Feel-Good Story Short Stories & Mistress Pregnancy Novels

My name is Clara Kelly. I was born in Brooklyn, into an Irish-American cop’s family. My father spent his whole career walking a beat out of the 84th Precinct. My mother volunteered at the parish. I was the first girl on our block to get into Columbia Law. The year I graduated, I was volunteering at a charity gala. I picked up the wrong glass of wine and ended up dumping it down the front of a man’s Brioni suit. That man was Adrian Francesco Moretti. Fourth-generation Don of the Moretti Family of New York, and one of the five families of Cosa Nostra. He chased me for four years. I said no six times. The seventh time, he stood outside my law firm in the rain until three-fifteen in the morning. I married him. Two decades in, he’d handed me the keys to the entire Moretti Family. In our world they called me “the Irish Donna,” a woman with no Italian blood who somehow held the seat. Childless by choice, the two of us. Famously in love. Until that Wednesday afternoon, when my college roommate of twenty years, my best friend Vivian Sinclair, walked into my living room with a five-year-old boy. She said the boy was Adrian’s son. She said that five years ago, she’d taken a used condom out of the wastebasket in my upstairs master bedroom, kept it frozen for three years, and done IVF. She said she was the real mother of the Moretti heir. She was the real Donna Moretti. “Be smart. Pack your bags and walk out. You might even get to keep your life.” “You’re barren. The Moretti Family doesn’t need you.” I looked at the woman I’d called my best friend for half my adult life. I didn’t say a word. She thought she was holding the winning card. What she didn’t know was that she’d just stepped onto a board Adrian and I had been laying for twenty years. I needed exactly one sentence to shatter every piece of the Donna fantasy she’d spent five years building.

When a wave of labor pain brought me to my knees in the hospital hallway, Orson Caldwell, a brilliant doctor, was just about to wheel me into the delivery room. Just then, his phone rang. When he answered the call, his expression fell. "Seraphina, Cressie's teddy is having trouble giving birth. It's in critical condition, but the vet clinic in her town is closed. I have to perform a C-section on it." I clutched my stomach as blood slowly began to seep between my legs. "I'm fully dilated. If you leave now, what am I supposed to do?" Orson looked annoyed. "We'll get another doctor to do it. You're only giving birth, but Cressie's dog could die. I'll make it up to you and our child someday." With that, he rushed into the elevator without even taking off his white coat. I laughed through my tears, pulled out my phone, and called my father. "Dad, I'll agree to the arranged marriage."

As the future daughter-in-law, I am making my first formal visit to my fiancé Patrick Underwood's family on Thanksgiving. At the dinner table, I raise my glass to make a toast when Patrick's childhood sweetheart, Lana Rowe, suddenly stands up and says to my future father-in-law, Alfred Underwood, "Dad, thank you for letting Patrick give me a son." I freeze on the spot. Mr. Underwood looks at Lana with emotion and says, "You've always known how to repay kindness, and you and Patrick grew up together. He should consider himself lucky to have you bear his child." Everyone at the table nods in agreement. Not a single person thinks there is anything wrong with this. Only then does Patrick finally notice me standing off to the side. He explains, "Don't get the wrong idea. Lana has no intention of ever getting married. She'd be lonely in her old age if she didn't have a child, so I was just helping her out. "Agnes, you already have me, so whether we have kids or not doesn't change anything." Dad shoots me a stern look. "If you dare cause a scene at Thanksgiving dinner, you can get out!" Lana suddenly laughs. "Come on, don't be so serious, everyone. Agnes has always been so understanding—surely she won't make a fuss over something so trivial." She then turns to me. "If Patrick and I really had something going on, you wouldn't have had a chance to marry him in the first place. Besides, you can be our son Douglas Underwood's godmother. The three of us can raise him together." I don't take the glass of wine Lana offers me. Instead, I glance at Patrick again. He gestures for me not to make a scene. A lump forms in my throat. In that instant, I find the whole situation utterly ridiculous. I immediately message my professor, Gary Massey, who has been hoping I would become his daughter-in-law. "Professor Massey, does your son, Bradley Massey, know about my situation?" Professor Massey replies instantly, "Yes. As long as you're willing, this marriage is as good as settled." "Okay, I'll marry Bradley."