The CEO's Regret: Chasing My Runaway Doctor

The townhouse was dark.

Vivian stood in the doorway of the kitchen, her coat still on, her keys still clutched in her hand. The table she had set hours ago stretched before her, a monument to her own foolishness. Crystal wine glasses, polished to a gleam. The good china, the one with the hand-painted gold rim that she had registered for two years ago and never once used. Taper candles burned down to stubs, their wax pooling on the linen tablecloth like frozen tears. The roast duck had gone cold. The glaze she had brushed on for an hour, basting and re-basting, had congealed into a greasy film. The asparagus was limp. The chocolate soufflé had collapsed in its ramekin.

She had timed everything perfectly. His flight from Singapore had landed at six. By seven, the duck would be carved. By eight, she would tell him about the baby.

It was their second wedding anniversary. She had loved him for six years. Four years of silent, invisible devotion before he even knew her name. Two years of marriage, of signing Mrs. Sterling Carlisle IV on documents no one would ever see. Six years of her life, poured into a man who had never once looked at her the way he looked at Kara Jennings.

Her phone buzzed on the counter. An anonymous text message. No name, just a number she didn't recognize. She opened it.

A photograph. Sterling, impossibly handsome in a black tuxedo, his arm wrapped around Kara Jennings. Kara wore a silver dress that looked like liquid moonlight. They were standing under a banner that read "WELCOME HOME, KARA." Balloons. Champagne. A crowd of people Vivian had never met because Sterling had never let her meet anyone.

The message beneath the photo read: "He's been here all night. Guess he forgot about you. Again."

Vivian stared at the screen. The pain didn't come all at once. It crept in slowly, like ice forming over water, layer by layer until nothing liquid remained. Her hand drifted to her stomach. Eight weeks. She had been carrying his child for eight weeks, dreaming of the moment she would finally see his face when she told him. The rare smile. The way his eyes might soften.

She had been such a fool.

Two years of invisible marriage. Two years of loving a man who treated her like a piece of furniture he had forgotten he owned. She had told herself it was enough. He was a busy man. He had built an empire. He didn't have time for romance, for public displays, for anything beyond the cold, perfunctory coupling that left her feeling more alone than she had been before.

But he had time for this. For Kara. For a welcome home party. For balloons.

Vivian closed the photo. She didn't cry. The hurt was too deep for tears, a vast, silent ocean of it. She simply stood there, in the dark kitchen, and watched the last candle gutter out.

The next morning, Vivian sat at the kitchen island, sipping a cup of cold tea. She hadn't slept. She had cleaned the table, thrown away the ruined food, and sat in the dark until the sun came up. The ultrasound picture was tucked into the pocket of her robe, a secret she had never gotten the chance to tell.

She heard the front door open. Heavy footsteps in the hall. Sterling. He rarely came home at this hour. He rarely came home at all.

He walked into the kitchen, and she saw it immediately. The same tuxedo from the photograph, now rumpled. The faint smear of lipstick on his collar. The cold, distant expression in his eyes as he looked at her, as if she were a minor inconvenience he had to deal with before his next meeting.

Behind him, a man in a dark suit. Lawrence, the Carlisle family's chief counsel. He carried a thick document bound in black leather.

"Vivian." Sterling didn't greet her. He didn't ask how she was. He simply nodded at Lawrence, who stepped forward and placed the document on the marble island between them.

DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE.

The words didn't compute at first. She stared at them, her mind struggling to make sense of the shapes. Then, slowly, the meaning sank in. He was divorcing her. The morning after their anniversary. After she had spent the night alone, waiting for him, while he celebrated another woman's return.

"Kara's back," Sterling said, his voice flat and cold. He adjusted a cufflink, not even looking at her. "I'm giving her the place she deserves."

Vivian's hand moved to her stomach before she could stop it. The ultrasound picture crinkled softly in her pocket. Eight weeks. A flutter of life that had felt like hope. Now it felt like a cruel joke.

She looked up at him. Her voice, when it came, was barely a whisper. "Last night was our anniversary."

"I'm aware."

"I made dinner. I waited for you all night. I had something important to tell you."

His jaw tightened. "I didn't ask you to."

The words hit her like a slap. Six years. Six years of loving this man, and he had never once asked her for anything. Not her time. Not her devotion. Not her love. She had given it all freely, and he had taken it without a word of thanks, as if it were his due.

But he was asking her for something now. He was asking her to disappear.

Lawrence stepped forward, offering a Montblanc pen. "If you'll sign here, Mrs. Carlisle. As per the prenuptial agreement, you will be vacating the premises with no claim to Mr. Carlisle's assets. Additionally, Mr. Carlisle requires your signature on a non-disclosure agreement regarding the existence of this marriage."

An NDA. He wasn't just divorcing her. He was erasing her.

Vivian stared at the pen. Then at Sterling. Something inside her cracked, but it wasn't her heart. It was the cage she had built around herself, the cage of hope and longing and pathetic devotion. It shattered, and beneath it was something cold and hard and utterly unbreakable.

She took the pen. She didn't read the document. She didn't need to. She scrawled her name across the signature line, the nib tearing through the paper on the final stroke.

Then she looked up at Sterling, and for the first time in six years, she met his eyes without love. Without longing. Without anything at all.

"You know what I realized last night, Sterling?" Her voice was calm, almost conversational, but every word landed like a shard of glass. "I spent six years loving a man who never existed. I waited in this house like a ghost, hoping you'd notice me. I learned your schedules. I memorized how you take your coffee. I told myself that someday, you'd wake up and see me." She stood up, sliding the signed document across the marble. "But you never did. Because you're not capable of loving anyone. You're an empty man in an expensive suit, and Kara Jennings is welcome to you."

Sterling's expression flickered. Something crossed his face-surprise? irritation?-but she didn't wait to see.

She walked around the island, closing the distance between them. He was taller than her by nearly a head, but she didn't flinch. She looked up at him, and her eyes were like shards of ice.

"I don't want your money," she said. "I don't want your name. I don't want anything from you, Sterling. I'm going to disappear so completely, you'll forget I ever existed."

She paused, and then her hand came up.

The slap echoed through the silent kitchen like a gunshot.

Sterling's head snapped to the side. His cheek bloomed red where her palm had connected. For a long, frozen moment, he didn't move. He didn't breathe. He simply stared at her, his eyes wide with shock. No one had ever struck him. No one had ever dared.

Vivian lowered her hand. It stung, but she didn't rub it. She wanted to remember the feeling.

"I don't need a single thing from you," she said, her voice low and steady. "But that-that you owed me."

She picked up her coat, the old Burberry trench she had worn the day she first walked into this house. It was the only thing she was taking.

"Goodbye, Sterling."

She walked out. The heavy oak door clicked shut behind her, the sound echoing through the silent townhouse.

Sterling stood motionless, staring at the closed door. His cheek still burned. The signed document lay on the marble island between them, her signature a violent slash across the page. Something stirred in his chest-an emotion he couldn't name. He pushed it down.

She had always been so compliant. So quiet. So desperate to please him. The woman who had just slapped him and walked out of his house was none of those things. She had looked at him like he was nothing. Like he was beneath her contempt.

For the first time since he had married her, Sterling Carlisle realized he knew absolutely nothing about the woman he had just erased from his life.

Outside, Vivian walked to the curb, her trench coat flapping in the cold morning wind. Her hand still stung. Good. She pulled out her phone and booked a one-way ticket to Geneva. The confirmation email arrived seconds later.

She didn't look back. She and her child were going to become ghosts. And Sterling Carlisle would never find them.