Independence Female Growth Short Stories & Novels

During my three-year secretive relationship with my boss, Zane Bender, we used 999 condoms. Before Zane dated me, he'd go through 20 partners per month. After he started dating me, he only bedded me and me only. He promised me that he'd give me a surprise on my birthday. I thought it was going to be a grand proposal. But the moment the clock struck 12, Zane called me. "Cassidy, buy a pack of condoms and deliver it to the 31st floor of Mavelon Hotel right now. Remember, I want the extra thin ones." At that moment, I couldn't believe my ears. Before I could react, Zane completely lost his patience. He urged, "Stop standing around! Hurry up and get over here! Lily and I are in the mood right now!" Lily Hubbard was the charming secretary who recently joined the company. My complexion turned pale instantly. "You're sleeping with her, Zane? Then… Then who am I to you?" Zane fell silent for a while. Then, he let out a soft chuckle. "You? You're just a bedwarmer who can help alleviate my urges. That's all." It turned out that the so-called surprise wasn't a proposal. It was just me fantasizing about a relationship that never existed in the first place. The pink bubbles of love and romance finally popped on my 25th birthday. After that, a car accident completely changed everything in my life. When I meet Zane again, he realizes that he can no longer win back the heart of his "pet".

With the return of his memories, my husband, Trevor Beaumont, recalled that he was the Alpha of a wolf pack. He walked away, leaving me with a ruby necklace as compensation. The jewel shimmered amid my sleep, and a tall, burly man stood before me. The compensation came with a hidden bonus after all. Later, I sent a message to my ex. “Thank you for your necklace. The guy inside comes in handy. “We’re getting married, and since you brought us together, we’d hope you can be the best man.” Trevor drove through the night to our wedding venue, veins popping out of his face as despair swallowed him. “Who the hell put the man inside the ruby?”

Everyone knew I’d do anything for Lucius Falcone. I was his shadow, his most devoted follower… or, to be blunt, his lapdog. For three years, I trailed after him, indulging his every mafia-heir whim. When he went street racing at midnight, I was in the passenger seat, even when I was burning up with a 104-degree fever. When he was screwing some other woman, he’d call me to bring toys, and I’d show up, no questions asked. Finally, Lucius started to soften. Just when everyone thought I was about to finally get what I’d been working for… At the party celebrating his taking over as Don of the Falcone family, he showed up with some bombshell on his arm. He gave me a bored look and said, "You're dull in bed. Tina, on the other hand, knows how to get me off." The whole room was waiting for me to break down. Instead, I just gave a small smile. "Then congratulations to you both." Then I turned, walked out, and got on a plane to Paris. Lucius was already making bets that I’d come crawling back within three days. What he didn't know was that his mother had paid me five million dollars to do it all. The contract was up. The money was in my account. I was finally free to leave him and to finally chase my own dream in Paris.

On the morning of my eighteenth birthday, I collapsed in the pack clinic after my ninety-ninth blood donation to my twin sister, Maeve. She'd been cursed since birth—a curse that could only be sustained by my blood. Our shared bond from the womb was the only thing keeping the dark magic at bay. When I woke up, the healer told me I had developed Aplastic anemia—a rare condition where my bone marrow was failing. Years of constant donations had finally broken my body down, and my wolf, Aurora, was too weak to fight it. I rushed to tell my family, hoping that this time would be different, only to find them at the bakery ordering a custom birthday cake with only Maeve's name on it. They'd forgotten my birthday entirely, even though we were twins born five minutes apart. At first, my sacrifice was met with love and praise. Now, it was nothing more than an obligation everyone expected. My family had chosen Maeve over me countless times before. This time, I decided to choose myself. I had two weeks before I would slip away from this pack house and their lives. Two weeks to prepare everything in silence while they remained oblivious. They would think I'd finally learned my place as Maeve's blood supply. But they would never realize I was counting down the days until I disappeared from their lives forever. By then, it would be too late.

I got pregnant at the same time as a doctor from another department. But right after my nuchal translucency scan, the charge nurse came to see me. "The hospital is short-staffed. Leadership says only one female employee can be pregnant at a time." "This time, the slot goes to Dr. Valerie Stone. You need to terminate yours." I froze. "Dr. Stone and I aren't even in the same department. Our work doesn't overlap. "And I'm a nurse. She's a doctor. Our schedules are completely different." But the charge nurse only tapped stubbornly on my desk. "This is hospital policy. No one gets to be the exception. "Either you terminate the pregnancy, or you transfer to logistics. Your choice." A transfer to logistics meant my career would be over. No promotions. No clinical path. Just a rock-bottom base salary, barely above minimum wage. My fingers slowly tightened. I had worked at that hospital for eight years. I was one of the hardest-working nurses on the front line, and I won performance awards every year. Yet I was not even allowed to be pregnant. I took a breath and looked calmly at the charge nurse. "I agree to transfer to logistics." Less than a week after I left, the whole department fell apart.

My older sister Seraphina had always been the center of attention in New York's Upper East Side. Everyone worshiped her, protected her. At the Montgomery charity gala, my father asked we to choose our future husband in front of every powerful family in New York. Seraphina smiled and generously let me choose first. But this time, I said no. In my past life, I truly thought she cared about me. I followed her suggestion and married Declan Thorne, a man whose immune system had failed after a car crash. He had been confined to a wheelchair for years, and people whispered that he was worthless. I surrendered my place in the family and became his nurse, his support, the only thing keeping him from complete loneliness. But no matter how hard I tried, I could never reach his heart. Then, at Seraphina’s gender reveal party, Declan stood up from his wheelchair in front of everyone. "Brielle,I felt nothing for you. You were just a way for me to get closer to Sera." The silence lasted only a second before the room turned on me. Every whisper, every stare, every hidden laugh made me feel like the biggest fool in New York. That night, I rushed out of the party and drove away before anyone could see me break down. On the bridge, my hands shook so badly that the car spun out of control and crashed through the railing. I made ninety-nine calls before the river swallowed the car completely, and every single one went unanswered. Three days later, they found me trapped beneath the water, already suffocated in the wreckage. Then I opened my eyes, and I was back at the gala where my father had planned to announce our engagements. This time, I picked no one.

I'm a family law attorney. My specialty is winning divorce cases for other people. I never imagined that one day, I'd be drafting my own divorce papers. For six years of marriage, Adrian read to me for ten minutes every night. He said it was our little marriage ritual. That was until I came home early from a business trip and heard his voice coming from my female neighbor’s apartment next door. "Vivi, which chapter do you want to hear tonight?" I stood outside her door, still holding the birthday cake I'd bought for him. I turned around, went home, opened my laptop, and went through our marital asset inventory from top to bottom. Later, Adrian knelt outside my law firm, his voice so hoarse it was barely recognizable. He said, "Serena, I was just helping her fall asleep. I never touched her." I set the voice recorder in front of him, and out came words he'd said himself. "She'll never leave me. She's too rational, which actually makes her the easiest to manipulate." I smiled. "Adrian, do you think the judge will find me easy to manipulate too?"

"Mommy, can I stop being a Lawson?" My daughter has a peanut allergy. We always kept an EpiPen at home. But on her birthday, my husband took the only one and gave it to his first love's son. He said, "Tommy's school has a field trip. Serena's worried something might happen. What's the big deal about lending it?" Later, my daughter accidentally ate peanut butter. Her face turned blue and she couldn't breathe. I rushed her to the hospital and called my husband seventeen times. He didn't answer. His first love's son had just won first place in a speech contest. He was in the audience, taking photos of the two of them. When my daughter woke up, her first words weren't "Where's Daddy?" She just clutched the hem of my shirt and whispered, "Mommy, can I stop being a Lawson?" I looked at the needle marks on the back of her hand and nodded. "Yes." "From now on, you'll have Mommy's last name."

It's our fifth wedding anniversary. I've booked a table at a riverside restaurant and set my pregnancy test report right in the center of the table. 9:00 pm comes and goes with no sign of my husband, Yosef Sinclair. Just as I reach for my phone, the cake delivery person texts to ask for my location. I send it over, then call Yosef. A ringtone chimes right behind me. I turn around and see Yosef walking in, looking sharp in his suit. I'm about to nag him for being late until I see him holding a cake box and answering his phone. "I'm working. I'll—" Before he finishes speaking, he visibly pauses, then asks in a low voice, "You ordered this? Meeting friends? Just don't stay out too late." He sets the cake down right on top of my test report and turns on his heel. All that I'm left with is the sight of his retreating figure. A moment later, his voice floats back in from outside. "Nobody. Come on. Let's just finish this last order, and I'll treat you to a nice dinner today!" I look out the window. Yosef is getting into a car with Clara Lawson, the bakery owner. She slips into the passenger seat like she's done it a thousand times. A minute later, my phone vibrates. I tap it open with my numb fingers. It's a new Instagram post from Clara, showing a pink rose bouquet with a sliver of a black suit in the background. The caption reads, "A guy who buys me flowers, works overtime with me, and takes me out for dinner? He's a keeper!" I like the post, put my phone down, and quietly tell the waiter to bring out the food. I've spent three months trying to snag a table at this place. No way am I letting good food go to waste. Besides, I'm leaving this city in three days and putting an end to this broken marriage.

I'm the heiress of the Corleone family, with three childhood sweethearts who used to adore me and watch over me like I was their whole world. Then Daisy Washington, the little maid, showed up—and suddenly I didn't exist anymore. But my father, the don, didn't know. So at the family victory gala, right in the middle of the toast, my father said, "Freya, tell me, who's the one? Point him out, and we'll get you engaged tonight. Right here, right now." The whole room went quiet. Every pair of eyes swung to my three so-called protectors: Nico Gibson, Arlo Mcdonald, and Rhett Owens. But they acted like they hadn't heard a thing. One was feeding Daisy from his fork. One was whispering something that made her giggle. And the third just watched her with that soft, doting look I used to get. The room went dead silent. My father's face stiffened. I quickly jumped in, "Dad, my boyfriend's overseas. I'll bring him to meet you when he's back." The three of them snorted, shooting me mocking looks. I knew they didn't believe me. They thought I was just saving face. But I actually did have a boyfriend.

The night my husband came home from another flight smelling of another woman's perfume, one question was taking over social media. "Where have all the homemaker over forty-seven gone? "If life as a homemaker is so wonderful, why doesn't anyone ever speak up about it?" My husband, an international airline captain with over a million followers, signed us up for a livestream. He wanted me to prove that homemaker hadn't vanished. According to him, they were simply loved, protected, and cherished by their husbands. He was certain I'd play along. After all, for 22 years, I'd been the perfect wife. Even when my swollen joints hurt so much I could barely hold a spatula, I still washed his uniforms and made sure dinner was waiting when he got home. Even when he walked through the door carrying another woman's perfume, I would only touch my wedding ring and tell myself the same lie. "He's just having a little fun. In the end, he'll always come back to me." On the day of the livestream, he smiled at the camera and told everyone how happy our marriage was. I was in the kitchen baking, carrying dish after dish to the table. Then the host asked me one simple question. "Would you want your daughter to grow up to be the homemaker as you?" My husband smiled and typed his answer onto the teleprompter for me to read. "Of course." I walked into the frame with the last dish in my hands. I looked straight into the camera. "No," I said. "I wouldn't."

The 19th time I demand a divorce from my husband, Jason Simmons, my best friend, Diana Nicholson, doesn't try to change my mind as usual. In the past, she always tried to stop me. She even personally showed up at Jason's company to ask him to reconcile with me. This time, she quietly contacts a lawyer for me, prepares a divorce agreement, and helps me with the divorce proceedings. Unable to help myself, I question her about her unusual behavior just as I'm about to sign the divorce agreement. It seems that I've touched a sore spot because she suddenly loses her temper and snaps, "Layla suffered a miscarriage because of you this time. How much longer are you going to cause a fuss?" Layla McKinley is Jason's mistress. Diana sighs as she takes in my bewildered expression, explaining, "The truth is, Layla was my junior in university. I'm the one who introduced her to Jason. I did my best to compensate you for so many years out of guilt, but I've grown exhausted. "For my sake, please stop causing a fuss," she says, placing a hand on my shoulder. "I'll make it up to you for everything they've done." My body feels unbearably cold. I feel as if I've been shoved into a pool of freezing water. It turns out that both my friendship and my marriage have been nothing but a farce the entire time. I quietly flip open the divorce agreement when Diana isn't paying attention and pen my signature on the dotted line.

After my parents died in battle saving the Alpha, Theron Blackwood, the Blackmane Pack took me in as an orphan. To repay them for saving his life, Alpha Theron laid down a rule: whoever became my mate would be the next Alpha. Growing up, I always believed that person would be Damian Blackwood. He was Alpha Theron's chosen heir and the man who had pulled me away from Redfang's silver blades twelve years earlier. I loved him, loved him enough to believe him without question, no matter what he said or did. But on the night of the blood moon, when the groom who looked exactly like Damian pushed back his hood, I instinctively reached for the mole at the corner of his eye. The ink wasn't dry yet. The mole smeared. I froze, realizing that the man at the altar, the man who had just exchanged vows with me, was not Damian. He was Damian's youngest uncle, Adrian Blackwood, identical to him except for the missing mole at the corner of his eye. Damian had thrown our mating contract, and me, to someone else. He was certain I loved him more than life itself, certain he could switch everything back before long. But this time, I was done bending to his will. So the first thing I did that night was wipe away the painted mole, along with twelve years of love.

I was with Cassius Vance for eight years. I was there when he was just a bastard nobody cared about, and I watched him become the most feared Don in New York. I took a bullet for him. I lived with him in a shithole basement. When things were good, he put every one of his businesses in my name. "You're the only thing that gives my life a damn bit of meaning," he’d said. But in the eighth year, he started talking about another woman. The new maid, Lily. He’d get this wistful smile and say, "She reminds me of you when you were young. Innocent, sweet, but with so much fire…" It wasn't the first time he'd said she was like me. But this time, I looked Cassius straight in the eye and said softly, "I want a divorce." He froze. He didn't object. No big fight. We just ended it. Clean. But when I finally started to move on, started finding my own fun with younger men, just as he’d been tempted to do… Cassius told me he’d made a mistake.

The witch's prophecy crystal showed me my future. My fated mate, Alpha Adam, would betray me before our bond was ever sealed. The one he chose instead? My own sister. And me? I gave up my healer trials for him. Became nothing. Lost every right to ever stand as this pack's Luna. In the end, my sister shoved me off a cliff with her own two hands. I didn't want to believe it, until I saw them at the border. Tangled. Kissing. Unmistakable. Then it all clicked. Adam made me quit the healer trials just to keep me trapped in this pack, where he could control me. And he used that pathetic excuse, "protecting the pack," "calming your sister's wolf," to screw around behind my back. The sister I spoiled rotten. The one who wanted what was mine. I took a breath, turned, and walked away. The healer trials came right on schedule. I walked into that hall, calm and ready— I was going to become the Chief Healer. And I was never, ever giving myself up for anyone again.

My dorm mate, Chloe Dawson, had a sweet voice, but she wasn't very pretty. She loved online dating and had four online boyfriends at the same time. She looked at me with a smug smile. "Ivy, no guy ever wants you. How about I give you one of my boyfriends? He wants to meet me today anyway." I was about to refuse when strange words suddenly appeared in front of me. [Heroine, don't give the villainess the male lead's contact info! Sure, you used her photos to get his attention online, but he's not that shallow. He loves you for who you are!] [The villainess is just a poor student on financial aid. How could someone like her ever take the heroine's place and date the male lead?] [Exactly! Heroine, don't do anything stupid! The male lead is Nathan Ashworth, CEO of the Ashworth Group! You can't just hand a great guy like him over to someone else!]

At the Alpha Summit, my younger brother Felix accused me in front of everyone. "I grew up crushed under my older sister's thumb. If I so much as ate a piece of candy, she'd pry my mouth open and dig it out." I swirled the red wine in my glass and gave a cold laugh. "That wasn't candy. It was a pill made from wolfsbane. If I hadn't saved you, you wouldn't even have the chance to stand here talking to me." Felix's face froze. Refusing to give up, he said, "When our cousin Toby came to stay with us, you gave him every single moonstone I'd worked so hard to find. I'm your own brother, and you played favorites with someone else?" I sighed. "Your cousin had it rough. A big fire burned his family's house to the ground." "What does that have to do with me? Just because he had it rough, I'm supposed to give in to him every time?" "You set that fire." The room went dead silent. The reporters hammered their shutter buttons, capturing Felix looking as if he'd swallowed something foul. "Well, didn't I find him a job afterward? I went out of my way to help him, but the second you found out, you beat me up. Do you have any idea how badly that scarred my fragile young heart?" His eyes reddened as he spoke, while the memory made my blood boil all over again. "You shipped your cousin off to work in a mine in the Wastelands. How is that any different from exile? "You locked him into a five-year contract when you sent him there, so he's still serving hard labor in the Wastelands. You're telling me you didn't deserve that beating?" The viewers watching the livestream didn't know whether to laugh or cry. [Poor Toby. He still hasn't escaped that family?] [See, no beating is ever wasted.] [Just get a new brother. This one's a lost cause.]

The Blackwood Pack had a rule: no outsider was ever allowed to touch a newborn pureblood pup. So when my fated mate Damon Cross's childhood friend Yvonne Morgan reached for one of their sacred cubs, I stopped her. Yvonne decided I was being petty, that I was trying to humiliate her in front of everyone. So she ran off crying, tripped, and fell into a bog. By the time anyone found her, she was gone. Damon was convinced I'd done it on purpose—that I'd planned to get rid of Yvonne Morgan. He had me bound and locked in that basement dungeon for three days and three nights. Every hour felt like a year. "This is all your fault, you jealous witch. If it weren't for you, Yvonne would still be here!" "You're going to pay for what you did. Rot in there and think about it." I clawed my way out—dug a tunnel with my bare hands. I was so close. The night I finally broke free, Damon gave the order to have me thrown into the No-Man's-Land wolf pit. Then I opened my eyes. I was back. The night of the Full Moon Gala.

When I was six, a car crash wiped out most of my memory. My foster parents told me my parents had died that night. They said they had taken me in, given me their name, their home, and the protection of one of New York's most powerful families. So I spent twelve years proving I deserved to stay. I cleaned up my younger sister Bianca's messes, handed her the credit for my work, and locked every trophy I earned in a wooden archive box because my success made the family's real daughter uncomfortable. Then, at eighteen, I ordered a certified birth record for my student visa. The clerk looked at me and said, "Your parents have always been Vittorio and Elena Romano. There's no adoption on file." I had never been an orphan. Bianca knew. My relatives knew. The family attorney knew. Even the old butler who carried me home from the hospital knew. For twelve years, everyone had played a part in the same lie. So I hid the birth certificate and kept playing the grateful adopted daughter. I fixed Bianca's speech, prepared her heir's gala, and smiled while my family erased my name one last time. They had no idea I'd already booked a one-way flight out of their lives.

The day I discovered Sean's affair, I cornered him and my stepsister Tina in the company warehouse. A fire broke out afterward. Tina died saving me from the flames, and Sean was injured when a pillar collapsed on him. His shoulder was wrapped in bandages. "Joanna, are you happy now?" His ragged scream that day echoed in my ears for a long, long time. Two months later, the company went bankrupt because of the fire. To pay off the debts, Sean and I moved to a run-down neighborhood. I worked three jobs a day, all to ease the guilt eating me alive. A few years passed, and our relationship seemed to find its way back to what it once was—right up until Valentine's Day. That was when I spotted the supposedly dead Tina at the supermarket, shopping for seafood with Patricia, my mother-in-law. "Patricia, thank you. Without you, Sean and I wouldn't be this happy." "Don't mention it. If we hadn't gotten rid of that crazy woman back then, what would've happened to my precious grandson?" Patricia smiled and patted Tina's hand. "It's Valentine's Day. Sean reserved that rooftop restaurant just for you two. Go enjoy yourselves." My first instinct was to call Sean, but before I could even dial, a text from him came through first. "Babe, picking up a coworker's shift tonight. Night pay and the bonus come out to almost two hundred dollars. I'll bring you something good on my way back." I froze where I stood. So that was it. Three years of hardship, and all of it had been a lie they'd carefully woven around me.