All Chapters of THE BILLIONAIRE'S BIGGEST REGRET: Losing His Plus-size Ex: Chapter 51 - Chapter 57

Chapter 52Riley stood in the middle of the quiet living room with her warm coffee cup held between both hands, and she just stared out at the clean lines of her new kitchen counters while the morning light poured through the big glass window. On the far wall, her eyes caught the bright crayon drawings that Iris had taped crookedly along the paint on their very first night because her daughter had insisted, with all the stubbornness in her little body, that a house could never be a real home until you stuck something personal to the walls.Even after a full week of living here, the apartment still did not feel completely real to her, and Riley half-expected her phone to ring at any moment with some landlord on the other end telling her there had been a huge mistake.Or that the rent she paid did not actually stand, and that she needed to pack up their bags and vacate the place by the end of the week.It had been three weeks since she first signed the papers, and yet no such phone ca

Chapter 54"You called the exact person you were supposed to call," Ashton said, and his voice cracked with a raw, heavy emotion that made Riley’s chest ache because she had never heard him sound so genuinely frightened before. "Stay on the line with me, and do not hang up unless the emergency operators need the line clear to call you back, so just keep talking to me and tell me if she is still breathing the same way right now."Riley shifted her weight on the hard floorboards, balancing the phone between her ear and her shoulder so she could free both of her hands, and she gently pressed her trembling fingers against her daughter's chest to monitor the steady rise and fall of her tiny ribs."Yes, she is still breathing exactly the same," she confirmed, her voice catching as she smoothed back a damp strand of hair from Iris's pale forehead and tried to steady her own breathing so she wouldn't miss a single sound from the phone."Good girl," Ashton murmured softly, and Riley did not e

Chapter 56Ashton pulled her off the floor, his hand firm on her waist until her legs stopped shaking. He retrieved her phone, slipped it into his coat pocket, and guided her straight down the corridor toward the intensive care unit.The heavy doors opened into a quiet room lit only by the soft, blue glow of medical screens. The air inside was cold, carrying the sharp scent of antiseptic.On the bed in the center of the room, Iris looked impossibly small under the thin hospital sheet, but her frame stretched out across the mattress in a way that made Riley's heart break all over again. Her cheeks were drained of color, her skin an unnatural, pale gray under the lights. A soft plastic oxygen mask covered half her face, misting with every shallow breath. Thin wires stretched from her gown, tracing back to the monitors above her head.Riley’s steps slowed. The sight hit her like a blow, knocking the remaining air right out of her lungs. Her chest tightened so hard she couldn't catch