Melodramatic Romance Short Stories & Bias Cheating Novels

Adam Locke made it his mission to control our marital finances. Every time I needed money, he subjected me to an interrogation. All I was allowed was 300 dollars a month, no more, no less. "Asking for money again?" Adam asked, shoving his ledger in my face. "You've already reached your withdrawal limit for this month!" I stared at the ledger. That 300-dollar budget was supposed to cover our children's medical bills, our daily household expenses, and even the money Adam owed restaurants or colleagues whenever he got drunk at one of his "business events." Not a single one of those expenses had been for me. Suddenly, his phone rang. He picked it up from the table, and his tone softened almost instantly. "Oh no. Did Zack get into another fight? How much do you need to settle it? I'll send you the money right away." "They said 15,000 dollars, or Zack's getting locked up at the station," replied his secretary, Yolanda Sharpe. Adam did not need to be asked twice. He hung up and immediately wired Yolanda the full amount so her little brother could stay out of trouble. It was as if Zack mattered more to him than his own wife did. I waited until he finished, then calmly said, "Mom was in a car accident. I need money for her medical bills. Please, anything would help." He tossed the ledger in front of me. "I told you, you've reached your withdrawal limit for this month!" he grumbled. "Can't she wait until next month to take care of whatever business she needs to handle?" This time, I did not argue or insist that he give me the money. I simply nodded and said, "Sure." Then I turned away from him and called my mother-in-law, who was lying on an operating table in the ER. "Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it seems your son has refused to pay to save your life."

My brand of teenage heroism meant charging straight into the line of fire for my childhood friend. When they made him stand in the hall, I stood beside him. When people spread rumors about him, I set the record straight. When a pack of thugs cornered him, I came in swinging. Jessica Garner, the girl who grew up next door to me, was always on my case about never looking out for myself. Still, she stood beside me in the hall. She guarded the door to the PA room for me. She carefully dabbed ointment on my cuts, one by one. Years later, Daniel Jonasson's fiancée cleaned him out. He lost both his money and the woman he loved. My heroism flared up again. Within half a month, I gathered the evidence, filed the lawsuit, and argued the case myself. I made her pay until she had nothing left. Jessica told me I pushed myself too hard, but she stayed by my side anyway. Then, on the eve of the wedding, a mutual friend called out of nowhere. He told me Daniel's ex had found out his new girlfriend was pregnant. She'd sent men after him, and he'd ended up in the ER. My mind went blank. Without thinking, I rushed into his hospital room. Then I looked up and found Jessica standing right beside his bed. Only then did I remember. I had always been the one asking her to look after Daniel. There was no time to say anything to her. I turned to him in a panic. "Are you okay? I already covered the hospital bill. I heard your girlfriend's pregnant. Was she shaken up? Where is she? Do I know her?" Daniel's expression turned awkward as he glanced at Jessica. My heart lurched. I followed his gaze. Jessica raised her head, her expression calm. "You do. It's me."

On the night before my wedding, the bridal party is too excited to sleep, so someone suggests a game of anonymous confessions. Everyone writes down one thing they want to say to me, the groom-to-be. I eagerly close my eyes, expecting heartfelt wishes and congratulations, but the first note stuns me. "You bastard. If you weren't forcing my sister to marry you, Lyle would be my brother-in-law!" Lyle Thomas is my best friend. Just three hours earlier, he called to apologize, saying a last-minute business trip had come up and he couldn't make it to the wedding. My hands tremble as I continue reading. "That watch she gave you as a wedding present is one Lyle turned down. He said it looked cheap, so she dumped it on you instead. The day your dad died, she was screwing Lyle in the apartment you shared. In fact, Lyle isn't missing your wedding because of work. He's too busy taking care of their baby." The moment I reach the final note, I recognize Alyssa James' handwriting. "You've already ruined this life for me, and I've come to terms with it. But if there's a next one, stay away from me." The sheer absurdity leaves me stunned at first. Once the shock fades, all I feel is bitter irony. I crumple the notes and toss them into the trash, along with the watch on my wrist. Then, I look up at Alyssa. "Since that's how you feel, let's turn tomorrow's wedding into a party for your new baby instead."

The eighth time I caught Oscar Stanton in a hotel suite, he silently picked up the fruit knife from the nightstand and slashed his wrist eleven times. “Satisfied now?” Blood ran between his fingers and dripped onto the carpet. He looked at me as though I were a madwoman who had driven him to kill himself. I stood frozen, the toy gun still clenched in my hand. For a moment, everything felt strangely unreal. After all, the last time things had gotten this bad, I had kicked his mistress into a crocodile enclosure and demanded that he never see her again. In retaliation, he had buried my mother’s ashes beneath a public restroom. He laughed and said, In retaliation, he had buried my mother’s ashes beneath a public restroom. But now, before he could even determine whether the gun in my hand was real, his face went pale and he pleaded, “Don’t hurt Cammie. She’s pregnant. She can’t handle this kind of shock. “Punish me however you want, but leave the baby out of it.” I froze and placed a hand over my own stomach. “What did you say?” Oscar’s chuckle was light as he closed his eyes. “I’m saying I give in. “Happy now? Isn’t this exactly what you wanted?” He had finally given in. But he was only doing it to protect another woman’s baby. The fear in his eyes for her made the baby inside me seem like nothing more than an unwanted accident. At that moment, every movement in my womb felt like a cruel joke. Suddenly, I didn’t want to keep losing myself to this madness anymore.

As the coaster climbed toward the top, I opened my eyes and reached over for my girlfriend's hand. What I saw was her fingers laced through my best friend's. Her thumb moved slowly across the back of his hand. A signal. Steady. I've got you. "Avery, I'm scared," I said quietly. She didn't answer me. She only held on to him tighter. Avery has a hearing impairment. Her left ear doesn't pick things up clearly. But every time the three of us went anywhere, she kept him on her right, tilting her head up to catch him, answering every single thing he said. I stood on her left, and it was like standing on the other side of a galaxy. The coaster started down again, and I closed my eyes, and my heart dropped with it. Avery, if somebody else is living at the very center of your heart, then so be it. It's time I took my own heart back and went looking for stars of my own.

After my wife, April Carter, gives birth to my child, I'm forced to quit my job and become a full-time stay-at-home dad. Before long, I spiral into severe depression. Countless times, I press a knife to my wrist, only for her to desperately throw her arms around me as I break down in hysterics. "Don't do this! Think about the baby and me! We're right here with you!" My brother, Lucas Getz, and my best buddy, Thomas Balfour, each grab a knife and press it against their own wrists. "If you want to die, we'll die with you," they declare. "Are two lives enough for you?" After that day, I fully commit to my treatment, determined not to let anyone else get hurt because of me. But just when I think I'm finally about to see the light, Lucas drags me to a wedding. Standing on the stage as newlyweds are none other than April and Thomas. My mind goes blank with a deafening buzz, and my blood runs cold. Lucas gazes up at the couple on stage with envy. "This wedding should have happened five years ago. But your depression has kept the two of them trapped in guilt." Then he turns toward me. "Do you understand now? The truth is, you're the one keeping us trapped in misery. It's time to let go."

Because my older sister, Zara Gomez, dreamed of becoming a psychologist, I became her favorite test subject simply because I had been highly sensitive since birth. She said children should not be given too much security, so my parents missed every important moment in my life for years. She said people at their lowest should not be coddled, so when I was critically injured in a car accident, they turned around and went on vacation to Coral Isle. Only Aaron Shaw ever stood up to them. He would tell me gently, "Cry if you need to. I'm here." Then came the wedding by the beach. I waited and waited, but he never showed. Holding up the hem of my wedding dress, I searched the beach anxiously all night. In the end, all I got was his latest update on social media. [Celebrating the successful completion of Zara's ten-year experiment.] A second later, he called me on video. When he saw my red eyes, he sounded almost delighted. "Zara said the training works best when the thing you're looking forward to most falls apart. Look at you. You didn't even cry this time." Zara held his arms with a shy look on her face. "Thanks to you serving as the control subject all these years, I've finally finished the last part of my project." I looked down at my bleeding feet, and I let the ocean wind dry the last of my tears. So… All the warmth I had treasured had only been part of Zara's control experiment. Now that the final experiment was over, it was also time for the test subject to quietly leave the stage.

Sam Cassidy and I have been married for three years. We lived in the poorer part of the city and ate canned food that was close to expiring, and I worked three jobs a day. I even had to consider for 30 minutes before deciding if I should buy a box of discounted strawberries. Sam was gentle and considerate, and I could not find any fault with him except that he was extremely broke. He was so broke that I had to take care of him financially when I could barely take care of myself. However, we had to live life positively, and an ordinary and busy life was the norm for ordinary people like us. This continued until I accidentally bumped into his phone, and the screen lit up. A chat group named 'The Fake Broke Challenge Committee' appeared on his phone screen. [I guess you're the reigning champion again, Sam.] [It's impressive that it has been three years and your lie hasn't been exposed.]

When I walked out of the funeral home, the Perfect Wife app my boyfriend, Ryan Keller, developed popped up with its 99th penalty notification. [Perfect Wife Score: -3. Reason: Too many calls.] I opened the app. Three years' worth of deductions filled the screen. I lost a point for asking him to pick me up from work in the pouring rain. Apparently, that made me too dependent. Three more disappeared after a fight because I refused to admit I was wrong. According to the app, that made me dishonest. Then there were the ten points I lost because I once asked Mom to pretend she was sick for me. Apparently, that meant she had raised me badly. I scrolled through the list without feeling much of anything until I reached the one name that had always mattered more than mine. Claire Snyder. Ryan's ex-girlfriend, who apparently couldn't handle anything on her own. A pipe burst in her apartment, so Ryan rushed over to fix it. Her neighborhood lost power at night, so she needed him to stay with her. Even today, when Claire's mom twisted her ankle during a dance class, Claire called Ryan to drive them to the hospital. Meanwhile, Mom suffered a sudden brain hemorrhage. I called Ryan 58 times. Every call went straight to a busy signal. By the time I stopped calling, Mom's hand had already gone cold. Not long after, she was wheeled out of the hospital and into the funeral home. I flexed my stiff fingers and tapped "No Objection" for the first time. Claire's cloying prerecorded voice immediately played through my phone. "Congratulations! Looks like you've finally learned how to be understanding. That puts your Perfect Wife Score at 60, which means you're officially eligible to get married! Better make it to the courthouse within three days, though, or you'll lose your chance!" I stared at the screen for a second, then deleted the app. Three days from now, I really was going to the courthouse to get married. Just not with Ryan.

After she was intimate with her husband, Derrick Gladwin, Celine Clarkson headed to the bathroom to clean up. Then the closet door swung open. Jenny Dlay—Celine's best friend—popped out, laughing like crazy. "Wow, Cece. You act all innocent, but you still make that face when things get good? I'm dead." Jenny rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue, mocking the way Celine had bitten her lip and trembled. Celine went pale and froze. Jenny didn't care. She strutted over, went up on her toes, and hooked an arm around Derrick's neck, her nails brushing through his Adam's apple. "Okay, Ricky. Didn't know you had that in you. You seriously wore her out." She smirked. "Almost feel bad for her." Derrick laughed and flicked her forehead. "Told you. You just didn't believe me." "Can you blame me? I thought you were all talk." Jenny grinned and tugged at his robe. "Guess I'll have to check for myself..."

Before the Christmas holidays, the four of us besties from Kingsley City held a vote. We had one question on the table: should Mia Williams be allowed to join our tight-knit friend group? I thought my friends and my boyfriend would vote no, just like me. After all, Mia had ulterior motives. She had repeatedly mocked and provoked me, all while shamelessly flirting with my boyfriend. However, I could not have been more wrong. My childhood friend, Jason Miller, remained calm as he said, “I vote yes. Mia is great in every way. Jenna, your jealousy is getting out of hand.” My best friend, Lily Wilson, immediately backed him up. “Exactly! Jenna, you can’t be so selfish. You don’t get to decide who we’re allowed to be friends with.” I clenched my fists and turned to my boyfriend, Evan Taylor. He had already sent Mia an invitation to join our group chat. “Jenna, what’s one more person? Her joining isn't going to hurt you. Don’t be so difficult, okay?” That was when it hit me. The love and friendship I had always been so proud of had both betrayed me when it mattered most.

Lawrence Yancey gave me a supplementary card with a spending limit of 300 dollars, and any excess required his approval with a receipt. He said this was to ensure transparency in the management of the family's finances. I did as he asked for three years. At last month's medical checkup, I was diagnosed with thyroid nodules, and the doctor recommended that I undergo a needle biopsy. I took a picture of the bill and sent it to him. “7,200 dollars?!” He replied in an instant. “It’s just a nodule. Can’t you just monitor the situation first?” I didn’t reply to his text and canceled the appointment. That night, when he got home, he flung two shopping bags onto the floor by the foyer. I recognized that logo. I opened one of the bags and pulled out a necklace worth 8,600 dollars. A greeting card lay at the bottom of the bag with a message in his handwriting. “Happy birthday, Wendy. You deserve the best.” Wendy was his new colleague in the Planning Department. At last month’s department gathering, she had even asked me with a smile, “Mrs. Yancey, is Lawrence extremely generous to you?” I put the greeting card back where I found it. My mom ended up accompanying me to the test for the nodule, which turned out to be benign. The day my report was out, I didn’t tell him the results. I told the court instead. When he received the court summons, he asked, “Can’t we talk things through?” I finally learned how to use the phrase he taught me: “Send in an application and wait for my approval.”

I once believed meeting Charles was the final ray of comfort in my life. A sightless man and a terminally ill woman, leaning on each other to find warmth in the dark. I gave up chemotherapy, pushing through cancer pain to work, all just to leave behind every cent I had for my "blind" boyfriend and our unborn baby. I even signed an organ donor form, hoping that after my death, my eyes could finally bring him light. That belief shattered when I saw a photo in the hospital director's office. There he was, surfing under the bright sun. His eyes shone, with an arm wrapped around an heiress dripping in multi-million-dollar jewels. It turns out our whole love story was nothing more than a rich kid's bet, and my devotion was nothing more than entertainment for his wealthy friends. He trampled my father's hard-earned savings into the dirt and burned my late mother's legacy on a single night of fireworks just to make another woman smile. So, I shredded the donor agreement and lay on the operating table for an abortion with a smile. Since they wanted a game, I’d play along with them until the end.

For ten years, I stood beside Adrian Shaw while he clawed his way up from nothing to a nine-figure fortune. In all that time, he never once took me anywhere that cost more than twenty dollars a head. On the eve of our tenth anniversary, I sent him a link to the steakhouse I'd been saving for years. His expression darkened. "Just because we have money now doesn't mean we can forget how hard life can get. Thrift is a virtue, Nora. Don't lose it." I thought he had a point, so I nodded and agreed to cancel the reservation. Then, on the day I went to the restaurant to cancel it, I saw Adrian across the dining room, having dinner with a girl. He cut her steak for her, then reached over and gently wiped a streak of sauce from the corner of her mouth. I knew her. Chloe Foster, the company's newest intern. Twenty-one years old. "Mr. Shaw, I can't finish all this," Chloe said. "What a waste." "If it made you happy, it wasn't wasted." Adrian gazed at her with open tenderness. "We can box up the rest for Nora." "But those are my leftovers." He chuckled. "It's fine. Nora was with me when we had nothing. She isn't picky." Chloe smiled at that. "So she got the hard years, and I get the good ones?" Adrian said nothing for a long moment. Then he murmured, "Yes." I tightened my grip on the reservation slip, my nails digging into my palm, and I didn't feel a thing. The hostess beside me lowered her voice. "Ms. Wells, tables are in high demand right now. Are you sure you want to cancel?" I swallowed the bitterness burning in my throat. "No," I said. "Keep the table—and bring me the most expensive meal you serve.”

After our engagement, the six of us friends agreed to take one last trip together before the wedding. That night, my friend Anders Greer suggested we play a "24-Hour Couple Swap." Anyone who drew matching symbols had to act like a couple for the next twenty-four hours. Whoever drew a blank card could only take pictures and carry everyone's bags. In the first round, I drew a blank. My fiancee, Brielle Rice, and Anders both drew moons. They held hands while watching the sunrise, while I followed behind carrying three people's bags. In the second round, I drew another blank. They both drew roses. Their penalty was to hug for one minute. Everyone crowded around, cheering them on, while I stood off to the side and kept time. The third round. The fourth... Seven times in a row. Every single time, I was the odd one out. On the final night, they drew matching wedding-dress cards. According to the rules, the two of them had to hold a mock wedding. Anders snatched my engagement ring and slipped it onto her ring finger. All our friends gathered around them, shouting, "Kiss him!" The next second, Brielle actually lifted her face and kissed him. While everyone was celebrating, I opened the boxes that held the cards. Every card in my box was blank. However, Brielle's and Anders's boxes were stuffed with matching moons, roses, and wedding dresses. I smiled and deleted all the digital wedding invitations I'd already prepared. If there had never been room for me on a trip meant for six people, then there was no reason to save a place for any of them for the rest of my life.

My fiancé, Everett Prescott, spent five whole years designing my wedding dress, and it finally arrived today. Except I couldn't zip it up. It stayed wide open until my best friend, Sienna Hart, slipped into the dress perfectly. The fabric hugged her curves like a second skin. She turned to my fiancé with an exasperated sigh. "Everett, are you serious? You got Leah’s size wrong. Again." My blood ran cold. Over the five years Everett and I had been together, this wasn't the first time he'd conveniently forgotten my measurements. When he bought me pajamas that were a size too small, he just blinked, flashing that easy grin of his. "Oh, wait. I think this is Sienna's size, right? Let's just give it to her. I'll buy you another set." When my engagement ring turned out to be too small, he scratched the back of his neck and shrugged. "My bad. Well, we already bought it, so we might as well give it to Sienna. Lucky her." Our wedding was in two days, and once again, he got the measurements dead wrong. Everett rubbed his nose, giving a weak laugh. "Totally my fault, babe. My bad. I'll just take it back to the shop and get it altered." "Everett, altering a custom wedding dress takes at least six months," I said, my voice barely a whisper. He offered a helpless smile. "Well, you can't exactly walk down the aisle without a dress, right? Don't worry about it. As soon as the dress is altered, we'll have the wedding immediately. We've already waited five years. What's another six months?" Right then, my phone buzzed in my palm. [Sweetheart, the guy you have an arranged marriage with is flying back into the country in two days. I don't care what excuse you have this time. You’re coming home and marrying him!] I stared at the screen for a long time before replying: [Got it. I'll be there.] I spent five long years waiting around for this wedding. I'm not waiting another six months.

On my wife Christine Stott's birthday, I held a property certificate, hoping to surprise her. I waited until midnight, but she never showed up. Instead, I got a confession. Christine: [I'm pregnant, but the baby isn't yours. I'm sorry...] I stared at those words, reading them over and over. I worked hard for three years to buy this property. I worked overtime until I was vomiting blood, I drank myself into the hospital at business dinners, and I came home every night so exhausted that I would collapse straight into bed. And her? She wiped away all my efforts just by saying the baby was not mine. I called her. She answered quickly. "I'm sorry for what I did to you. I'll give you whatever you want." I took a deep breath and asked, "Anything I want?" "Yes." "Then let's get a divorce. You leave with nothing."

We had been in love for five years and married for three. My husband had taken the whole “going Dutch” to an absurd extreme. A two-dollar bottle of water for the house? Split it in half. A $105 utility bill? He'd send me a Venmo request for my half. He called it “the spirit of equality in a modern marriage.” According to him, rules were rules. I gritted my teeth and put up with it. Until I found out I was pregnant. To save money on the prenatal appointments and nutritional expenses he insisted we split, I could barely afford anything more than plain boiled eggs every day. Even when I was heavily pregnant and caught in a downpour, if I tried to call a cab, he'd lecture me for lacking the independence a modern woman was supposed to have. Yet when another woman told him she was “having a bad day,” he didn't hesitate to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on luxury goods for her. He even paid her expensive tuition to study abroad. I thought I'd already become numb to it all, so numb that I was prepared for whatever came next, even if it killed me. Then came the day when his disgusting penny-pinching calculations went too far. He tried to make me pay my “share” of the medication I needed to stay alive.

In our third year of marriage, my wife's kept boy toy decided he wanted to break up with her. He left her nothing but a long, dramatic message and blocked her on every platform before she could respond. [You can't give me what I actually want. I don't want to keep dragging this out with you.] I watched my wife's romantic drama play out with a cold, distant expression. After three years of them breaking up and getting back together more times than I could count, I figured this was nothing new. I expected Elena Sheridan to rush straight to coax him back like always. But this time, she was ice cold about it. "He was just a plaything I kept around for amusement. Now he thinks he can threaten me with a breakup? I’ve clearly indulged him too much." But a month later, the news broke online. He'd jumped from a building. The woman who had always been cold and unfeeling completely fell apart.

At the reunion, the wives got rowdy and dared each other to take part in a "best husband" challenge. Each woman had to call her husband and ask for 6,000 dollars to buy a bag. Whoever got a yes first would win. As expected, Matthew Whitebrook picked up almost instantly, his voice gentle. "Buy it, baby. You remember the card password, right?" Everyone groaned with envy and said I'd hit the jackpot by landing the better of the twin brothers. I laughed and hung up, then glanced at my sister, who sat curled up in the corner. She clutched her phone but refused to make the call. "I won't bother," she said quietly. "He's on another business trip. He won't pick up anyway." My sister had been dating Matthew's older twin brother for three years, but he was constantly away on business. Almost no one had ever seen him in person. I felt bad for her, so I snatched the phone from her hand and dialed the number myself. It rang twice before someone answered. "Baby, why the sudden call?" The room fell silent. That voice was identical to the one that had told me, "Buy it, baby," just ten seconds earlier. For a moment, I thought I had misheard. But when I turned to my sister, her face had already gone white. She snatched the phone back, her smile strained. "Bad signal. You must have misheard." However, I had heard it clearly. From the other end of the call came the unmistakable sound of the record player in my own living room, the one I had forgotten to turn off before I left the house that afternoon.