Contos e Romances sobre Familial Bond com Marriage

On the night of our wedding, Simone Laurent did not inject the promised capital into the Holt family's company. Instead, she had someone carry in a crate of scratch-off tickets. She undid the top buttons of her blouse, her eyes lazy with amusement. "Here are 2,000,000 dollars' worth of scratch-offs. Whatever you scratch off, that is what you get. Be good, Spencer, and maybe next time I will give you something real." I knew what she was doing. She punished me because yesterday I had ruined her evening, and I had thrown a glass of red wine all over her assistant, the one in the see-through shirt. I did not cry this time. I did not make a scene. My fingers found an ultra-thin condom in her pocket that was not my size, and I simply wiped my hand clean and said nothing. The surprise in her eyes lasted half a second before it softened into a satisfied smile. She wrapped her arms around me from behind, warm breath spilling against my ear. "That is right. Now you are starting to act like a husband who knows his place." She pulled out an unlimited black card and pressed it to my chest, the plastic cold through my shirt. "Take it. This should be more than enough for your family's company." I managed a stiff smile, pulled the card free, and handed it back. "I do not need it." She did not know this. During the days she spent breaking me in, my father had already been cornered by debt collectors on a rooftop and forced past the edge. Dead men did not need money.

I had spent six months drifting across the ocean on a cargo ship, but I would send 20,000 dollars back home every month. So, I really only had one thing on my mind the day I finally set foot on solid ground again—my wife's pork rib soup. When I pushed open the front door, I found my seven-month-pregnant wife, Sophia Merkin, sitting on our worn-out sofa. At that moment, my six months' worth of exhaustion, frustration, and pent-up anger from the roiling life at sea surged to the surface. "I've been busting my ass out there and working more than 10 hours a day. Yet, I don't even get a hot meal at home when I'm finally home?" Sophia said nothing. Instead, she walked over to the refrigerator and yanked the door open. That was when I saw that the fridge only had half a jar of ketchup and a bag of expired pasta with bugs. Then, she asked me dully, "What do you want to eat? Take your pick."

I guided 3,600 souls across the River Styx. I endured the fires of Hell 3,600 times on behalf of the rich and powerful. I turned down 3,600 offers from the King of Hell to be reborn into a life of wealth and privilege. Finally, after I earned enough merit, the King of Hell allowed me to return to the day of my father’s wedding. I shoved my way through the guests and screamed until my voice gave out. “Dad! Don’t marry her!”

To save my daughter, I collected 50,000 plastic bottles. Day after day, I dug through trash, carried them home, and traded them for scraps of hope. However, when I finally hauled them all to the recycling center, I learned their selling price had dropped. The 50,000 bottles were worth only enough to buy my daughter a better urn. Desperate, I held my feverish daughter in my arms as she suffered a seizure. I called my actress wife for help. Her answer was ice-cold. “$5,000 for a fever? Do you think I’m some kind of charity?” The irony was that she had spent $50 million building a private hospital for her screen partner’s dog just hours earlier.

I am the only person who refuses to abandon Sophia Quinlan when she gets kicked out of the Quinlan family. I work to expand her network, secure funding, and piece together a business empire of our own over these six years. Zachary Lund, her first love, returns from abroad on the very day she becomes the CEO of Quinlan Group. I spend six years busting my back for her, while Zachary spends those same six years keeping her company from halfway across the world. She begins to regret marrying me so early, so she secretly goes behind my back and promotes Zachary to be her personal secretary. Later on, a business rival Sophia has backed into a corner suddenly barges into the banquet carrying an improvised bomb. The crowd scatters in panic. Zachary doesn't even hesitate to leave her behind, breaking free of her grip and running for his own safety. I am the only one who stays behind to protect her from the blast, leaving my body completely shredded from the explosion. In the last moments of my life, I cough up blood and hold onto her hand as I ask the question I have kept inside for six years. "Have you ever, in the past six years—" Sophia pulls her hand away from mine before I can finish speaking. She runs toward Zachary, who is screaming over a scratch on his arm from the shrapnel. It turns out the answer is right in front of me the whole time, making the question pointless. I close my eyes for good this time, a smile of relief creeping onto my face. When I open my eyes, I find myself back on the luxury cruise ship on the day of my wedding with Sophia. I take off my boutonniere without a second thought, strip off my wedding suit, and plunge right into the sea to run away from the wedding. I notice a sea of people gathered just as I reach the shore, with loudspeakers blasting the wedding march. It is then that a woman clad in a wedding dress walks up to me and asks, "Will you marry me, Robert Lister?"

After my brother and fake heir, Damon Stewart, runs someone over, he frames me for it. My fiancee immediately breaks off our engagement and marries him. I'm facing prison time, but Crystal Morgan—my childhood sweetheart who's also a lawyer—resolutely chooses to marry me. She works tirelessly to clear my name, and eventually she gets Damon sent to prison. However, her family runs into financial trouble, and her ailing mother is facing prison time herself. To repay a debt of gratitude, I, an accountant, take the blame for the crime and spend seven years in prison. But on the day I'm released, I overhear Crystal and her mother, Lilian Murphy, talking from behind the gates. "Crystal, Elijah loves you so deeply. If he knew that you married him to get Damon off the hook and sign the leniency agreement for his parents' deaths, how heartbroken would he be?" Lilian questions angrily. "I didn't want to either, but his parents are already dead," Crystal replies. I feel my mind reeling. Damon is the one who killed my parents? Lilian sighs. "You signed the leniency agreement, so Damon didn't even have to go to prison. Why did you still frame Elijah and send him to prison?" "If I didn't send him to prison, there was no way we could keep the truth hidden. What, was I supposed to sit back and watch Damon spend seven years behind bars?" My heart clenches painfully. Seven of the best years of my life were spent behind four prison walls, all for Damon's sake. It turns out the mutual love I thought we shared is nothing but a lie. Since that's the case, I'm done with Crystal.

On the day of her daughter Nina’s funeral, before the pastor could finish the eulogy, Rosalind answered Samson’s phone call. “Change of plans. Let’s meet earlier. I’m on my way now.” Ethan held the small cremation urn in his arms. His knuckles turned white from gripping it too tightly. Nina had been critically ill with leukemia. Only Samson’s bone marrow matched hers. Driven to the brink, Ethan desperately begged Rosalind to go along with Samson’s request. She promised that she would only be playing pretend and would not fall for Samson. However, as time passed, she eventually fell for Samson and indulged him in every way. On the night when Nina needed the transplant the most, Ethan called her, frantic. However, she was unreachable because she was camping deep in the mountains. Ethan helplessly watched the three-year-old die in the emergency room. Later, Rosalind even protected Samson and let him stomp on Nina’s cross necklace. She even forcibly confined Ethan to a sanatorium and forced him to donate blood to Samson. It was not until Rosalind learned that Samson had deceived her from the very beginning that she felt piercing regret. She gave him fifty percent of her shares, knelt for hours at the cemetery, and tried to make amends wherever she could. However, no amount of regret could bring back the man she had deeply wounded.

Everyone said my wife, Zoey Harper, was an amazing wife and mom who'd do anything for me and our son, Leo. Leo's doctor warned us three times that he might not make it. Then he died. Zoey claimed she was overseas for work. She wasn't. She'd invited Peter Cole—the first love she'd never gotten over—and his family to our apartment for dinner. I came home carrying Leo's urn, ready to confront her. Instead, she tossed my luggage into the hall. "We have guests, and we're out of rooms. Go stay somewhere else for a few days."

I needed money, so I sold myself to that cold, handsome man for seven nights. He left behind a black card and an ice-cold eggshell, then vanished. Three months later, a doctor found six coiled serpentine shadows inside my womb. I discarded every trace of my identity and fled to a snowbound cabin, hoping to stay alive. But the day I gave birth alone in a blizzard, what crawled out weren't monsters. They were six babies with golden slit pupils who called me "Mama." My children were not priceless treasures. To the powerful guys, they were research subjects. To the other species, they were "filthy half-breeds." When cold needles pressed against all six of my children's chests, I heard the blast door torn from its frame. The man who had vanished three years ago stood in the smoke. Six golden threads glowed from his palm, each connected to a child, and black blood still seeped from the wounds he'd torn open breaking through the blockade. "Get your hands off my family."

The day I married Dante Moretti, I became the youngest Donna in New York. He took the Family seal from me and put the Family's ledgers and vault keys in the hands of his Underboss Valentina. She was his second-in-command and his lover. Even as Donna, I needed her signature before I could spend a dollar of the Family's money. Then Beatrice Moretti, Dante's mother and the former Donna, was attacked outside a church. The secret clinic demanded half a million dollars in cash before they would operate. I couldn't reach Dante, so I had to go to Valentina for access to the emergency vault. She sat behind Dante's desk, painting her nails. "You want money? Kneel, kiss my instep, and submit a request form." I did as I was told. Because my mother-in-law was lying on that operating table, and she was the only person who had ever treated me like a daughter. Valentina deliberately spilled coffee on the form and tore it to pieces. Not long after, the church bells tolled for the dead. And Dante, with his arm around Valentina, asked, "It's your mother who died. Why should we pay for her?"

The year Chelsea Shelton, a Hawthorne Bay heiress, hated me more than ever, she brought home one guy after another. And after she was done with them, she made me pay them off. I'd cursed, fought, even landed in the hospital after throwing hands with escorts. Eventually, I stopped caring and signed one million-dollar check after another. All so she'd keep paying Dad's medical bills. Then Dad went into cardiac arrest again. He was critical. Hands shaking, I called Chelsea. She told the hospital to kick him out of the ICU. "Rowyn Reynaud, that's not how you beg. I don't like it." I tore home through the rain and begged her to let him stay. She made me stand outside all night and listen to her hook up with another guy. By morning, I signed another check and handed it over. Before I could ask her to spare Dad, a fist cracked across my face. Chelsea's college-age boy toy glared at me, pissed. "Chelsea, does this freeloader seriously think I'm some escort? We love each other. Who the hell does he think he is, throwing money at me?" Chelsea frowned. "Rowyn, apologize. Or do you want Frederick dead?" But the hospital had just texted me. Dad was already gone. Sometime during the night, he'd bitten through his oxygen line and ended his life. With the last of his strength, he'd left me one final note in blood. [Rowyn, I can't keep being a burden to you.]

Borevia City's golden-boy heir crashed his car and ended up paralyzed from the waist down. Just like that, his shot at taking over Alwyn Corp was on the line. The second the news hit the Twyford mansion, Rory—the girl my parents had raised instead of me—came to me in tears, begging me to take her place and marry Axel. I tightened my grip on my water glass and laughed. "Seriously? You used to act like I was embarrassing because I grew up in a small town. You said I wasn't classy enough for your crowd, so you handed my engagement to Rory. "Now Axel's paralyzed and might lose everything, you want me to switch back and deal with it? Yeah, no." The door flew open. Jared Pritchard—my boyfriend—walked in, pulled Rory against him, and shot me a glare. "Thea, you were supposed to marry Axel in the first place. We're just fixing it. "We're done. Rory and I are getting engaged tomorrow. Once it's official, you're marrying Axel whether you like it or not." I froze, staring at the guy I'd grown up with. "The Alwyns asked for the daughter you've always shown off in public. You barely admit I'm family. You really think they won't notice if you suddenly swap me in for Rory?" Right then, my biological parents, Richard and Diane Twyford, came downstairs with icy expressions and tossed an amended birth certificate in front of me. "Starting tomorrow, we'll tell everyone you're our biological daughter. Rory's been spoiled her whole life. She can't handle being married to a man who can't walk. "It's time you did your part. Marry Axel Alwyn and accept your new life as Mrs. Alwyn." I laughed bitterly. Any hope I still had for them died right there. "Fine. I'll marry him. Just don't come begging me to come back someday."

As an exploration geologist, I'm caught in a landslide during a mission, and one of my arms is crushed. Before we set out, our exploration team has accurately predicted the weather. There's no chance of heavy rain that day. It isn't until I overhear my wife, Diana Nelson, talking to a doctor friend that I learn the truth. "Diana, you knew Adam was going out on a mission that day, yet you spent a fortune on creating cloud seeding just to get him injured and eventually cost him an arm. You really went too far for Flynn." Diana frowns. "Who told him to care so much about that exploration project? The only way the project can go to Flynn is if Adam gets disabled. "Otherwise, Flynn will be sent to Nambara. You think I can bear to let him suffer in a place like that?" What she doesn't know is that the Nambaran assignment will go to either Flynn Cooper or me. Before leaving, I put my medical report, which states that I've lost my reproductive ability, into a box. The day Flynn makes a name for himself, the box will be delivered to Diana as a gift.

Being locked away by my parents as a child left me with severe claustrophobia. Every time it flared up, I not only lost my voice but also lost my ability to use the mind-link with anyone in the pack. In my parents' eyes, a strong werewolf should have gotten over something that happened so long ago. Each time I lost my voice, only Alpha Caius Thorne stayed by my side. He kept notepads and pens throughout the estate and kept our conversation pinned to the top of his messages. He even learned sign language just for me. When another episode struck, I signed to him with trembling hands. "Does this ever make you tired of me?" My mate's scent enveloped me, calming my restless wolf. "Never. If anything, I'm glad we have a language that's just ours." Then Sage Mercer returned. She was a human healer and one of my closest friends. She tricked me into entering an underground stone chamber and locked me inside. The sealed space triggered another episode. I couldn't call for Caius, even though he was standing right outside the door. All I could do was sign frantically. But he acted like he didn't understand and stood there as Sage sealed the heavy stone door. Panic took over. I shifted into my wolf form and threw myself against the door with everything I had. Again and again, I slammed into it until my body was drenched in blood, yet not a single cry for help escaped my throat. Then I heard Sage speaking to Caius on the other side of the door. "Elara has to face her trauma head-on. Protecting her every time this happens won't help her get better. "A Luna represents her pack. With a condition like hers, she'll only hold you back. "Once she can call out for help on her own, we'll let her out." Caius said nothing. I understood his silence for what it was: agreement. So that was how Caius really saw me. A burden. But they had forgotten this underground chamber was designed to hold untamable beasts. Once the heavy door was sealed, almost no fresh air could get inside. No matter

The day I was released from prison, a woman claiming to be my ex-wife came to take me home. Instinctively, I pulled away when she reached for my hand. "I don't know you." She frowned, assuming I was still upset. "Five years ago, we agreed that once you got out, we'd remarry. Mom's getting older, and she misses you." Hearing that, I opened the diary I always carried with me. Written inside was an instruction: 'If someone claims to be your ex-wife, go home with her.' So, I did. After I returned home, I became the perfect husband and the perfect son in their eyes. When my ex-wife seemed to be fooling around with my younger half-brother, I pretended not to notice. When my mother openly admitted she loved my brother more, I never argued or complained. Yet, they kept asking me why I had changed. I didn't know how to answer. But the diary had made it perfectly clear: as long as I behaved and did as I was told, I could save enough money to leave quietly. What they didn't know was that I had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease. Be it hatred or love, I'd forgotten it all long ago, them included.

Before my mother died, she arranged a marriage for me. My bride-to-be was Rosalind Young, Kingsford's most formidable financial tycoon. Before I married her, I added three clauses to the prenuptial agreement. First, no feelings. Our marriage was purely business. Second, she could live her life however she pleased, while I'd live mine. Third, I would step aside immediately if her true love ever came along. Nevertheless, I would be getting double the alimony. Rosalind was quite pleased that I knew my place. Our marriage was a peaceful one until the day a teenage girl who bore a striking resemblance to her knocked on the door of our mansion and calmly said, "Sir, I'm Rosalind's daughter. She raised me elsewhere. I'm 17."

In the sixth year of my relationship with Niklas Berg, he spent three hundred days a year in Inari, in northern Finland, doing fieldwork on Sámi culture and traditional crafts. I stayed behind in London, looking after his mother, Helena Berg, who had been bedridden since her stroke. The day I miscarried from sheer exhaustion, I was shaking all over with pain. I called him. Before I could say a word, he cut me off. "Signal's bad up here. The project's at a critical stage. Stop bothering me with every little thing at home." Then he hung up. I had always believed he was simply too consumed by his research to understand the needs of an ordinary relationship. That belief lasted until late one night, when I came across a promotional video for a Nordic traditional crafts exhibition on social media. In the video, Niklas, always so reserved and composed, was leaning down, fastening an heirloom silver brooch at the collar of a radiant young Sámi woman. The silver caught the light against her red-and-blue shawl, and his hands moved with such solemnity it looked like a ritual only the two of them understood. Someone off-camera teased him, asking if he planned to stay in the north forever. He looked at the girl, his voice low and tender. "Aila says this brooch is only given to the person she wants to share her life with. I'd gladly stay here for her." I closed the video. I didn't cry, and I didn't confront him. I simply signed the Helsinki transfer confirmation I should have signed long ago, then left my flat key and engagement ring behind in our home. His beliefs had never left room for me. So I would go and find a world of my own.

After being away from home for three months, my wife, Victoria Sterling, and our daughter, Sophie Sterling, came looking for me, crying as they begged me to come home. Once I was back, they treated me better than ever. They brought breakfast to my bedside, gave me free rein with their black cards, and when I casually mentioned wanting a new car, three brand-new sports cars showed up the very next day. But when Ethan White, Victoria’s childhood sweetheart and first love, accused me of stealing his design drafts, Victoria didn’t bother asking for an explanation. She smashed her phone against my face and snapped, “What do you have to say for yourself?” Sophie yelled at me too. “Get on your knees and apologize to Ethan! Otherwise, get out of the Sterling family!” I looked up at their furious faces. Then I suddenly laughed. Why should I apologize? I’m not even Victoria’s real husband.

I was the Female Alpha of the Stormlands pack. But gave up my position to my brother. All so I could stay by the side of Adrian, the Alpha of the Valley pack, the man I had loved in secret for six years. My brother couldn't bear to watch me wait any longer. On Valentine's Day, he went so far as to slip a potion into Adrian's drink and send him to my bed. When Adrian woke, he refused to accept me as his second-chance mate. But he didn't reject the bond either. He simply agreed to marry me, cold as ice. Shortly after the wedding, he dumped all pack affairs on me and left for five years. I gave birth to our daughter Ivy alone and waited for him to come back. Five years later, I pushed aside an important pack meeting and took Ivy to the airport to pick him up. My daughter reached for him, begging to be held. He glanced down and said flatly, "Sorry. I'm a germaphobe." After that, Ivy and I bathed three times a day. I scrubbed the house until it was spotless as a sterile ward. But he still wouldn't come home, and he never once held either of us. Everything changed when I saw an interview. Someone asked, "Alpha Adrian, when were you happiest?" He smiled carelessly. "Last week, I guess. I put Mia to sleep, then pulled Selena into the bathroom." Selena was the mate who had rejected him. She had run off with another wolf and had Mia. Rumor had it they had been living together for the entire five years he was gone. So the rumors were true all along... That night, I stopped hoping he would ever accept me as his second-chance mate. I decided to take my daughter and leave the Valley for good. I reclaimed my title as Female Alpha of the Stormlands, absorbed the entire Valley pack into my territory, and took my daughter out of his life forever!

After my daughter was admitted to the ICU for liver failure, the doctor said she had at most seven days to live. My wife, Jessica Holland, grabbed my hand tightly. "Kevin, Tanya can still be saved!" The doctor handed me the organ donation consent form, but I didn't take it. Instead, I pulled out three documents and laid them in front of Jessica. "Sign these, and I'll donate." She glanced down and completely froze. The first was a divorce agreement, the second was a waiver of joint assets, and the third was a share transfer agreement. Jessica held a 12% stake in Eterspring Pharmaceutical. She earned that by building the business with me for eight years. I wanted her to transfer every single share to me. "Are you out of your mind?!" My mother rushed up and slapped me. She looked at me in disbelief. "Tanya's in there, fighting for her life, but you're using her to force your wife to divorce you without taking any assets?" I pushed the pen toward Jessica. "Once all the paperwork is done, I'll do the surgery immediately. All three documents must be signed." Jessica grabbed the divorce agreement and threw it in my face. I walked out without looking back.