennett kept the household financial records. My hands were steady as I pulled out the files. I walked to the scanner in the corner of the room.

One by one, I began to copy them.

Downstairs, I heard laughter. It was Bennett's laugh, loud and uninhibited. A sound I hadn't heard directed at me in months.

He thought he was building a family. He didn't realize he was dismantling one.