The Billionaire's Redemption:You Chose Her, Now Regret It?

“I want a divorce.”

“Three million. It should be more than sufficient to keep you comfortable for the rest of your life.”

Leo Hawk pushed a sleek, leather-bound folder across the polished mahogany desk.

“Sign the papers. I want you gone by tonight.”

Two years. For two years, ‘Ella’ Hawk had been his wife, a ghost in his gilded world.

She had never imagined the first time he sought her out with any real intent would be to end their marriage.

“Leo… why?” Her voice was a whisper, strained against the sudden constriction in her throat. “What did I do wrong? Please, tell me. I can fix it, I can—”

“I found Aurora.” His tone was glacial, cutting her off without a flicker of emotion.

Ella froze. Aurora? “But… Cecilia told me she… she had passed away…” The name of Leo’s sister felt like ash on her tongue.

“Silence!” Leo’s roar was instantaneous, a tempest of fury that made her flinch. No one was permitted to speak of her with even a hint of finality. No one.

Ella’s lips pressed into a bloodless line. It felt as if a blade had been driven into her chest, the pain sharp and breathtaking. She had always known. She had always felt the presence of the other woman, the ghost who held Leo’s heart captive.

For years, he had scoured the globe, spending fortunes, leveraging his immense power, all to find one woman. He even bore her name tattooed over his heart—a permanent, painful testament to a love so absolute it eclipsed everything else.

Leo Hawk was utterly, devastatingly in love with a woman named Aurora. Just as she, Ella, was utterly, devastatingly in love with him.

He had saved her. Two years ago, she’d been found broken at the bottom of a ravine near his upstate estate, her memory a blank slate. He was the first face she saw when she awoke—a dark, handsome angel who owned her world from that moment on. Her devotion had been instant, total, and, she now saw, utterly pathetic.

“Leo, I don’t want this. Please, don’t do this. I love you…” The plea was torn from her, desperate and raw.

His eyes, the colour of a winter storm, finally turned to her, devoid of any warmth. “Ella,” he stated, each word a hammer blow, “I do not love you.”

The world tilted. Tears she could no longer control spilled over, tracing hot paths down her cheeks. It didn’t matter how much she loved him. It never had. His heart had only ever had room for one person. Aurora.

“Mr. Hawk, the helicopter is ready.” His head of security, Jonathan, appeared in the doorway, his posture rigid.

Leo’s gaze flicked to the divorce agreement. “Sign it. Be out of here within forty-eight hours.” Without another glance, he turned and strode toward the penthouse’s private elevator, its doors opening to swallow him whole.

“Leo, wait!”

A surge of adrenaline propelled her forward. She threw her arms around his waist from behind, clinging to the fine wool of his suit jacket, her face pressed against his broad back. “Please! Don’t leave me! Don’t do this!”

A flash of pure, undiluted impatience—something darker, akin to murderous irritation—crossed his features. He pried her hands away with brutal strength and shoved her back.

“Unhand me!”

“Ah!”

She stumbled, her balance lost, and crashed onto the cold marble floor. Her forehead connected with the hard surface with a sickening crack. Dazed, she lay there for a moment, seeing stars.

Leo paused only to cast a single, dispassionate look at her crumpled form on the ground. Then, without a word, he stepped into the elevator, the doors closing, severing their connection with a final, silent snick.

Five years. He had searched for Aurora for five long years. And now, finally, a credible lead. Nothing else mattered.

Slowly, Ella pushed herself up from the floor. One hand rose to massage her throbbing temple. Her tear-streaked face, once a mask of heartbreak and despair, hardened into something else entirely. Her gaze, sharp and clear now, fixed on the distant speck of the helicopter ascending into the New York skyline.

“You b*st*rd,” she whispered, the words laced with a venom that was entirely new.

She walked back inside, picked up the pen from his desk, and without a second’s hesitation, scrawled her name—Ella Hawk—across the bottom of the divorce agreement. The signature was neat, decisive. Final.

Then, she pulled out a phone from her pocket and dialed a number from memory.

A gruff, sleep-filled voice answered. “Who is this?”

“It’s me.”

“For God’s sake, I don’t have a clue who ‘me’ is!” the man on the other end grumbled.

Ella’s eyebrow arched. “Can’t recognize my voice anymore, Rahman? Have I gone soft, or have you finally grown a spine?”

There was a dead silence on the line for two full seconds. Then, an explosive shout. “Elara?”

“Mm-hmm.”

The voice immediately shifted into a familiar, whining complaint. “Two years! Vanished off the face of the earth! I thought you’d run off with some backwater lumberjack!”

“My location is sent to your phone. Come get me.”

…

The next morning, as the sun cast long shadows across the Tribeca street, Ella walked out of the penthouse for the last time, a single small bag in her hand. A blindingly brilliant, diamond-dusted Ferrari Purrosangue pulled up to the curb with a throaty purr.

“Cara mia! My treasure!”

A man with sun-kissed golden hair, striking Mediterranean features, and eyes the colour of the Aegean Sea erupted from the driver’s seat. He swept her into a crushing, theatrical embrace.

Ella pushed him away with an unimpressed sigh, sliding effortlessly into the passenger seat.

Rahman Emir pouted, stomping his foot like a petulant child. “You heartless woman! I flew my jet through the night from Monaco for this reunion! Is this the thanks I get?”

She shot him a withering look. “Tone down the drama, Rahman.”

He slid behind the wheel, a brilliant grin spreading across his face. “Never! I am the king of drama, bellissima! It’s my divine right!”

Ella ignored him, leaning her head back against the plush leather seat. “Let’s go.”

She didn’t belong here. Just as Leo Hawk had never belonged to her.

Her two-year stint as the pathetic, lovesick ‘Ella’ was over. Memory had returned, and with it, a burning purpose. It was high time to find out exactly who was responsible for leaving her for dead at the bottom of that ravine.

…

Two days later, Leo returned to the penthouse, the dust of a futile journey to a remote Swiss clinic still clinging to him. The woman there wasn’t Aurora. Another dead end. A crushing disappointment settled in his bones.

He retreated to his study, the silence of the vast apartment echoing his emptiness.

A housekeeper knocked and entered, presenting him with the signed divorce agreement. “Mr. Hawk, Mrs. Hawk… she signed and left. She took nothing with her. Not even the credit cards you provided.”

Leo frowned. She left with nothing? That simpering, fragile creature who cried at the slightest inconvenience? The woman who seemed to possess no skills to survive in the real world? She’d be destitute in days.

Hah. A transparent ploy. A pathetic attempt to play the victim and garner sympathy.

“Finalize the divorce proceedings. Immediately,” he ordered, his voice hard. He would not give her a chance to change her mind.

The housekeeper had barely left when Jonathan entered again, his expression unreadable. “Sir, it’s about your… about Ms. Hawk.”

Leo’s head snapped up. “She’s back?” He knew it. He knew she couldn’t let go so easily.

“No, sir.” Jonathan hesitated. “It’s the press. They’ve captured photos of Ms. Hawk with Rahman Emir.”

Leo stilled. The youngest, most flamboyant son of the Emir family? One of the wealthiest, most influential dynasties in the Mediterranean?

“They were photographed entering his hotel suite at The Mark last night,” Jonathan continued, his voice carefully neutral. “She… did not leave until morning.”

Leo’s face darkened, a storm gathering in his eyes. Ella knew Rahman Emir? Intimately enough to spend the night in his hotel suite?

Leo’s fist came down on his desk with a crash that echoed through the silent, sterile study.

A fine web of cracks spread across the polished mahogany surface.

That d*mn woman.

So, she hadn't wanted his money because she'd already found a new patron.

A prince, no less.

The thought curdled in his stomach, a bitter, unfamiliar poison.

Frustration, already simmering from the wild goose chase in Switzerland, boiled over.

He needed a drink.

He snatched his phone and called the one person who could tolerate his black moods.

“Christian. Nocturne. Now.”

…

Nocturne, Manhattan.

The bass was a physical thing, throbbing through the opulent heart of New York’s most exclusive nightclub.

Ella—no, Elara—swirled the rich, blood-red wine in her crystal glass, a smirk playing on her perfectly painted lips.

Before her stood a curated selection of Adonises, lined up for her appraisal.

Rahman was upstairs finalizing