CEO Family Emotions Short Stories & Novels

A category 5 hurricane has just torn through town, and Mom is out in the housing complex clearing floodwater when a 30-pound dead frond from a royal palm crashes down and shatters her spine. Four hours of emergency surgery later, the doctors tell me she'll never walk again. I storm into the mediation room with her bloodstained paperwork. The property manager, James Kendrick, is sitting there sipping a glass of scotch. When I demand the management company covers her medical bills, he refuses, then slams five photographs down in front of me. "Kid, you want to be real careful about throwing accusations around." He lets out a sigh, all patronizing and fatherly. "We had caution tape up before the storm. We set out traffic cones. Your mother walked right past all of it to dig through the trash. "That's trespassing and damaging the landscaping. Who's she going to blame but herself?" He slides a liability waiver across the table and tells me to sign. "Sign this, and I'll be generous enough to lend you 5,000 dollars out of my own pocket. Try to fight this, and our legal team will bury you." I look at his smug face, then pick up the photos from the floor. The caution tape is there, sure enough. But the flower bed next to it is full of azaleas in bloom, a variety that only flowers in April. It's the middle of July. I tear the waiver to shreds right in front of him. "Using photos from two months ago as your proof, Mr. Kendrick? I think you're forgetting something. "My family runs the shop right across from the complex entrance." Then I pull out my phone and open the cloud backup for our storefront's 24-hour HD security cameras.

For Children's Day, I help source and purchase gifts for my son's class. I not only keep the budget to a minimum, but I also manage to get expensive toys that are way over budget for them. During checkout, because my son, Harry Chandler, has grabbed a limited edition toy robot, the PTA representative, Darren Larson, shouts at me, "Jordan Chandler, are you trying to tell me that you didn't embezzle the class funds for that 500-dollar toy robot?" The class teacher, Kevin Brown, and the manager of the toy store, Florence Young, immediately pause in their footsteps. I feel dozens of pairs of eyes staring at me in the mall. Darren complains animatedly, "You were trying to pay for that 500-dollar toy with the class funds, basically using everyone's money to spoil your son, weren't you? "Both Mr. Brown and the manager are right here, but you still dare to pocket our money? I can't imagine how much of the class funds you must've used to line your own pockets behind our backs! I daresay, for someone with no morals like you, the children you raise will be thieves in the future too!" Darren glares maliciously at me, looking me up and down. Even Kevin is giving me a look of suspicion and disdain. Instead of arguing with him, I turn to the cashier and ask in a calm tone, "My family owns this mall. Do I need to pay for a toy I just grabbed off the shelf?"

Three years ago, my father ran into a burning building and carried my wife Vanessa out. He came out of it with scorched lungs and one leg gone. Vanessa sat by his hospital bed and cried all night, swearing she would honor him like her own father for the rest of her life. Three years later a storm drowned the city. My father was trapped on the fourth floor, and every breath he coughed out came up with blood. I called Vanessa, who ran rescue dispatch, forty-two times. She didn't pick up once. Her only reply was, "Your father can hold on. Save the ones in worse danger first." But five minutes later, someone posted a video in the residents' group chat. Vanessa was piloting the only medical boat in the city herself, and she had gone to collect Julian Marsh, her childhood sweetheart, whose only injury was a twisted ankle, and he could still walk. To make room for his golden retriever, the emergency stretcher had been stripped out of the boat beforehand. And my father was the only critical patient on the list who needed a stretcher to be moved. Even before he lost consciousness, my father clutched my sleeve and spoke up for her. "Don't blame Nessa. Saving people comes first." The next day I carried my father out of the disaster zone on my back. Vanessa saw me and frowned. "Why didn't you just wait? Once I was done with Julian, I would have come back for your father." I didn't argue. I just handed her two documents. One was the divorce papers. The other was the critical condition notice the doctors had issued after my father missed the window when he could still have been saved.

On the night of my tenth wedding anniversary with my billionaire husband, his female secretary called him. Ignoring the fact that I was completely naked, he pulled away and started to leave. I couldn't stop myself from confronting him. He sighed, yet his tone was inexplicably relaxed. "So you finally figured it out. Elowen is young and insecure. She's afraid I'll fall in love with your body again. "She's adorable. Now that I've tasted something young and vibrant, why would I ever settle for what’s withered and spent?" A chill spread through my body, and I stood there frozen. "Silas, that's not a funny joke." He didn't answer. He merely shot me a look of disgust. "She's underestimating herself. "You're nothing but an ambitionless wife, a parasite content to live off me. "I only married you because my family pressured me. Now that everything is going well, I haven't felt anything for you in a long time. "Good thing she called. Otherwise, I wouldn't have known how to end this." As I watched him leave without the slightest hesitation, my entire body trembled. When Silas's company was in crisis, no one wanted to marry a man who was about to take on millions in debt. I was the one who chose him without hesitation and used my own money to help him start over. Yet this was how he repaid me. My heart went cold. I picked up my phone and made a call. "Dad, I'll put the Sicily project in your hands in one week."

The day Lillian was born, my husband, Darian Ford, lied to me. He was with Maya Bell while she gave birth, and he missed our daughter's first cry. He came back full of guilt, apologized, and did everything he could to look after our daughter and me. Maya's child happened to start preschool on the same day as Lillian. Darian missed Lillian's preschool orientation. I saw the disappointment on my daughter's face. All I could do was tell her quietly, "It's all right. You still have me." When she fell down the stairs, I called him in a panic. He swore he was on his way. We waited three hours at the hospital. Then we found him in a video that had gone viral. In the video, he was walking down the street with Maya's child in one arm and his other hand on Maya's back. An interviewer had stopped them because they looked like a picture-perfect family of three. When my daughter woke up crying for her father, I kissed her forehead and said, "Baby, from now on, it'll just be you and me. Is that all right?" He finally arrived, apologizing over and over. He promised to take us on a trip once she was better. But just as we were leaving, his phone rang. It was Maya's special ringtone. Maya's voice shook with sobs. "Darian, Sean has a high fever. I'm so scared. What do I do?" I didn't say anything. I waited to see what my daughter would do. Darian hung up, looking torn, and knelt in front of her. "Lillian, I have to go back to the city. Something urgent came up. Go ahead with your mom, and I'll join you later, all right?" I thought she would cry and cling to him the way she always had. Instead, she took a small step back and gave him an innocent but distant smile. "Mr. Ford, you don't have to come find us. Mom says not to talk to strangers."