Nouvelles Plot Twists & Romans Hypocrisy Marriage

On New Year's Eve, I returned home. At the welcome party, my boyfriend, Grayson Caldwell, suddenly appeared, holding a bouquet of red roses and a diamond ring, dropping to one knee. "Although this proposal comes a full three years late, our love will never be late," he said. "Alexa, marry me!" Friends cheered from the sidelines, all expecting me to nod through tears and say yes. But they had forgotten that three years ago, on New Year's Eve, he had promised to propose. That night, I dressed to the nines and waited until dawn—but he never showed up. Instead, there was only a cold phone call. "Tanya is sick. I'm busy taking care of her. You'll have to wait a little longer for the proposal." And so, on New Year's Day, I left the country alone, bound by a family-arranged marriage. I had already married someone else three years ago.

My in-laws, who have flown back to the country for the Christmas holidays, visit my home on Christmas Eve for dinner. But Selena Collins, the housekeeper, has only prepared two plates of cold shrimp ravioli despite the fact that I've specifically reminded her about my mother-in-law, Lora Fischer's allergy to shrimps. Selena just tells me in a stoic manner, "Mrs. Peterson, I know that you country bumpkins love taking advantage of everything. So, I completely understand that your parents want to mooch off a meal from the Peterson family during the holidays. "But as Mr. Peterson's most caring housekeeper, I have the right to protect the Petersons' assets from getting leeched by outsiders. Yes, this includes a regular meal. "Then again, I have a heart of gold, you see. I won't starve the elders at all. These are leftover shrimp ravioli from last year. Your parents should hurry up and leave after polishing the ravioli off. "Mr. Peterson is very busy with his work. I can't let him deal with your impoverished parents after getting home from a stressful day at work." I'm stunned at first, but I soon realize that Selena has mistaken my in-laws for my parents. She's purposefully causing me trouble as always. I'm about to explain the truth to Selena when I see my enraged in-laws turning to leave. But Selena wastes no time in calling the bodyguards over to stop them. "I completely understand that country bumpkins like you two have poor character, but wasting food is a really bad trait. "Since the shrimp ravioli is already prepared for you, please finish them all before leaving."

My wife and I had kept our marriage secret for three years. Then she became a fraud-busting influencer with ten million followers, and I was the first person she exposed. On her livestream, she sobbed that I was a freeloader who beat her, bled her dry, and even forced her to entertain men over drinks for money. The internet buried me in abuse. Delivery orders I never placed and funeral wreaths piled up outside my door. Her top donor announced he was going to break my legs to get justice for her. On camera, my wife was a fragile victim. Off camera, she was texting me threats. If I did not sign the thirty-million-dollar penthouse downtown over to her, she would burn my name to the ground. She thought that owning public opinion meant owning me. What she did not know was that her top donor, the man showering her with gifts every night, was one of my security guards. And when she brought New York's richest man onto her stream, intending to expose my supposed crimes, something else happened. The richest man in New York turned toward where I was standing and called me boss.

On the day I decide to divorce Evan Beckett, I still make lunch and deliver it to him in person. After he takes a sip out of the soup, he widens his eyes in surprise. "The soup's pretty decent! I'll have it again tomorrow!" I nod in response. "Sure thing. I'll teach the housekeeper how to cook it later." That's when Evan lifts his head to look at me. "You got something going on tomorrow?" "Let's get a divorce, Evan." I sound very calm; so calm that everyone, including Evan, thinks that I'm throwing another tantrum. But what they don't know is that I'll be traveling to the ends of the earth with a research team, where we'll be based in for eternity, in 12 hours.

Late at night on a business trip, my phone chimes with an alert from our family health app. "New weight logged: 176.8 pounds." I stare at the digits, oblivious to the hot ash falling onto the back of my hand. My wife, Jayda Cohen, is notoriously strict with herself. Her weight is locked at a steady 132 pounds. None of her friends push past 150 pounds, either. So who on earth is standing on that scale right now?

On the Memorial Day weekend, Mason Hayes, the student my wife, Abigail Sullivan, had been sponsoring, insisted on riding with me back to his hometown. My car was small, the drive was long, and the trunk was already packed. There was no way to fit another adult, so I turned him down as politely as I could. That night, Abigail came home and stayed quiet for a long time before finally saying, "He ended up walking along the highway. His feet were torn up." I frowned, trying to make sense of it. "It's a holiday weekend. There are Ubers everywhere. He could've booked one in minutes." She nodded softly, the same gentle expression she always wore, and poured me a glass of water. I drank it. The next thing I knew, everything went black. When I opened my eyes again, I was standing under a brutal midday sun on an empty stretch of highway. Abigail leaned into Mason's shoulder, holding her phone up as she livestreamed. There was a faint smile on her lips, but there was nothing warm about it. "You said getting around was easy, right? Why don't you try walking home yourself?" The livestream was packed. The chat flooded with messages, people placing bets on how far I would make it. I looked straight into the camera, ran my tongue over my cracked lips, and said, "Done enjoying the show? Now come and pick me up."

I've just given Eugene Howard a lavish monetary wedding gift at his wedding when I see him passing me an instant cup noodle with a look of disdain. "You can just eat it at the entrance. You can just broaden your horizons from this spot. Why don't you take a look at yourself in the mirror, Nicholas? Do you really think you have the right to sit at the same table as the bigwigs in the wedding venue?" I suppress my rage for the sake of my fiance, Esther Howard. After all, Eugene is her younger brother. "I'm a wedding guest, so why can't I enter the venue?" Today is the day Esther will be announcing our upcoming marriage. If I get blocked outside the venue, who's going to be there with her when she makes the announcement? But Eugene scoffs at me in return. "You're worth nothing! Just because Esther flashes you a smile after seeing how good-looking you are doesn't mean you have the right to marry her! "Soon, my family will be receiving a ten-billion-dollar investment from the Warner family of Cantonia! That means we'll become the richest family in Geronton! "Plus, my future brother-in-law, Ray Atkinson, is an illegitimate son of the Warner family! A pretty boy escort like you can never compare to him!" Ray Atkinson? Wait, does Eugene seriously think that this nobody, whom I've never heard of in my life, is capable of calling the shots when it comes to my family's investment? I call Esther's number on the spot. "I heard that you want to call off our marriage and marry a bastard child hailing from the Warner family? Well then, I suppose I can retract my ten-billion-dollar wedding gift now."

Years after our divorce, I ran into my ex-husband outside the school. We each held our own child by the hand and passed each other like strangers. As I turned to leave, he caught my hand. His voice was tinged with regret. “That little girl is just as pretty as you were at her age.” I froze for a moment. So, he remembered. We had grown up together as childhood sweethearts and married young. We had seen every version of each other and shared every part of growing up. I had once loved him more than anything and believed we would spend the rest of our lives together. But in that moment, I simply drew my hand back, calmly. “I’m sorry. You must have confused me with someone else.” I had no desire to revisit the past. That chapter had been painful enough to live through once. I would not open it again.

I had just reunited with my biological daughter when my husband and I had to fly overseas on a business trip. I was about to send my son his living expenses when a barrage of comments suddenly floated across my vision. [Don’t go! Your son’s girlfriend will come straight to your house and take over! She’ll pocket every cent you send him!] [Your two daughters will be abused so badly that they’ll be forced to eat tree bark with their bare hands, and they’ll think you allowed it!] [Both your adopted daughter and your biological daughter will come to hate you. Your son will manipulate them into helping him seize control of the company!] [In the end, your son will turn against his entire family for that gold digger. You’ll die alone on the street, with no one to even claim your body!] My hand froze in midair right as I was about to transfer ten million dollars to my son. The next second, he came trotting over with an eager smile. “Mom, Dad, don’t worry about a thing while you’re away! I’ll take good care of my two sisters! Oh, and don’t forget to send me my living expenses before you leave!” A chill ran through me. I quietly backed out of the transfer screen. “I’m not going on this business trip.”

My son, Nick Hammerback's grades suddenly skyrocket after he spends the summer supposedly getting tutored at his classmate's house. Wanting to thank the family, I bring his classmate's mother a gift at the first parent-teacher meeting of the school year. Instead, she looks completely confused. "Tutoring? That never happened. Our whole family spent the summer in Rosta." My smile freezes. When I get home, I demand to know where Nick has really been going all summer. Instead of answering, he gets irritated and storms off. "Why does it matter? You're the one who's always telling me to study harder. Now I'm getting good grades, and you're still not happy?" Then I notice an essay he's left on the table. The assignment is titled "The Person I Want to Thank Most." His title makes my heart soften. It reads, "My Mom." But the warmth lasts only a second. According to the essay, his mom spends the entire summer helping him study. She loves wearing white dresses, while I never wear white because I'm always doing housework. Just before school starts, the three of them even take a family vacation together. The dates match the exact days my husband, David Hammerback, claims he's away on a business trip. I stare at Nick's perfect-score essay and finally understand. David is lying to me, and now my son has learned to lie too. They haven't just built a second family behind my back. Nick has already fallen in love with his new "mom". That evening, after dinner, Nick announces that he's heading out for another "tutoring session". David immediately offers to drive him, claiming he needs to stop by the office anyway. This time, I simply smile and let them go. If they love their other family so much, they can keep it. Starting tonight, neither of them needs to come home.

The day I found out I was pregnant, I accidentally called myself three years in the future. Clutching my pregnancy test report, I asked excitedly, "Was Adrian happy when he found out he was going to be a dad? Is my baby a boy or a girl?" The woman on the other end of the phone answered in a hoarse voice, "The baby was never born. After Jane found out you were pregnant, she gave you abortion pills. Adam even signed the papers to have your uterus removed. And Adrian ignored you completely just to comfort that illegitimate daughter." My mind went blank, and my whole body started shaking. "That's impossible..." I couldn't believe that my beloved older brother, my best friend of 20 years, and the man I had loved for seven years had all betrayed me. A muffled sob came from the other end of the phone. "Adrian had already secretly married Sophia. Everyone knew about it, but they all kept it from you!" I collapsed into my chair. Then my phone received a string of numbers. "If you don't believe me, go see for yourself."

The day Ethan Pierce’s stepsister, who suffered from depression, threatened suicide for the ninety-ninth time, he abandoned me at the altar for the ninety-ninth time. "As a psychiatrist, I have a responsibility to my patient." And just like that, the system declared that I had failed my mission. My punishment was severe depression. Every last trace of my will to live was taken from me. From that day on, all I wanted was to die as quickly as possible so I could return to my original world. By the time Ethan finally realized that I truly wanted to die, he was desperate. He used everything he had learned in his entire career to try to cure me. To awaken even the slightest bit of love I had once felt for him. To force me to stay in this world. But I didn’t want him anymore. I hadn’t for a long time.

On the day the country's most notorious serial killer, Henry Luther, is scheduled for execution, I personally escort him to the death chamber. Just before his sentence is carried out, he suddenly looks at me with pity. "The truth is, I only killed 17 people. I deserve to die, but you can't blame me for what happened to your medical examiner husband." The moment he mentions Victor Ashford, all my hatred comes rushing back. Three years ago, Victor served as the city's chief medical examiner. While protecting a crucial piece of evidence, he was stabbed dozens of times by Henry. I rushed back from another city overnight, only to find Victor's body mutilated beyond recognition. Overcome with grief, I began hemorrhaging and lost our baby when I was three months pregnant. For the next three years, I repeatedly risk my life hunting down Henry, determined to capture him myself and avenge Victor. Following an address Henry left behind, I track down a modest house. The moment I step into the yard, however, I freeze. Victor is standing there with his arms around his younger colleague, Colette Jennings, kissing her tenderly. Nearby, a two-or-three-year-old child sits on a swing. My mind goes blank. Just as I start toward them, someone grabs me from behind. It's my mentor, George Ryland. "Victor's happy now. For your own sake, let him go." I shove him aside and fire three shots into an empty patch of ground, my expression completely blank. "Victor Ashford, you're under arrest for suspected of bigamy. Come with me."

After the New Year, some of my husband's former students are back to visit him. So, my husband, Isaac Cooper, treats them to dinner. They greet us warmly, but when they first see me, there is a hint of surprise in their eyes. In the private room, Isaac takes my hand. Everyone starts teasing us. "Mr. and Mrs. Cooper are so loving. I'm so jealous!" I lower my head shyly and excuse myself to the restroom, only to overhear two of his students chatting. "I was startled just now. I thought Mr. Cooper's wife would be Lilith Walker." "But Mrs. Cooper looks so much like her. When she walked in, I almost mistook her for Lilith." I freeze on the spot. I know Lilith is Isaac's ex-girlfriend, but I have never seen her in person. Cold water runs over my hands. As I look at my carefully made-up face in the mirror, I suddenly feel a wave of nausea.

When I'm eight months pregnant, my parents, who sold me off when I was a child, beg for my forgiveness and ask me to come home to await the birth of my baby. Suddenly, a gas explosion occurs. Without a moment's hesitation, Mom and Dad shove me aside and rush through the inferno. They are quick to carry my younger sister, Avril Holden, who suffers from leukemia, to safety. Only my husband, Zack Burton, charges into the flames like a madman to rescue me. He even brings in a top-tier medical team for my treatment after I'm rescued from the fire. In the end, I lose my baby, and a falling roof beam leaves me with a broken leg. As I hobble along to catch one last glimpse of my child, I see Zack outside the morgue, pulling Avril into an excited embrace. "Thank God, Avril! We can now harvest Ashley's bone marrow while she's unconscious, and you'll be cured! You'll be back to your old self in no time." I once believed Zack was my warm, reliable refuge, but it turns out it was nothing more than an illusion all along. The marriage I once took such pride in has become a bitter, freezing winter. If that's how it is, then I shall simply let go.

At six months pregnant, I joined a moms’ group chat to learn parenting tips from other mothers, and one of them couldn’t resist showing off. "I’m so jealous of you guys, getting to cuddle your babies all day. Not like me—I'm handing mine off to a free nanny right after giving birth!" 'Free nanny? Since when are nannies free?' I tapped on her profile picture—and the sight of that hand draped over her shoulder made cold sweat run down my back.

My CEO wife, Cassandra Solis, has high hopes for me. In fact, she has drafted an elite training program for me. I have to work over 20 hours a day, finish every meal within 3 minutes, and spend no more than a minute in the restroom. "Honey, elites must achieve what normal people can't. Only when you become a true elite can I entrust the company to you." I can feel the major responsibility weighing down on my shoulders. Every day, I devote everything I have to work. Five years later, I've successfully taken the company public. I've also completed Cassandra's hardcore training program. But at the end-of-the-year gala, Cassandra hands over the position of the Executive Vice President—the same one that she's promised to me—to her newly-recruited assistant. Upon noticing my displeasure, Cassandra explains to me smilingly while holding a bouquet of flowers, "Oh, silly you! Having a completely useless boss is the final trial I've set up for you! Once you've completed this trial, I can finally hand the company to you!" But lines of text suddenly flash across my vision. "Oh, poor Harvey! He still has no idea that Cassandra has been training him just so he can earn more money in order to clear off Xavier's debt! Not only that, but she also steals the position Harvey has been longing for and gives it to Xavier! Cassandra really has crossed a line this time!" "You're being too dramatic. Cassandra is just paying Xavier back for his benevolence. She feels guilty for what she's done to Harvey, you know. Once she's done paying back her debt to Xavier, she'll pay attention to Harvey once again and live happily ever after with him." I'm stunned by what I see. Is this the actual purpose behind the elite training program? I'm about to pull out the terminal cancer diagnosis report, but I quickly stuff it back into my pocket. It's a shame that I'm about to die. I suppose that I can't live long enough to see that day.

On Valentine’s Day, my girlfriend Florence Higgins was rushed to the hospital after accidentally eating undercooked wild mushrooms. Half-conscious on the hospital bed, she murmured, “Michael… I owed you too much. If my family’s company hadn’t been on the brink of collapse, you wouldn’t have left, and I wouldn’t have ended up with Noah.” I am Noah Owens. As for Michael Connor, he was the love of her life. The one she cherished most during her youth. What she seemed to forget was that when her family’s company was about to collapse, Michael had been the first to walk away. During those seven years, I was the one who helped revive her company, the one who stayed by her side. I believed she might eventually have a change of heart, but I never expected her to abort our child for the sake of her first love. At that moment, I finally understood that you can’t force warmth where there is none.

Apparently, the mafia heir, Giovanni Alonzi, is on his deathbed. The Alonzi family wants to select a candidate out of all eligible bachelorettes in Monteverde in order to carry his heir and pray for his recovery. The moment the news gets out, my fiance, Riccardo Moretti, instantly proposes to me. He also urges me to register our marriage on the same day. We've been childhood sweethearts since we were kids, and we've already gotten engaged a long time ago. Our initial plan is to get married this year. But on the day I'm supposed to register my marriage with Riccardo, one of the maids drugs me. My half-sister, Elena Ricci, who shares the same father as me, puts on my gown and walks into City Hall with Riccardo on my behalf. When I wake up, I find out that Elena is already Riccardo's legitimate wife. Rage overwhelms my senses immediately. I rush to the bar to confront Riccardo, only to overhear his conversation with his friends outside the private room they are in. "You really are a genius, Riccardo! You're engaged to Marcella, yet you choose to marry Elena! If Marcella refuses to marry Giovanni, she can only remain your secret lover! "This way, you'll have both sisters as your lovers! Wow, you really are lucky!"

The ninth time Julian Hale chose Vivian Cross over me, I held a knife to Vivian's throat and made her beg for forgiveness in the middle of a crowded downtown plaza. I thought that would finally be enough to end the affair. Instead, Julian made me pay for hurting her. He went after my father's company and destroyed it, leaving my family broke and buried in debt to loan sharks. In the end, my father, Martin Ellison, couldn't take it anymore. He swallowed an entire bottle of pills beside my mother, Diane Ellison. The shock was too much for her heart, and she died soon after. I lost both my parents in a single day. The day after the funerals, the doctor gave me more bad news. I had late-stage stomach cancer. I had three months left, maybe less. And just like that, I was done fighting. I moved out of our bedroom, threw away my wedding ring, and stopped calling him hundreds of times whenever he stayed out all night. Even when he brought Vivian home just to provoke me, I didn't argue. Instead, I hired a top chef to cook her favorite dishes. Julian thought I had finally learned my place. Then came Vivian's birthday. With a shy smile, she said her birthday wish was to marry Julian. I pulled the signed divorce papers from my bag and slid them across the table. Julian panicked. He ripped them apart and grabbed my wrist, his eyes bloodshot. "Nora, what game are you playing now? Trying to make me chase you? Where did all that fight in you go?" Before I could answer, I coughed up a mouthful of blood.