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Home / Romance / Ex-Husband's Regret: Your Uncle Wants Me Now / Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

All Chapters of Ex-Husband's Regret: Your Uncle Wants Me Now: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

83 Chapters

CHAPTER 1

Sophie’s POVMy head was pounding again as I walked up to Derek. That same terrible throbbing behind my eyes that had been getting worse for weeks."Derek, could you please come with me to the hospital today?" My voice came out smaller than I wanted. "The migraines have been getting really bad and the doctor called. The test results are ready."He looked up from his phone. Not with worry. Just pure annoyance, like I had interrupted something important by asking him to care about me.He sighed. "I can't. Rosa's flight lands today. I have to pick her up."My stomach dropped.Rosa. She was finally coming back to New York.She had left on our wedding day. I had not forgotten that. I doubted anyone in this house had.I still remembered standing at the altar in that heavy white dress, my hands cold inside Derek's stiff grip, watching his jaw tighten when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He looked at it for just a second. But I saw his face change. Something behind his eyes went out. He fini

CHAPTER 2

Sophie’s POVI walked down the corridor and I already knew something was wrong before he opened his mouth. He came in carrying my file and set it on the desk carefully, like he was buying himself extra seconds. He sat down and folded his hands."How are you feeling Mrs. Callahan? The headaches. Have they changed?""They've gotten worse. Some mornings I can barely get out of bed."He nodded slowly. Like that was the answer he had been dreading.He opened the file. Then he looked at me and the look on his face reached into my chest and squeezed.Pity. Quiet and helpless. The kind that lives in someone's eyes before they find the words.I had seen that look once before. I was seventeen. A different doctor. A different waiting room. My mother.My hands tightened in my lap."We found something on your scan," he said. "A mass. In the brain."The words landed strangely. Like stones dropping into deep water, going down and down with no sound at the bottom."A brain tumor," I said."Yes.""Wha

CHAPTER 3

Sophie’s POVI stood there in the pouring rain without an umbrella, soaking wet within seconds, and I thought about everything that had happened today from the moment I woke up to this exact moment and I almost laughed. Almost. The sound that came out wasn't quite a laugh and wasn't quite a cry. It was something in between that I had no name for.I started walking. I didn't know what else to do. I was just so tired. Tired of waiting for buses and tired of cold houses and tired of being invisible and tired of being strong and quiet and useful. I was tired all the way down to my bones.The rain poured down and soaked through my coat and my shoes and my hair stuck flat against my face and I kept walking.Then the headache hit me.Not the usual throbbing I had been living with for weeks. This was different. This was a white hot spike of pain behind my eyes so sudden and so sharp that my legs buckled. I grabbed a lamppost with both hands and held on and waited for the world to stop tilting

CHAPTER 4

Sophie’s POVThe force of it snapped my head to the side and knocked me completely off balance. My back hit the kitchen cabinet and then my legs gave way and I went down to the floor. The impact jarred through my whole body and the headache that had been sitting quietly behind my eyes exploded into something blinding. I pressed my hand to the side of my head and stayed on the floor and waited for the room to stop spinning.Everything was ringing."You do not talk back to me," Shirley said from above me. Her voice was very clear and very cold. "Not in my son's house. Not ever. Do you understand me?"I nodded. I kept my eyes down."You are a guest here. You have always been a guest here. An unwanted one. And you will remember your place or I will remind you of it every single time. Do you understand?""Yes," I said. My voice was barely anything. "I'm sorry."Lana laughed softly from somewhere behind her mother. A light, careless sound, like what she had just watched was mildly entertain

CHAPTER 5

Sophie’s POVBecause that is what I was. That is what she was saying. After two years of living in this house, cooking the meals and keeping the rooms and shrinking myself down to nothing, I was the help.I pressed my lips together very hard. I picked up my plate. I pushed my chair back carefully so it wouldn't scrape and stood up and walked toward the kitchen door."The food tastes awful by the way," Lana said behind me.More laughter.The banging on my door woke me out of a dead sleep.I sat up too fast and the headache rushed back immediately, that familiar throbbing behind my eyes that never fully went away anymore. I pressed my hand to my temple and waited for the room to stop spinning. The clock on my nightstand said seven fourteen in the morning.The banging came again. “Sophie!”"Coming," I said. My voice was rough with sleep.I opened the door. Lana was standing in the hallway in a silk robe, arms crossed, looking at me the way she always looked at me. Like I was an inconveni

CHAPTER 6

Sophie’s POVThe room went very quiet.Derek was staring at Mr. Graves with his mouth slightly open, like the words he had just heard were still rearranging themselves in his head and hadn't made sense yet."What?" he said. Just that one word. Low and disbelieving, like a man who was sure he had misheard something and was giving the room one chance to correct itself.Mr. Graves did not flinch. He had clearly delivered bad news to important people before and had learned somewhere along the way that the calmer you stayed, the faster they accepted it.He reached into his briefcase without hurrying, drew out another document, and laid it flat on the desk in front of Derek, turning it around so the writing faced him."Your grandfather's terms are very clear, Mr. Callahan," he said, in the same steady voice a doctor uses when he is telling you something you are not going to like. "To keep the full Callahan estate — the properties, the company, all financial holdings — you must remain marrie

CHAPTER 7

Sophie’s POVDerek's expression shifted. I could see him recalibrating, adjusting to the version of me that was sitting in that chair, which was a version of me he had never seen before and clearly did not know what to do with.His eyes were sharp and waiting, like he expected the conditions to be small and manageable. Like he expected me to ask for money or a bigger room or some other thing he could dismiss easily.I looked him straight in the eyes."For the next three months, you will treat me like a real wife. Not like the maid. Not like a ghost you tolerate in your own hallways. Like your actual wife." I counted on my fingers, slowly and deliberately, so there would be no confusion later about what had been agreed."You will be kind to me. You will eat breakfast and dinner with me every day. You will speak to me with basic respect. And you will protect me from your mother and your sister. Every time. Without question."Derek's face darkened. "What the fuck?""Second condition." I

CHAPTER 8

Sophie’s POVI hadn’t heard her come in. Too lost in my own head replaying every word I’d thrown at Derek upstairs like some desperate gambler pushing all her chips onto the table. My heart gave one hard thud as I turned.There she stood in her silk robe, arms folded under her chest, that special curl on her lips reserved just for me. Not quite a smile, not quite a sneer. Something worse. Something that said she enjoyed watching me bleed.Her eyes dragged over me slowly, head to toe and back again, like I was something stuck to the bottom of her expensive shoe.“Making breakfast for a husband who doesn’t even want you,” she murmured, shaking her head with fake pity. “You really cannot get more pathetic than this, can you, Sophie?”The words hit exactly where they always did. Two years had taught her all my soft spots, and she never missed. I felt them sink in, cold and deep, but I’d had two years of practice too. I knew how to keep my face blank even when everything inside me was scre

CHAPTER 9

Sophie’s POVI picked up my fork and took a bite of the eggs. They tasted like nothing. But I chewed, swallowed, and stayed right where I was. I didn’t look at her.Rosa’s nostrils flared. “Excuse me.” Her voice got very quiet and very controlled. That was always more scary than when she yelled. “I said move.”I kept eating.She took one step closer. Then another. Her voice dropped to a mean whisper only I could hear. “Move, you pathetic little bitch, before I drag you out of that chair myself.”She raised her hands. I saw them coming from the side of my eye. My fingers squeezed the fork hard. Every muscle in my body went tight. I told myself I wasn’t going to flinch. I wasn’t going to get up. I wasn’t going to let her win—“That’s not necessary. I’m leaving for work.”Derek’s voice cut through everything. It was flat, cold, and final, like a judge hitting the hammer. He wasn’t loud. He wasn’t angry. He was just done. He was already standing, pushing his chair back, picking up his pho

CHAPTER 10

Sophie’s POVShirley was standing there in the hallway shadows. She must have seen everything. The kiss. The way Derek leaned close. The way I blushed like an idiot. Her face was twisted with pure hate. Her eyes were narrow and dark, her lips pressed together so tight they looked white. If looks could kill, I would have dropped dead right there on the fancy rug.She stalked toward me like an angry cat, her silk robe swishing around her legs. Every step made my stomach twist tighter.“What the hell was that?” she hissed, her voice low and sharp.I tried to keep my face calm. “It was nothing,” I said quietly, stepping back a little.But she wasn’t having it. She grabbed my arm fast and hard, her fingers digging deep into my skin like claws. It hurt so much I almost gasped. I could already feel the bruises starting to form.“Whatever stupid little scheme you’re planning, it’s not going to work,” she spat, shaking my arm with every word. “Derek and Rosa are going to get married. They belo

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