Obsessive Short Stories & Homewrecker Cheating Novels

After three years in a psychiatric hospital, I finally escape. Three years ago, I watched my fiance, Ethan Cregger, die in a car accident right in front of me. Already born with a heart condition, I spiraled under the weight of grief. Then everything else fell apart. My family lost everything. Dad seemed to age overnight. Mom cried until there were no tears left. Adrian Mercer, my childhood friend, gave up the money he'd saved to study abroad just to pay for my treatment. Even my younger sister, Mia Bennett, worked three jobs and begged me through tears not to give up on life. Not wanting to burden them any further, I voluntarily admitted myself to a psychiatric hospital. Three years later, I finally make my way back to our old family estate, now supposedly sold, for one reason. I want the bottle of wine Ethan and I buried together years ago. But through the floor-to-ceiling windows, I see a dead man—Ethan. He is alive and well, with his arm wrapped around my sister. My parents look happier and healthier than ever. Adrian is placing a birthday hat on the young boy standing between them. Everyone claps and sings, gathered around the cake like one big, happy family. And suddenly, I understand. Ethan never died. He simply built a new life with my sister. While I spent three years trapped in the past, everyone I love moved on without me. They created an entire lie just for me. Fine. If they've already decided there's no place for me in their lives, then I don't want them anymore.

Four years ago, I took three bullets for my husband, Marcus DeLuca, heir to New York's most powerful mafia family. It cost me three years in a rival family's flooded cell. They interrogated me, drugged me with hallucinogens, and starved me, trying to make me reveal the DeLuca family's accounts, warehouses, and shipping routes. Three years later, I finally escaped. At the DeLuca Foundation's charity gala, everyone was talking about Rachel Bellini. The same woman I'd slapped in public years ago after she drunkenly draped herself over my husband's shoulder. "God only knows how much Marcus has spent on Rachel over the years. Now she's even got a Golden Globe nomination." "After Sarah disappeared, she moved into the DeLuca estate." "That's not all she got. She gave Marcus two kids." "But Sarah is Marcus's wife. The DeLuca family threw the biggest wedding this city had ever seen." "Oh, come on. She was abused for three years. She can't have kids anymore. Look at her." For more than 1,000 days and nights in that flooded cell, I'd believed he was tearing the city apart to find me. It turned out he'd had other things to do. Pathetic. In the middle of the ballroom, Marcus and Rachel gazed into each other's eyes. Someone shouted, "Make it official, Marcus!" Just then, the spotlight swept across me. Everyone turned to look at me, waiting for me to slap her a second time. I just raised my champagne glass and smiled. "Don't stop on my account." Then I turned and walked out of the ballroom before they could see my red, swollen eyes. I called Lily. "Last time, you said your jewelry studio in Sydney still needs a partner. I've thought it over. I'm in."

After seven years with Luca Lorenzetti, I was finally in a wedding dress. We were at a private photography studio in Sicily that served only members of the Lorenzetti family. My best friend, Avery Conti, who'd introduced me to Luca years earlier, was trying on her bridesmaid dress nearby. The moment Avery stepped out in her custom silver gown, Luca's eyes lit up in a way I'd never seen before. Luca asked Avery to join us for a few shots. "Think of it as a keepsake from before the wedding." I stood in the middle in my wedding gown. Avery fussed with her skirt off to the side and laughed softly. "Maybe not. Standing next to Chloe in this, I'd look like an ugly duckling." Without a word, Luca walked over, pushed me aside, and gave Avery the spot right in the center. When the shutter clicked, the two of them stood shoulder to shoulder like a couple made for each other. As we looked through the photos, Luca pointed to one of the three of us. He wanted it enlarged, framed, and used as the welcome poster for our wedding. I frowned. "Avery's in the middle of our wedding poster? That doesn't seem right." Luca gave me a disapproving look. "Chloe, why are you being so difficult? If Avery hadn't introduced us, you'd never even have met me. "So what if we use one group photo? You're still the one standing at the altar with me in the end, aren't you?" I looked at myself in the photo. Even in the most expensive dress there, I looked like an outsider who'd wandered into the frame by mistake. Some places aren't yours, even when you're standing in them. If that's how it is, I don't want to be his bride anymore.

Before the wedding, I received a deduction alert from our joint account. Amount: $1,314. Merchant: Love hotel. Note: One last fling before the wedding. The cardholder was Ethan Greyson. The one who’d used it was his childhood friend, Sophie. I stared at my phone, my fingers ice cold. Sophie was sitting in the bridesmaids’ dressing room touching up her lipstick, wearing Ethan’s suit jacket over her shoulders. She saw the notification and came over with a smile. “Amber, don’t get the wrong idea. “I forgot my wallet, so I used your husband’s joint account to get a room to rest. “He said you’d be sharing finances anyway, so he let me charge it this once.” I looked at Ethan. His first instinct wasn’t to explain, but to turn off my phone. “Sophie just went through a breakup. She’s in a bad place. “Don’t humiliate her over a little money right before the wedding.” Before, she’d charged things to his supplementary card, and he’d say she was short on cash. She’d book couple’s suites using his membership, and he’d say the hotel was safer. She’d send him suggestive selfies at midnight asking how she looked, and he’d say friends joke around like that. And now, she was spending our marital assets to sleep in a room he’d booked. Ethan coaxed me in a low voice, “After the wedding, I’ll transfer the money back to you. “From now on, I won’t let Sophie spend your money. “The apartment, the hotel rooms, me. All yours. Forever.” I looked at him and suddenly found those words laughable. So he did know these things were supposed to have boundaries. I didn’t argue anymore. Because there would be no forever.

Half an hour before I was to seal a blood bond, my vampire fiance's steward stopped me outside my own bedchamber. "I'm sorry, Your Grace, but your key doesn't fit this lock." His words made my stomach drop. "That's impossible. Crowley Ashbourne handed it to me himself." "According to our records, the bedchamber is currently occupied by Lady Elsa Ashbourne, Lord Crowley's adopted sister. She set a ward over it, and only Lord Crowley's blood seal can open the door." My lady's maid, Marta Bell, went white at the steward's answer. The bonding gown, the moonstone ring, every single thing the ceremony required, all of it was still inside that room. In half an hour, vampire nobles from every territory would be seated in the great hall. And I, the bride, could not even get to my own ceremonial dress. I sent Crowley a blood message at once. He came quickly, but his gaze went first to the closed door. Only after he had sensed that Elsa's aura was steady did he turn to me. "Elsa has spent every day helping us prepare this ceremony. She has only just managed to lie down. Go and get ready in my room. Don't wake her." I looked straight at him as he blocked the doorway. "Crowley, everything we need for the bond is in that room!" "What's the rush? When she wakes up, I'll get everything for you." I didn't argue with him any further. I looked at the clock on the wall and gave him an ultimatum. "You have three more minutes to open this door. Otherwise, there will be no blood bond."

The day my husband kicked me off the Rinaldi family council, Irene Costa was sitting in my chair. She had been engaged to his late brother. She was wearing my pearl necklace, and the brooch pinned to her chest was reserved for the Donna of the Rinaldi family. My mother had left me that necklace. I kept it in a safe, and the only person who knew the combination was my husband, Victor Rinaldi. He looked at me, his voice cold. "Irene is taking your place at tonight's South Port negotiation. When you learn to control your jealousy, I'll give you your seat back." No one at the table said a word. My pin, my necklace, and the South Port proposal I'd spent three months working on now lay in front of Irene. Everyone had forgotten that when I married Victor three years earlier, I brought my father's port and connections with me. I was the reason he still held the Don's seat. I was the reason the Rinaldi family had risen again. I reached for my necklace. Victor thought I was reaching for the pin instead and stepped in front of Irene. "It's just a pin. You're still the Donna. Be generous. Don't embarrass Irene." I said nothing else. Four days later, I set a stack of documents in front of him. "The South Port agreements. They need your signature." He was replying to a message from Irene. He picked up the pen without glancing at the documents. "You've checked them, haven't you?" Victor had always trusted my work. He had also always believed that no matter how badly he humiliated me, I would never leave. I watched him finish signing, then pulled the dissolution of our marriage contract from beneath the South Port agreements. In seven days, I would leave with the port my father had left me, the people loyal to me, and everything Victor had spent years mistaking for Rinaldi property.