Obsessive Short Stories & Independence Regret Novels

I came from a human noble family that had long since fallen on hard times. Five years ago, I found a vampire in the forest, badly wounded by hunters and with no memory of who he was. Cassian and I fell in love. He said he would love me the same way for the rest of his life. Then hunters attacked again, and he took another bullet protecting me. When he woke in the hospital, every one of Cassian's memories had come back. He was the heir of the vampire prince, and he had a fiancee waiting for him. Overnight, the husband who had sworn to protect me forever began looking at me with distaste. I stood outside his hospital room and heard him say it. "Marrying that human was an accident. "I'll divorce her. The betrothal stands." He said that without the accident five years ago, I would never have been good enough for him. I had tried so hard to carry his child, and one miscarriage after another had wrecked my health. With his memory back, he had no tenderness left for me. He only said he would pay me off. I kept watch outside his room and begged him to think it over, and he would not even look at me. Then, at their engagement party, I watched with my own eyes as Cassian kissed someone else, tenderly, as though he could not get enough of her. When he passed me, his eyes held nothing but indifference. That was the moment I finally let go. Later I married someone else. And Cassian stood outside the chapel with red eyes and a shaking voice, saying he regretted it.

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.