After Death Short Stories & Mistress Cheating Novels

By their tenth anniversary, Claire Carlisle and Elliot Paulson were Auremont City's most infamous feuding couple. He lit up the skyline with a public love confession—to another woman. Claire fired back by burning down the private estate where he kept his mistress. In two years, their fights had landed them in the hospital ninety-nine times. Everyone thought the cycle would never end. Then eighteen-year-old Elliot showed up. He looked nothing like the cold, polished man he'd become. Just a faded T-shirt and eyes full of fierce, reckless love for Claire. Young. Clueless. Completely devoted. The second he saw how pale and frail she'd become, he stormed into Paulson Tower, tackled his older self, and beat him like he'd lost his mind. "She's the person I love most. How could you do this to her?!" From that day on, Claire finally had someone willing to stand between her and the world.

Three days before my wedding, my younger sister staged a scene—one where I supposedly abandoned her in the mountains. She claimed I locked her in a cabin, left her to be nearly assaulted, and that she barely escaped with her life. Furious, my fiancé dragged me up the mountain and locked me in that same cabin. He said, "Wendy, a woman as vicious as you won't learn her lesson without punishment. I already told you I'd marry you. Why go after Chloe? Since you're so desperate to climb your way up, you can stay here until the wedding day." I begged him, over and over, but my scorched throat could only force out hoarse, grating sounds. Three days later, Mickey O'Brien stood at the altar in his suit, waiting for me. What he got instead was my remains.

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.

There is a running joke in Salbury. "If your husband is giving you trouble, just send him to Ian Rutherford. He's the only man who can watch his wife bring a different man home every night and still put up with it for the sake of their child." Whenever a group of married women gets together, someone always jokes, "I wish my useless husband had even half of Ian's patience." But they don't know that the man they see as the most patient and accommodating husband is done. I ask for a divorce, and I don't even want custody of our child. However, no one believes me, not even my wife, Celine Erwin.

In my third year as a blind massage therapist, Henry Young took his employees on a company retreat. By sheer coincidence, he ended up booking me. When he saw me, he remained perfectly composed, so much so that even his breathing did not falter. I served him the same way I treated every other client. Then his phone rang. My hands paused for a moment as my own voice, young and girlish, came through his phone speaker. His employees immediately started teasing him. Henry simply explained in a gentle voice, “My wife recorded that when she was young and didn’t know any better.” Just as he was leaving, Henry suddenly turned around. “Anya Walt, I’ve never forgotten you. “Are you really going to keep living this hard life, with my child by your side?” I rubbed my fingertips again and again, but said nothing. It seemed he still had no idea. Back then, I kept our child and delivered the baby. But the baby was stillborn.

To save her first love, who suffered from uremia, my wife, who was a judge, used her influence to pressure the hospital into awarding one of my kidneys to him. I explained to my wife that I had kidney failure. Transplanting another kidney would mean certain death for me. However, my wife yelled at me in disgust, “His illness is serious, and you’re still acting jealous and competing for my attention? Do you even have a heart?” With the lawyer she hired, she won a court ruling that sent me to the hospital for the kidney transplant. In the end, my kidney failure worsened. I died alone in a forgotten corner of the hospital.

The day I got my terminal cancer diagnosis, I stumbled upon a hidden album on my mafia husband’s phone. One thousand eight hundred and twenty-six intimate photos. All of the same woman. None of me. Three years into our marriage, all of New York still feared Damian Moretti. Even as his only legal wife, I never dared ask about the blood on his cuffs—or the stranger’s perfume clinging to his skin late at night. I used to think he was simply born cold-blooded. Until I saw her on his screen, wearing his shirt in a secret penthouse I didn’t know existed, smiling freely in his arms. The cruelest part? The timestamp on the last photo was from two hours ago—the exact moment I was sitting alone at the hospital, signing my own Do-Not-Resuscitate form. When Damian walked out of the bathroom, he caught me staring at the screen. No guilt. No panic. He just walked over, took the phone from my frozen hand, and hit delete without a flicker of emotion. “Stay out of things that don’t concern you,” he said flatly. “Forget what you saw.” Before the screen could even go dark, it lit up again with a text message: Damian, you left your shirt in my bed again. Whatever was left inside me finally shattered. I pushed the prepared divorce papers toward him. “Sign them,” I said quietly. “I’m setting you free.” Damian’s gaze turned lethal. In one swift motion, he pinned my wrist against the headboard, the heavy Moretti signet ring on his right hand digging brutally into my bone. “Don’t test my limits, Vivian,” he murmured, leaning over me, his voice low and merciless. “Moretti marriages only end with a funeral.” I met his icy stare and didn’t say another word. He had no idea I only had three months left to live. The funeral he asked for was already on its way.

Just before my college entrance exam, I was informed that my mother had died a horrible death in prison and that I needed to collect her body. But my father came to me with a demand—he wanted my mother to take the blame for his first love, Stella Shaw, for a second time. "Where's your mother? Stella accidentally injured a patient during surgery, and the patient died. Have your mother take the blame and go to prison for Stella again. Let those two prison sentences make up for the slap your mother gave Stella. "After this, I'll come back to our family for good and be there for you and your mother." Clenching my fists, I stared blankly ahead and murmured without even looking up, "Mom's dead." My father scoffed and had his men lock me inside a sauna. Gripping the remote with clenched teeth, he cranked up the temperature. Then he sent furious, threatening messages to my mother. "Harper! So, now you're teaching our daughter to lie to me?" "Let's see what kind of game you're playing! If you don't want anything to happen to Aria, show yourself now!" My entire body turned red, and my eyes grew bloodshot as I desperately pounded on the door, trying to explain and begging for help. But my father was too busy comforting his frightened first love to pay me any attention. Severely dehydrated, I let out a bitter, miserable laugh. 'Dad, Mom and I have paid for the woman you love with our two lives. Is that enough for you now?'

I had lost my memory for three years. I'd been through hell and high water with Adrian Vance for the past three years. He told me we'd grown up together on the same block, two kids who'd fallen for each other young. He told me that once he had a real foothold in the Family, he'd marry me in front of all of Palermo and make the whole city come to watch. I believed him. With a steady trigger hand and a mean streak, I cleared every man who stood in his way. I dragged him up from a nobody bastard son into the inner circle of the Family, one body at a time. Then the day finally came, and what he said was, "I've already asked the Don for his daughter Camilla. It's settled. I'm marrying her." "Camilla's a mafia princess. The Don's pride and joy. Not some no-name orphan girl with nothing and no one behind her. She's the one who can actually lift me up." "Be good, Vera. As long as Camilla never finds out, we can go on the way we always have." "Be good. You mean play your mistress in the dark, is that it?" What Adrian didn't know was that my memory had already come back. My real name was Hale, heir to the Hale family, the one enemy the Marlowe outfit he'd sworn himself to feared most. Childhood sweethearts, princesses, Don. In the end they were all just one more debt I'd settle on my way to paying the Family back in full.

I once made a deal with an A-list actor. If I propose to him publicly on livestream 99 times and make sure the whole internet witnesses it, he'll announce our relationship when I propose for the 100th time. When that day finally comes, he's on a private yacht with a rising starlet, smooching her with a lovesick smile on his face. I become the laughingstock online. Guilty about his shenanigans, Cameron Ford sends me a text. "When you propose for the 101st time, I'll finally give you the commitment you deserve." He shows up in a perfectly tailored suit and walks right into my livestream. Right in front of him, I set fire to the 100 proposal letters I once wrote for him, as well as the stomach cancer diagnosis I've hidden among them. "There won't be a 101st time, Mr. Ford."

In my third year overseas as a war correspondent, I get seriously injured during a grenade explosion and lose all my memories. I develop severe PTSD and spend two years in a psychiatric hospital. Two months ago, I finally remember who I am. On the day of my return, my best friend, Beckett Jobling, and my wife, Gina Spencer, come to the airport to pick me up. They cry even harder than I do. Gina's eyes are red, but her voice is still as gentle as ever. "I've tidied up our new home. You move in first. I'll come keep you company after work tonight." However, I go back to the villa where we used to live. The moment I push open the door, I see a wedding portrait hanging on the wall. The groom isn't me but my best friend, Beckett. The sound of the key turning in the lock comes from outside. Gina, who is supposedly busy at work, walks in hand in hand with Beckett. In her arms, she's holding a little child. In a sweet, childish voice, the child calls her, "Mommy." I stand frozen. I am so stunned that I even forget to breathe. I've only been away for two years. How can their child already be three years old?

To get back at me for taking one extra piece of lettuce at dinner, Simon Quinn drugged me right after my surgery and left me with a stomach perforation. My wife finally managed to book a specialist appointment for me, but Simon suddenly claimed his own stomach hurt so badly he couldn't stand it and stole my slot. I begged my wife to take me to the hospital first. She told me to endure it. Then, when I called an ambulance myself, she punished me by having someone hang me upside down in the bedroom. "If we hadn't had to eat those awful health meals with you, why would Simon's stomach hurt? "I heard hanging upside down helps stomach pain. After a few minutes, you'll naturally feel better." The pain made my body convulse. I cried and begged her to send me to the hospital. Instead, she kicked me hard in the abdomen. "Stop acting. Don't think I don't know you're just jealous of Simon! "Someone as kind as Simon would never drug you. If anything, you're the one who might've slipped something into the food to make his stomach hurt. Once the results come out, I won't let you off!" I grabbed her pant leg in agony. "I'm not lying. He told me himself he drugged me. Please, for the sake of our eight years together, give the specialist appointment back to me." She stepped on my hand in disgust. "You just had surgery. How could anything happen to you? Stop trying to drive a wedge between us. If you weren't such good househusband material, I would've divorced you long ago." Later, after she saw that Simon was perfectly fine, she finally remembered me. But the housekeeper was trembling all over. "Mr. Bowman died a long time ago..."

On the eve of our engagement party, my fiancé, Andrew Graham, dies. According to the police, his car crashed through the guardrail and plunged into the river. The only thing they managed to find was a bloodstained watch. The Graham family pins all the blame on me. "If Andrew hadn't gone out to buy you a ring, would he have gotten into this accident?" "You're nothing but a jinx! As if it weren't bad enough that you cursed your parents to death, but now, you've even cursed your fiancé!" Andrew's best female friend, Katherine Yangley, has tears spilling down her cheeks as she plays the last voice recording he made. "Don't end your life for me. Live on well." I kneel before his coffin, hugging his watch, for three whole days. On the fourth morning, I drink some industrial herbicide, put on his favorite white dress, and head to the river alone. "Andrew, I'm coming to you." I have barely started to climb over the guardrail when cheers abruptly come from beneath the bridge. Katherine rushes over to me while clapping her hands gleefully. She is laughing so hard that tears roll down her face. "I won! I knew that she would come! Andrew, she actually believed it! She was genuinely going to jump into the river to end her life so that she could be reunited with you!" The crowd parts to reveal Andrew, who walks over with a bouquet of roses. His white shirt is so pristine that it's almost blinding to look at. He focuses his attention on Katherine first, saying in an indulgent tone, "Are you finally satisfied? No more kicking up a fuss in the future, okay?" Latching onto his arm, Katherine asks smugly, "Well, I contributed a lot by helping you test her true feelings for you, didn't I?" "Yes, you did," Andrew answers with a smile. "You like that wedding ring I picked out, right? Then as a reward, you can wear it for one week." Only then does he hand me the bouquet of roses. "Are you surprised? Kathy was just feeling rather upset that you snatched me away from her, so I decided to go along with her this once and let her have her fun. You don't mind, do you? Now that it's been proven that you truly love me, we can get married." Realization dawns on me. The car accident, the voice recording—all of that is fake. It's all simply part of a terrible prank Katherine thought up to satisfy her vindictiveness. As for Andrew, he did nothing but stand by while she put my life on the line. Agonizing pain shoots through me from my stomach. I shake my head. "Forget it. I can't go back anymore."

My fiancé's first love was taking photos on a cliff before the landslide. To save her, he actually left me behind on the crumbling edge. I pleaded with him to save me. "Lucy isn't physically strong—she can't handle this alone. You've always been resilient. I'll get Lucy to safety first, then come back for you." Their silhouettes vanished over the ridge. After a brief commotion, everything went silent. Including me, with my freshly sprained ankle. When he saw the news of my death, he completely fell apart.

My daughter hid inside the cabinet, her trembling hands dialing her father—James, the Alpha of our pack. "Mommy's bleeding a lot. Please, come back and save her," she pleaded. "I'm busy. Don't bother me," James said coldly. "If she's going to die, make sure she does it far away." As he wished, I never bothered him again. Because I really did die, right in front of our wedding photo. When he found out, he went mad, completely mad.

A single typo cost the company a billion-dollar contract, and my boyfriend, the CEO, punished me by making me do everyone else's work. My day began at 3 AM, cleaning the office, then taking on all the grunt work: buying coffee, delivering documents, and more. After hours, I'd be out drinking with clients, negotiating new contracts, and sleeping less than two hours each night. I pushed myself relentlessly, driven by my boyfriend's promise to marry me once I recouped the company's losses. The moment I finally did, I overheard his secretary complaining to him, "Mr. Smith, do you remember when she fined me twenty bucks? It was so unfair! "Thank you so much for sneaking in that contract with typos to prank her for five years... Now that she's paid for it, the debt is settled, and I've forgiven her. You should fulfill your promise." However, my boyfriend snorted in disdain. "You were just a couple of hours late, but she'd punish you that severely—that's just poor leadership. "And it's true she settled her debt, but she wants to marry me too? Hell, no—she must get me a billion-dollar contract first!" I crumpled the medical report confirming I had cancer, my pain beyond words. Well, I was going to die, so that was not going to happen.

In my third year as an online relationship-advice streamer, I finally saved up enough in viewer tips to cover my boyfriend's share of our wedding funds. I went live one last time, planning to announce that I was quitting streaming for good, when a young woman sent over a hundred thousand dollars' worth of gifts to request a live call with me. "My husband is just too perfect. There are always women trying to take my place. What do I do?" The chat burst out laughing at how dramatic she sounded. I was the only one quietly celebrating. With that kind of money, Gary Litt would never have to stress over our wedding funds, a car, or a house again. She ignored the skeptics in the chat and kept pouring out her troubles. "Yesterday, I found out some woman's been sending him money. And get this — it was 362.56 dollars! Down to the penny! "That's not even enough to cover one of my meals. You don't think some broke woman has her hooks in my husband, do you?" I froze. Just last night, I'd cashed out my tips and transferred money to Gary for our wedding fund. It was that exact amount. Just then, another voice cut in on her end. "Babe, are you imagining things again? Which one of your girlfriends are you badmouthing me to this time?" His teasing complaint was laced with affection. But I felt a chill creep through me, inch by inch. The "perfect" husband she was talking about and my boyfriend — who couldn't even scrape together anything for our wedding fund — were the same man.

The day my boyfriend, Ashton Grant, ends up in the hospital, I find his will. Or rather, 214 of them. They're written on different dates, but every single one names the same beneficiary. And it isn't me. It's his first love. My hands go cold. I can't even confront him because Ashton is lying unconscious in a hospital bed. "Mr. Grant is addicted to extreme sports. The more dangerous, the better," his assistant explains. "He writes a new will before every trip. But only the most recent one was ever made official through his lawyer." I already know the answer before I ask. "And I'm still not in it, am I?" The assistant falls silent. After six years together, Ashton still disappears for weeks at a time, leaving me terrified that he won't come home one day. And all this time, whenever he risks his life, he's making sure that another woman is taken care of if he dies. His first love. If she's the one he thinks about when he might not make it home, then why should I be the one waiting and worrying when he leaves?

When I was in college, my mom had terminal cancer, and our family company collapsed due to heavy debts. Just when I was at my lowest, my childhood friend Zach Hall rushed back from overseas. For seven years, he stayed by my side and helped me heal. …Until the night before our engagement ceremony, when I was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer. I wanted to tell Zach, but instead, I overheard a conversation between him and the lead surgeon who had operated on my mother. "Zach, your fiancee's mother could've been saved back then. But you stopped me from treating her, just so Jessica could get that poor woman's corneas. If Jessica is the one you love, why marry your fiancee?" "I do feel guilty toward Annie, but I don't regret it. It was the only way for Jess to pick up a brush again and keep chasing her dreams." Through the crack in the door, I saw clearly the tenderness on Zach's face when he mentioned Jessica. "What if Annie finds out?" the surgeon asked. Zach fell silent, rubbing the band on his ring finger. "I don't know. I've already decided to marry her. I'll love her, protect her, and spend the rest of my life making it up to her." The pain hit me so hard at that moment that I almost collapsed, as if my heart was being ripped out.

To help my husband, Julian Parker, pay off the debt from his stock-market losses, I agreed to sell one of my kidneys. But on the day of the surgery, our six-year-old daughter, Ella Parker, ran to the clinic all by herself and frantically called Julian for help. Julian sounded conflicted. "Mom's only having one kidney removed. It'll get Dad out of this mess for good. But if she doesn't do it, Dad's whole future is ruined." Ella kept begging him to stop the surgery, but Julian simply hung up. Then he hurried toward a private hospital suite nearby, his face filled with worry. Inside lay Claire Morgan, the woman he'd never gotten over. Her face was deathly pale. "Don't worry. We've got a kidney for you. You're going to be fine." He lowered his voice. "And don't feel guilty. I'm the one who chose to lie to her. She's still young. She can live just fine with one kidney." Claire's transplant was a success. Julian was in such a good mood afterward that, for once, he even suggested taking Ella and me on a trip, calling it a belated honeymoon. But he had no idea I was already dead. After my kidney was removed, I couldn't even afford $9.90 for the antibiotics I needed. The wound became infected, and I died. And Ella finally gave up on her father, too.