Feel-Good Story Short Stories & CEO Marriage Novels

My mother said I was a born beauty and was able to charm any man. She told me not to touch a man before my twentieth birthday. In the previous timeline, I listened to her, so when a wealthy heir was dosed with an aphrodisiac, I pushed him away when he tried to take me into his embrace. But the effects of the skincare routine I did transferred to my mother after my twentieth birthday. I used face masks, but my face became wrinkled and spotted. Meanwhile, my mother glowed with smooth and youthful skin. I danced, but I only became fatter while my mother became slim. Seeing how I looked like a fifty-year-old woman, my father called me a useless piece of trash and wanted to marry me off to a bald man as his second wife. I cried and begged my mother for help. But she said this was for my own good, her twenty-something face a mask of hypocrisy. I was forced to run away from home, but doing so only sped up my aging. Three days later, I died on the streets right by a trash heap. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back in time to the night I met that rich heir. This time, I did not push him away but straddled him in bed.

There were eight daughters-in-law in the Reynolds family, and I was the one everyone considered the most hopeless. While my sisters-in-law were making waves in business and landing on Forbes lists, I was busy shopping till I dropped. They talked about mergers, acquisitions, and corporate restructuring. I only cared about limited-edition Hermès bags and exotic-skin handbags. As far as they were concerned, I was the brainless gold digger their youngest brother had somehow been stupid enough to marry. I did not care. My husband's black card was mine to use, and all I had to do was look pretty and enjoy the good life. That all changed when Reynolds Group came under a coordinated attack from a group of international business giants, pushing the company to the brink of collapse. The attack came hard and fast. The rivals used three overseas gold mines as collateral, nearly draining Reynolds Group of its last reserves of cash. The entire family was thrown into chaos. Overnight, my father-in-law seemed to age ten years. My highly accomplished sisters-in-law called in every favor and used every connection they had, yet they still could not uncover the truth about who was really behind the attack. Then, as if he owned the place, our enemy sat arrogantly in the seat of honor in our living room and demanded that my father-in-law hand over his chairman's seal. I came downstairs carrying a cup of pour-over coffee and frowned. "Who let this nouveau riche slob in? He's getting my sofa dirty." My eldest sister-in-law immediately pulled me behind her and snapped, "Get back to your room. Now!" My husband instinctively covered my eyes and tried to pull me away. In that critical moment, the entire family seemed to silently agree on one thing—they had to protect me. Reluctantly, I turned to leave. Then I happened to catch sight of the Patek Philippe on our enemy's wrist. Wait. A billionaire who supposedly owned three gold mines was wearing a Patek Philippe with crooked hour markers?

News of a wedding in Nordica's top power family lit up the world. But at the rehearsal, I caught my fiancée, Ivette Bianchi, making out with her childhood sweetheart, Jerick Weiner. "Babe, we've been in love forever. Let me use your first-time blood as pigment for my art?" Ivette blushed, hesitated— Jerick didn't wait. He pinned her to the wall and kissed her. "My best piece needs that color," he whispered. "I want this painting to end our youth." I watched them twisted together, ice-cold. Dropped the ring. It clattered across the floor. "Go through with the ceremony," I said. "Or your family goes broke." She stiffened, shoved Jerick off, and spat, "Fine." Then she turned right back, grabbed his hand, and dragged him inside. "It's just a bachelorette party. I won't miss the rehearsal." The door slammed. I didn't react. I was done. I made the call. "Change the bride. And yeah—the Bianchis crossed the line first. I want them erased."

Everyone warned me never to fall for Dante Moretti. They said he was the ghost of the Velasco family—an underboss who ordered hits without blinking, his heart colder than the barrel of his gun. But when he bent me over that mahogany desk, his mouth against my ear commanding me to say his name, I was stupid enough to think that was possession. It took me an entire year to see the truth. The photographs locked in his study drawer were never of me. The woman in white waiting for him in the cathedral district on Sunday mornings was never me. The girl who took a bullet for him, the one he called his "salvation"—her name is Elena Abate. And Elena happens to be my stepmother's daughter. My father is trying to sell me to a half-dead Agosti heir for five hundred million to save the family. My stepmother is scheming to erase me from existence entirely. And the man I thought would burn this city to the ground for me? On the day I needed him most, he was lifting Elena up a flight of stairs, cradling her like something sacred. They all thought I was just a pawn to be moved around their chessboard. They were wrong. If Dante can't let go of his precious white moonlight, his "salvation," then I'll become someone else's "widow." If Elena believes she's already won this game, I'll let her watch from the front row as a woman with nothing left to lose burns it all down. My name is Serafina. Remember it. Because I am about to become the reckoning none of them saw coming.