The Billionaire's Greatest Regret

EPISODE 6 — The Rules

"Don't ever expect me to love you."

I stared at the ceiling for a long time after his door closed, holding back tears that burned in my throat, with unexplainable pressure behind my eyes.

I pressed my lips together, breathed through it, and refused to spend my wedding night crying over Ian Winston.

I had done enough of that already… Years ago, in a different life, when I still had the luxury of not knowing better.

I set the note face down on the nightstand, lay back against the pillow, and closed my eyes. I tried to convince myself that sleep would wash away the weight of what had happened, but the hope was delusional. My mind refused to quit, making me spend hours staring into the darkness, unable to sleep… but I slept anyway.

By morning, the bright light of the rising sun glowed through the curtains. I winced at it and sat up slowly, my hair loose, dress exchanged at some point for the clothes Margaret had quietly left outside my door.

People in the mansion were already awake because I could hear the faint sounds of the household moving below with footsteps and distant voices, the soft clatter of breakfast being prepared somewhere I wasn't.

My eyes went straight to the envelope on the nightstand… I had seen Margaret leave it the night before, Mr. Winston said to read it first thing without any explanation and of course I picked it up, turned it over once and opened it.

Several pages slid out, crisp and neatly typed, like it was a document being sent out to a company, I unfolded them and read the header.

RULES FOR MRS. WINSTON.

I paused for about half a second, then let out a short, disbelieving breath that wasn't quite a laugh.

A rulebook?

Like he had actually made me a rulebook, printed in multiple pages like I was a new employee being onboarded into a company I hadn't applied for.

I started reading….

Rule 1: Do not enter the masters bedroom under any circumstances.

Rule 2: Do not touch or disturb Sophie's belongings in the west wing.

Rule 3: Do not enter the west wing without explicit permission.

Rule 4: Do not involve yourself in Winston Group matters in any capacity.

Rule 5: No guests may be invited to the mansion without prior approval.

I flipped to the next page and it was just more rules, more restrictions, more of Ian's handwriting translated into cold, formal type like I was a liability to be managed rather than a person living in the same house.

By page two my hands had tightened on the paper, and by page three, something hot was building behind my guts.

What the hell…

My concentration was interrupted when the door opened, with Ian walking in without knocking.

He was dressed in a charcoal suit, dark tie that was perfectly knotted, his hair neat, jaw clean, every inch of him composed put together as always. He looked at me like he was at a scheduled appointment, present, prepared, no particular feeling about it.

"You read it."

"Did you seriously….." I held the pages up. "A rulebook."

"Think of it as expectations."

"Expectations." I set the pages down on the bed and stood up. "Ian, this is…..there are five pages."

"Six." He clasped his hands behind his back. "You haven't reached the last page."

"I don't need to reach the last page to know this is completely…." I paused then continued "You can't hand someone a rulebook on their wedding night. That's not…..that's not how this works."

"How does it work, then?"

"Like two adults living in the same space with the basic…." I gestured with the papers. "Basic human decency… gosh."

Ian looked at me with that expression that gave nothing away.

"Follow the rules and you'll have no problem."

"Rule three says I need permission to walk down a hallway in my own house."

"It's not your house."

The words dropped loud, final and I vividly went still

"But somehow," I said carefully, "it is."

Ian's expression shifted, his jaw tightening. I noticed his dark grey eyes emitting anger. He tried to hide it but it was too late. I always noticed every small expression he made, I had spent too many years paying attention to Ian Winston not to notice the things he tried not to show.

He moved towards me slowly with each step that made the air in the room feel different.

I held my ground, at least I tried to this time.

He stopped close enough that I had to keep my chin up to maintain eye contact, close enough that I could see the tension he kept locked in his jaw, the effort it took to stay this composed.

"Don't confuse legal paperwork with reality," he said quietly.

"Then explain reality to me." My voice came out steadier than I expected. "Because from where I'm standing reality looks like a six page document telling me I'm not allowed to exist in this house without your written permission."

"It tells you where your boundaries are."

"My boundaries." I let out a short breath "Or yours?"

Ian's eyes were fixed on mine and neither of us moved.

The room was completely silent except for the distant sounds of the house below, the clatter of dishes, the muffled movement of people going about a morning that had nothing to do with the two people standing here, then Ian stepped back.

Just like that the tension broke the way a held breath breaks….. suddenly.

"I have a meeting." His voice returned to its normal flat, professional tone, like the last thirty seconds hadn't happened. He straightened his already straight tie and moved toward the door.

"Of course you do," I said.

He paused midway and turned slightly.

"Finish reading." His eyes moved to the pages in my hand.

"All of it."

"Why? Will there be a test?"

"If you break the rules," he said, "there are consequences."

Then he left, the door clicked shut behind him.

I stood in the middle of the room and listened to his footsteps move down the corridor and disappear, then I looked down at the pages in my hand. I knew I should put them down, pour myself some tea, find Margaret, do literally anything other than stand here feeding the part of myself that was already too invested in every word Ian Winston had written but I kept reading.

Page four, page five, more rules, some about the staff; don't undermine Margaret's authority, don't rearrange the household schedule, some about appearances; any public events attended together required advance coordination with his assistant, some about finances; a monthly allowance had been arranged, handled through an account I didn't ask for and hadn't known about.

I turned to page six, the last page and most of it was standard with final clauses in the kind of language that felt like it had been written by someone who wanted everything airtight, every possibility accounted for, no room for misinterpretation.

And then the last line was just one sentence sitting at the bottom of the page with a space above it like it had been added after everything else, like it was the thing the whole document had been building toward without saying so.

I read it once, my fingers went still on the paper and the room felt smaller suddenly, the morning light through the curtains felt too bright, the sounds from downstairs too distant, everything around me receding until there was nothing left except the paper in my hands and those six words sitting at the bottom of it.

My heart was pounding so fast like it would burst out of my chest just at the sight of the last words.

I had known walking into this that Ian didn't want me, this marriage was built on something cold and purposeful, because he needed somewhere to put all that pain and I was the most convenient target, but reading it, seeing it written down in black and white, deliberate, formatted, filed neatly at the end of a six page document like a final verdict…

You will never replace Sophie.