Feel-Good Story Short Stories & Bias Entertainment Circle Novels

On the day of my wedding, the video I had painstakingly prepared was suddenly replaced with intimate photos of my fiancé and my foster sister, Lindsey Remmington. Within minutes, it hit the top of the trending list. Overnight, I, a celebrated actress, became the abandoned bride of a wealthy family and a public laughingstock. Just when I thought I'd reached rock bottom, Connor Presley, the heir of Elluel City's most powerful family and the boy I'd grown up with, returned from abroad. In front of flashing cameras, he knelt with a diamond ring and proposed, silencing every rumor and every sneer. After we married, we appeared inseparable, our affection the picture of perfection. The only flaw was his infertility—his condition made it nearly impossible for me to conceive. For three long years, I underwent countless rounds of IVF. At last, I became pregnant. Connor was overjoyed. To celebrate, he threw an extravagant party in honor of our long-awaited child. But in the middle of the revelry, one of his closest friends, drunk and unguarded, muttered in Russian, "Connor, you've gone too far. Just because Lindsey was afraid pregnancy would ruin her figure, you put the zygote into Rachel's body and let her carry the baby for you two? If she ever finds out the truth, you'll regret it for the rest of your life." Connor's expression didn't waver. "This was Lindsey's only wish. I had to grant it," he replied coolly. "Besides, having a child with Lindsey has always been my dream. Only her child deserves to be the heir of the Presley family. The days ahead are long—I'll make it up to Rachel, eventually." I stood frozen, my body trembling uncontrollably. That night, I made an appointment for an abortion. When Connor stormed into the hospital, raging like a madman, I looked up at him with chilling calm and said, "I understand Russian."

I was the last person you'd expect to find on Manhattan's Upper East Side. My parents, Grant and Helena Sinclair, were fashion royalty, and size zero was their religion. But I'd been overweight since childhood, and there was nothing they could do about it. By the time I was five, I weighed far more than other children my age and ate like a bottomless pit. My parents called me "Meatball" in disgust and shipped me off to live with my grandmother, Margaret Sinclair, on a farm deep in rural Texas. It wasn't until I won a full scholarship to Columbia that I finally earned the right to return to their New York penthouse. My father, a fashion mogul, took one look at me and frowned with disgust. "An XXXL hoodie, oversized sunglasses, and a black face mask. "You look like a walking trash bag. Are you too ashamed to show your face?" My mother, editor-in-chief of a Vogue-caliber fashion magazine, scoffed. "She probably saw Isabella with us at Paris Fashion Week and knew she'd look terrible standing next to her. "As if being fat weren't bad enough, she's got an awful personality, too." My sister, Isabella Sinclair, hurried over with feigned warmth and took my hand. "Your weight doesn't define you. There's no need to feel inferior to me." I was about to take off my mask, but my hand froze.

When I threw myself in front of a falling stage light to save my adoptive father, movie star Richard Crane, I came close to being disabled for life. Before they wheeled me into surgery, he gripped my hand, his eyes red-rimmed. He'd always kept his distance from me, but putting my life on the line for him had finally moved him. He promised that if I lived, he'd make me his bride. I thought he had finally returned the love I'd kept hidden for all those years. But after struggling through rehab, I learned that Richard was engaged to Hollywood's rising star, Daisy Morgan. When I arrived at the engagement party, the press was already waiting with cameras, hoping to catch me making a scene. Richard immediately stepped in front of Daisy and ordered his bodyguards to stop me. "Eve, Daisy's innocent. Don't hurt her." Calmly, I held out an audition invitation from a top director. "I crossed the line before. Consider this opportunity my engagement gift to you." Camera flashes erupted around us. Surprise flickered across Richard's face. Swallowing my pain, I gave him a gracious smile. "Since you're starting a new family, please sign the papers to end your legal guardianship. And while you're at it, give me back the screenplays my mother left me. From now on, we're nothing to each other." In my last life, I used the fact that I'd taken a near-fatal blow for him to pressure him into coming back to me. Because of that, the entire internet branded Daisy a homewrecker and tore her apart, sending her into a deep depression. Furious, Richard blacklisted me and confined me to a remote estate, claiming I needed rest. The endless isolation drove me to a mental breakdown, and I died there. Meanwhile, Richard stood by Daisy's side as she won the Oscar for Best Actress for a film based on my mother's screenplay. Now that I'd been given a second chance at life, I finally saw everything clearly. I would never expect anything from this man again.

"When is that desperate agent of Ace Davidson's finally going to get lost? Just looking at her makes me sick!" "Seriously! She's always clinging to our Ace. Does she really think she's his wife or something?" My finger stopped scrolling across the tablet. Without changing expression, I closed the fan post full of insults on Ace's fan page. As Ace's secret wife of five years and his agent, I'd grown numb to comments like these a long time ago. I turned around, took a box of arnica cream and a steaming hot lunch from my bag, and handed them to the chubby crew member sitting in the corner. "Pudge, eat first. Put some arnica on your face, too. You don't want it to leave a mark." Because of his heavy build and slow movements, the director had slapped Pudge in front of everyone that day. The entire crew had made a joke out of him. I was the only one who'd offered him any comfort. He took the items, his eyes reddening as he looked at me. "Alisson, thank you... You're a good person. There's something I can't keep from you." With that, he glanced around before pulling out a spare phone with a shattered screen. "Alisson, I accidentally caught this on video yesterday while I was organizing props in the underground parking garage." I tapped the video open. On the screen was Ace's private van, the one I'd paid for myself. The vehicle was rocking violently.