Romance 단편 소설 & 소설

After seven years of marriage, Cecilia Summer inherited a fortune worth billions. But while handling the paperwork with her lawyer, she was told that her marriage certificate wasn’t real. She could only inherit the entire fortune in her own name. After digging further into the details, the lawyer mentioned a name she never expected to hear. “Mr. Leedon’s wife is listed as Lucy Garnett, not you. Miss Summer, you’re… unmarried.” Everyone in Summerville knew that she and Marcus Leedon had been engaged since childhood. She was his everything, his treasured possession. When they got married, Marcus gave her the wedding of the century. He made a public promise: “I, Marcus Leedon, will never betray Cecilia!” But the marriage certificate bearing Marcus Leedon’s and Lucy Garnett’s names was issued the day after the wedding.

The rules of the Lawson family prevented their heir from marrying women who were from an ordinary background. But the eldest son of the Lawson family, James Lawson, just had to fall in love with a woman named Laura Jackson, who was a fish seller. He gave up his right of inheritance just to be with her. He was punished by his family by being whipped 99 times. He was also forced to kneel for three whole days. His shirt was covered in blood, but he still said to Laura with a smile, "It's alright, Laura. I just want to be with you." In the end, the Lawson family finally allowed James and Laura to be together, but on one condition: James had to leave the Lawson family an heir. After that, what James said to Laura the most was, "Just give me a little more time." The first time he said that was when he wanted Laura to wait for him to get another woman pregnant.

In the fourth year of her engagement to Mason Hart, Evelyn Ward still had not been able to marry him. The Hart family had produced officers for three generations, and marriages required approval from military headquarters. Yet every year, their marriage request was rejected. Until the fourth year, when Evelyn personally saw Mason alter the application. Only then did she realize that Mason had never intended to marry her at all.

Yvette Wilson had a crush on her brother’s friend. He was six years older, so she kept it to herself and stayed cautious. One night, she could not hold back anymore. In the dim light, she leaned in and stole a kiss while he was drunk. She had just turned to run when she saw his eyes snap open. He looked at her with a lazy expression. “You want me to teach you how to kiss? Too bad. I’m not into little girls.” Her face turned red, but she still found the courage to speak. “So you think I’m too young? That’s fine. I’ll grow up.”

On our wedding, my boyfriend of five years, Lucas Hunter, is in the middle of sliding the wedding ring onto my finger when a little boy rushes up to him and hugs his leg. "Daddy, please don't ditch me and Mommy!" At that moment, his first love, Isabella Welch, walks over and shows the paternity test report in front of all the guests. "On the night Lucas and I broke up six years ago, I was already pregnant with his child." Lucas' expression changes drastically. He subconsciously glances at me afterward. "I didn't know about this, Vivian!" "Well, you do now," Isabella cuts him off. "By the way, not only am I your son's biological mother, but I'm also the sole daughter of the richest woman in Andaysia." She then shows Lucas something on her phone. The next moment, his gaze becomes passionate immediately. "I've given up on my marriage alliance just to seek you out, Lucas. I am the woman you should be marrying instead of that…" Isabella eyes me up and down. "Instead of that regular corporate slave." Lucas stays silent only for a moment before retracting the ring that has touched my fingertip. Then, he slides it onto Isabella's finger. I can't believe it. Is this really the man I've loved for the past five years?" "Have you thought this through, Lucas?" Lucas leans in to murmur into my ear, "Vivian, once I've secured the major project in the company with Isabella's help and get custody over my son, I'll give you an even grander wedding." I just chuckle icily in return before leaving the altar without even sparing him a glance. After that, I call Alexander Shaw, an admirer who has loved me for ten years, on the phone. "Are you busy? If not, come here and marry me." Then, I turn back to look at the new couple, who are in the middle of making their vows. Isabelle calls herself the daughter of the richest woman in Andaysia, she says. But how is it possible for me to not know that my mom has swapped me out for another daughter?

At the dinner celebrating our fifth wedding anniversary, I held the pregnancy test report in my pocket, planning to surprise my CEO husband. However, the moment the doors opened, I froze. A stunning woman stood there with her arm intimately linked through my husband's. She clung to Charles Lawrence with the ease and confidence of someone who clearly belonged at his side, carrying herself like the lady of the house. Neither Charles nor the guests found it strange. If anything, they seemed entertained. Someone even joked, "Mr. Lawrence and Ms. Cooper aren't just ideal partners at work. Their chemistry is something to admire as well. I've personally reserved the presidential suite at Jubilee City's finest resort for Mr. Lawrence tonight. You can be sure no one will disturb you." Fiona blushed and slipped shyly into Charles's arms. He lowered his head and kissed her hard. They fit together so naturally, so intimately, that the sight was unbearably glaring. My thoughts flashed back to the night before, when Charles had pressed me into the bed. In that moment, I had caught sight of a strange message sent by someone named Fiona: [Everyone in the company thinks we've slept together.] Charles had explained that Fiona was only his assistant, a forty-year-old woman, and that the message was nothing more than a punishment from a lost game, a foolish dare. That explanation had dissolved my suspicion and anger. Then, I finally saw the truth. I was the one who had lost everything. Inside my pocket, the pregnancy report was crushed into a tight ball. I forced the tears back, stepped away, and opened the invitation from the National Aerospace Research Institute on my phone. Without hesitation, I tapped Accept. Three days later, I would vanish completely from Charles's world.

Seven years of marriage. Seven years of building a quiet, loving life with my husband, Harry, centered around our sweet son, Leo. But our fragile world shattered the moment her shadow fell across our doorstep—Harry's captivating first love, Claire, and her son, Jake. She and her son forced Leo to eat an entire sugary cake on his birthday, causing his blood sugar to rise dangerously. I tried to stop them, but the real betrayal came from my husband, who emotionally tortured our son into eating the last sugary bomb, leading him to death. I hadn't recovered from the trauma of watching my son die before my eyes when my husband blew away Leo's ashes before my eyes, the only remains of my son. That was when I decided, not only to divorce him, but to make him pay for his each and every sin.

Days before my wedding, I received a video of my fiancee, Alice Moore, being violated against her will. By the time I find her, she's covered in bruises, her body bare. She wails as she punches me in the chest, demanding to know why I didn't come to her sooner. She says her life has been ruined. As I hold her close, I make her a promise, saying that I would never scorn her. I even promise to give her 10% of my company shares as a wedding gift, hoping that it will put her at ease. Everyone says I've lost my mind for going to such lengths for a woman who has been sullied by another man. But then, I end up overhearing Alice giggling away with her friend in the bathroom. "That fool actually believed me and thought I'd been abducted. Cole and I went at it for three days in a row. I had the best time of my life! Oh, well. Since I can't marry Cole, my only option is to let him be the first man I take to bed before I get married." Miranda exclaims in shock, "What if Luke finds out about it? Aren't you afraid of that happening?" "He's a complete idiot. He even promised to give me his company shares as a wedding gift!" Alice retorted derisively. "There's no way he'd find out about this. I'm only marrying him because his family is one of the richest in the city. Otherwise, you couldn't even pay me to date him. Who would want a guy as boring as him?" I remain frozen outside the bathroom, feeling like I'd just taken a plunge into icy water. So be it, then. The wedding ceremony will proceed as scheduled, but I'll have to make some adjustments as to who the bride will be.

In the seventh year of my relationship with Ruby Carrington, she picks me up from work in the heavy downpour one evening. When I open the door to the front passenger seat, I notice a puddle of water on the seat. A strand of short hair is there as well. Ruby grips the steering wheel without even looking at me. "I just dropped off an intern from the project department at his home. He didn't bring an umbrella with him, so he was drenched." As I sit on the damp seat, I feel my heart slowly going cold as well. "Ruby, you knew very well that I'm severely germaphobic." Ruby just chortles in response. Her tone is filled with impatience and exhaustion. "It's just a seat, isn't it? He's younger and funnier than you, not to mention he's also more handsome than you even when he's drenched in the rain. "I tried having a relationship with him. Being with him is definitely a lot more interesting than with you. But I'll still marry you, though. As long as you pretend not to know anything about my affair, we can keep this relationship going." Rain continues streaking down the window outside, and yet, I find the air inside the car even more suffocating than the rain itself.

After I accidentally uploaded a rant post instead of my resignation letter, the messages went like this. Me: [Did you see the file I submitted?] He: [Mm… yeah. I saw it.] Me: [Then why didn't you reply? You don't approve?] He went quiet. I lost my patience and typed back, [If you're not saying anything, I'll take that as a yes. I'll come by your office this afternoon.] He replied almost instantly. [That fast?] Me: [Fast? How is that fast?] He: [I need some time to think.] Two seconds later, another message came in. [Is that okay?] I said yes. He ended up leaving work early and even gave the entire company three days off. Sitting at my desk, I thought about it for a long time. He was the owner of the company, yet there he was, acting like he was afraid I might leave. Was he really that desperate to keep me?

When Selovia's soldiers seized me, I sent Leon ninety-nine letters, each one begging for rescue. He tore them apart. "I sent Aya back to her duchy after she struck Mira—but I gave her my finest escort. Selovia could not have touched her." A sharp breath. "I allowed Mira the ceremonial gown, nothing more. And now Aya makes a spectacle to win back my favor. It shames her." He paced once, restless. "Mira's brother died protecting me. He was my Captain of the Royal Guard. I swore to guard her in his place. Tell Aya this—no matter how she rages, I will not cast Mira aside. If she keeps making a spectacle, I will delay the wedding." Three days later, he rode into Valecrest with the marriage contract in hand, ready to wed me. That same hour, Selovia's envoys delivered an ornate gift box. Leon glanced at it and exhaled. "So the dowry is prepared. All this noise was Aya stirring unrest." The lid opened. Inside— My head. From the tower, mourning bells began to toll. Slow. Heavy. Final. The chapel doors parted. The officiant stepped out, robes dark, face set in solemn lines. "Her Grace, Aya Valecrest, Duchess of Valecrest, has been returned to us. The burial rites begin at once."

I was the top bounty thief in the organization. The best they had. After turning in my final score, I announced on the spot that I was done for good. Then, I stood in my studio, blending paint. A single photograph was pinned to the wall before me. Black Viper filled the doorway, the light behind him casting his face in shadow. "What's it like," he asked quietly, "pretending to be an artist?" He stepped further inside. "Does paint smell better than blood?" I placed the palette knife down and wiped my hands slowly. "I'm done. I walked away." "Old Fox didn't approve of it." "That's not my concern." Black Viper crossed the room and tapped the old photograph on the wall. "Are you certain?" I did not want to look. I told myself not to. However, my gaze shifted anyway. A young boy stared back from the photo. "The blind kid?" I had spent ten years searching for him. "Where is he?" I moved toward the wall, reaching to rip the picture down. "One last job," Black Viper said, pressing his palm against the photo. My hand stopped in midair. "What's the target?" "The final lot at next month's auction that the Gilbert Group will be holding. "It's called Mermaid's Tear."

After seven years of marriage, my husband grew tired of our quiet life and took a college student as his mistress. That fragile, pitiable girl held Alain Roth so completely he didn't come home for an entire month, no matter how I begged. On our son's third birthday, I came to their villa, holding the feverish child and pleading for him to return. Inside, he stayed lost in passion with her. Jeff Roth drew his last breath in my arms while their pleasure echoed through the night. At the funeral, Alain held me and wept, swearing he would return to the family and love only me. I agreed, driven solely by Jeff's dying wish. Four years later, a video from his old kindergarten surfaced, showing Alain with a radiant Mabel Flores and a three-year-old boy. The boy smiled brightly at the camera, lifting a trophy high. "Mom, Dad, we're the happiest family in the world!"

My husband had a bizarre obsession with role-playing. In every scenario he invented, I was always the devoted wife he eventually cast aside. One day, he became the ruthless CEO who fell for the nanny; the next, he turned into a respected professor who could not resist his students. Each time he handed me a divorce agreement, watched me sign it through tears, and then tore the papers to shreds the following morning with a satisfied grin. "It's just a game, babe." That changed when my mom was in a catastrophic car accident and needed 200,000 dollars for emergency surgery. Deep in character as a penniless failure, he said, "I'm flat broke. Where am I supposed to get that kind of money for your mom?" I watched my mother take her last breath because we couldn't pay the bill. On the day of her funeral, he arrived with a pretty college student on his arm. "I've fallen in love with one of my students. It's time we get divorced." He pulled a folder from his briefcase and handed me the agreement. This time, I didn't wait for him to rip it up.

"There's a foreign object lodged in the patient's lower region. Due to the unique circumstances, we need the patient's next of kin to sign the consent form for an extraction procedure." My body stiffens when I see the name on the consent form. "I'm Renee Becker's next of kin." It's Liam Cassidy who says that. He's the first love of my wife, Renee Becker, who has been away for a month, claiming she's off on a business trip. Liam doesn't recognize me. He takes the pen and signs the consent form. In the section to mark his relationship to the patient, he writes the word "husband". After passing the pen back to me, he grips my hand tightly and beseeches me, "Doctor, you must do everything you can to help her. She's carrying my baby." As I wrench my hand back from him, my wedding ring slips off and falls onto the floor.

For the sake of her secretary, who was supposedly battling cancer, my wife, Sofia Griffin, made a shocking proposal. She would pay ten million for taking his virginity as an attempt to help him raise the funds needed. I had barely opened my mouth to object when she cut me down with a sharp rebuke. She said, "Chris has always been a proud man. Just giving him the money would seem like a handout and hurt his pride. "Can't you try to be compassionate? Do you really have to be jealous over something this small?" I said nothing. I simply smiled and nodded. What she didn't know was that, as an infectious disease specialist, I had already recognized the signs. It wasn't cancer... It was late-stage AIDS.

On our wedding anniversary, I ask my husband, Luke Blackburn, to buy me some fish stew. Since I'm in my first trimester, I keep vomiting every now and then due to morning sickness. Right now, I have an intense craving for fish stew. But Luke comes home empty-handed in the middle of the night. He claims that he's completely forgotten about my request. I don't say anything at all. All I notice is a strand of long hair sticking to Luke's collar that doesn't belong to me. Some time later, I see the fish stew I never got to eat in a photo that Luke's colleague, Ruby Pollard, has uploaded to her social media feed. The caption reads, "Luke ordered this dish for me. He knows that I love fish stew from this particular restaurant the most. I'm so touched by his gesture!" In the photo, I see a pair of familiar hands picking out fish bones from the meat tenderly just for Ruby.

On the night before Match Day, it's 2:17 am when I find myself staring at the screenshot on my phone. For a long while, my heart refuses to calm down at all. Ethan Blake: "Let's have a bet, guys. If Leah doesn't get a spot at Redwood General Hospital tomorrow, this will mark the end of our relationship. The starting bet is two thousand dollars. Is anyone following up on this bet?" Already, more than a dozen people have responded to the message with various emojis. Someone even comments, "Count me in!" I feel my nails digging into my palms. "The end of our relationship", he says. To think that Ethan actually used this phrase. We've been dating for four years. This is the very same man who once told me that he wanted to marry me. Is it this easy for him to end a relationship? I take a deep breath and force myself to calm down. There are still other medical interns in the staff room with me. I mustn't lose my composure around them. I know that Ethan is waiting for me to react how I did in the previous times. I'd either spam his phone with missed calls, beg him to delete the message while crying, or apologize to him in an extremely humble manner. But now… Now, I'm really done with this relationship.

Despite having been married for 25 years now, my wife, Sasha Fuller, and I have done it less than ten times. During our 25th wedding anniversary, however, Sasha, who has always claimed to be uninterested in intimacy, ends up doing it 30 times with a male escort at a clubhouse. The couch ends up completely drenched. This is when I realize just how wrong I've been all along. Even after her betrayal is exposed, Sasha adamantly refuses to admit to any wrongdoing. On the contrary, she starts condemning me. Hurt and upset, I proceed to spend three days arguing with her about it. Even my friends and relatives try to talk me down. "You two have been married for over 20 years now. She's even the CEO of Fuller Group. What's the big deal if she sleeps with a male escort? Don't end your marriage over something this trivial." "All these years, a live-in son-in-law like you only managed to establish yourself with the help of the Fuller family anyway. Don't be so ungrateful." With my heart in anguish, I look at Sasha and say, "Cut off all contact with him, and things between us can go back to the way they used to be." However, Sasha retrieves a pregnancy test report from her briefcase and silently takes off her wedding ring. "Colin, I'm already 45 years old. Even if you can't have children, you can't expect me to go my whole life without one as well, right?" She strokes her belly without the slightest trace of guilt in her eyes. "If you insist on making a big deal over this, then I have no choice but to divorce you." My hands, hidden by my sleeves, clench into fists briefly before falling lax again. "Let's get a divorce then." Not only am I going to get a divorce, but I'm going to give Sasha and her affair partner a big surprise.

"The property management fee this month comes to 1,500 dollars. Please make the payment whenever you're free." I notice my husband's phone screen lighting up on the dining table. After glancing at it, I grabbed it immediately. "The management must have gotten it wrong. Our apartment's fee is 28 dollars per month." That's when Liam Moore shoots up to his feet and reaches out to snatch his phone back. "Yeah, they must have gotten it wrong. I'll text the person in charge and explain everything to him." But I've already tapped into the link, which shows me the details of the property that's being charged. It's Cloudridge Villa, and the property deed owner is… Matilda Shaw. The young housekeeper who's currently cooking in the kitchen is also Matilda Shaw. My mind buzzes loudly instantly. While the three of us have to make do with a tiny, rundown replacement housing that's provided by the government, Liam, my own husband, has actually bought a villa for Matilda.