The Divorced Heiress: Too Late For Regrets

The moment the taxi door opened, the biting New York air stabbed into Hadley's thin coat like a knife. She shifted her weight to her left leg, and a sharp pain shot up from her calf. She bit her lip and forced back the moan. The chill is real—it's not just a feeling, but something seeping into the bone.

The phone buzzed in my pocket. The screen lit up with a photo of Owen—her diving partner, her face full of worried wrinkles. She hung up. He only urged her to go to the hospital and advised her not to be foolish. But she's been foolish for three years; One more day of foolishness, what difference does it make?

Her lungs ached dullly, and that persistent, fever-like pulse was a "keepsake" left to her by decompression sickness. Rising rapidly from the depths of the Caribbean, she was left with far more than just a few bruises. It also gives her a heart-wrenching longing—a longing for familiarity, a longing for home, a longing for Julian.

Her thumb hovered above his photo in the contacts. Julian, dressed in a tailcoat, smiled coldly at a grand party. It was a news photo. She didn't have a single candid shot of him smiling at the camera.

She pressed the power button, and the screen went dark. Surprises will be even better. The surprise will be romantic.

Another yellow taxi pulled up to the side of the road. She said hoarsely to the driver, "Sinclair Group, Manhattan headquarters." "Her voice was even hoarser than she had expected." The taxi jolted into traffic, and through the window she caught a glimpse of her own reflection—pale-faced, lips blue, hair messed up by the flight. She futilely combed her hair with her fingers.

The Sinclair Building stands before you, a monument of glass and steel scraping against the gray sky. She paid the fare, but the crumpled bills felt strange in her hand. For three years, she still didn't need to bring cash.

She dragged her injured leg, limping toward the massive revolving glass door. The heating in the lobby felt like a tangible embrace, and a sense of relief made her nearly dizzy. Behind the huge marble countertop at the front desk, the young receptionist Chloe looked up, her professional smile immediately lighting up.

Then she saw clearly who it was.

The smile froze, the edges cracking into fine lines. That moment was mesmerizing—a well-trained disguise collapsed in an instant.

"Mrs. Sinclair." Chloe stammered, his hand quickly reaching for the phone on the table. "I...... I didn't know you would come. ”

"I never said I wanted to come." Hadley's voice was as calm as water. She kept walking forward.

"Let me check Mr. Sinclair's schedule." The receptionist's voice rose in panic. She grabbed the receiver and glanced toward the elevator lobby. "He might be in a meeting."

Hadley did not slow down. She immediately knew it was a lie—the slight tremor in Chloe's voice, her evasive gaze. This reminded her of Julian's exact reaction when he was in a bad mood.

She headed straight to the private elevator hall—a floor reserved for executives and the Sinclair family. She has the right to go.

"Mrs. Sinclair, please wait!"

The gleaming steel door slid up, cutting off Chloe's panicked shouts. The small carriage was deathly silent. Hadley leaned against the cold metal wall and pressed the button labeled "PH"—the top floor. Julian's floor.

The elevator climbs at a stomach-pounding speed. The weightlessness stirred a dull pain in her lungs; she closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe slowly and deeply. There was an old scent in the air.

A gentle notification sounded as the signal arrived. The elevator doors slid open, revealing a silent, thickly carpeted corridor. This silence is unusual. Usually, there would be the low conversations of assistants and the distant ringing of the phone here. Today, there is nothing.

The copy room door opened, and Julian's chief assistant, Felix, came out carrying a stack of documents. He looked up and saw her, his face instantly turning deathly pale. Documents slipped from his hands, scattered across the thick gray carpet.

"Hadley." He panted, his voice very low. He squatted down in a flustered manner to pick up the documents, his movements clumsy and flustered. He quickly stood up, positioning himself between her and the corridor leading to Julian's office. "He was on a conference call. A very important meeting—the Hong Kong board of directors. ”

Hadley stared at him. Felix is known for his impeccable composure—he can lie to the most radical corporate predators without flinching. But now, he looked like a child caught stealing cookies. The excuse is truly pathetic: Hong Kong is now at night.

A cold fear, heavier than the pain in her leg, began to spread in her stomach. She said nothing, just took a step forward.

Felix instinctively raised his hand to stop her. "Really, Hadley. Now is not the time. ”

She looked down at his outstretched arm, then looked up at his terrified eyes. Without saying a word, she bypassed him. Her heels dug into the carpet, and as she walked down the corridor toward the two huge dark walnut doors of Julian's office, she made no sound.

The door was not tightly closed.

A slender, vertical beam of light pierced through the dim hallway.

She reached for the cold brass doorknob, her fingers trembling slightly. The moment her skin touched the metal, a voice drifted out—a voice she knew even more than her own, soft and sweet.

Eleanor. Her stepsister.

A low laugh answered her—it was the sound Hadley hadn't heard Julian say to him in years. Warm, indulgent, patient. "You'll get used to it. This is the price of fame. ”

Hadley's hand froze on the doorknob. The blood in his veins seemed about to turn into ice. Eleanor was supposed to make films in Europe. Julian should have been working.

"I really hope they don't ask such stupid questions." Eleanor's voice carried a deliberately sweet, sweet, and sweet tone. "Someone actually dared to ask me about Hardy's small diving accident in the Caribbean...... As if I would know about her 'hobbies.' "The last word hides a hint of almost unmistakable mockery."

Hadley held his breath. Her nails dug deep into her palm, and the sting became distant. She waited, fully absorbed in the ensuing silence, praying that Julian would say something—to defend her, to keep Eleanor from being so mean.

The silence stretched longer.

Then Julian's icy and impatient voice broke it. "Don't talk about her. Don't ruin the atmosphere. ”

Those words don't sound like knives. They were like a vacuum—draining all the air from her lungs and all the heat from her body. A wave of dizziness hit her, and she shook slightly.

The soft sound of fabric came from the office—the sound of movement. It sounded like Eleanor was moving over and sitting on his lap.

A wave of intense nausea surged in his stomach. Humiliation is a physical force, a weight pressed down in the throat and eye sockets. The pain in his legs, the dull ache in his chest—compared to this, all became dull, distant echoes.

She takes a step back—a reflexive, blind step.

The heel of my shoe hit the base of a large metal flowerpot in the hallway. The sound was not loud, just a dull, muffled impact.

The laughter in the office abruptly stopped.

"Who's outside?" Julian's voice grew sharp, filled with annoyance and suspicion.

Hadley closed his eyes. In that moment, she was utterly hopeless, wanting only to escape—disappearing into the city's anonymity, pretending she had never been here.

But there was nowhere to escape.

She opened her eyes. Those tears that almost fell vanished, burned by something cold and hard, turning to emptiness. The pain remains, but it has changed. It became fuel.

She raised her hand and pressed her palm against the heavy walnut, then pushed it out.

The door suddenly burst open, producing a loud, loud cry.