Familial Bond Romance Short Stories & Bias Face Slapping Novels

My sister had always despised school. So when she suddenly declared she wanted to go to college—and even urged our parents to marry me off to a high-ranking officer's son to fund her studies—I knew at once: she had been reborn too. In our previous life, my sister believed studying was pointless. She barely graduated high school before marrying Anthony Brown, the officer's son who had come to propose with a pretty penny. However, when Anthony was later transferred to a remote outpost, she found the harsh conditions unbearable and refused to follow him. Meanwhile, I worked part-time jobs to put myself through college, landed a secure job after graduation, and became a full-fledged city resident. My sister, still living in the military compound, started using her father-in-law's name to take bribes. Her actions dragged him into a scandal and got him dismissed from his position. Eventually, my mother-in-law kicked her out. After the divorce, she was tricked into investing in stocks in Eastbridge City. The market crashed, and she lost all of our parents' retirement savings. Desperate and with nowhere to go, she turned to me. Cornering me with a knife, she demanded I hand over my savings and apartment so she could "start over." In the chaos, she stabbed me twelve times. I died from massive blood loss. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the moment she asked our parents to marry me off to Anthony. This time, I smiled, said yes—and dropped out of school that very day.

Two years after I return to Cendria, I unexpectedly run into my daughter, whom my ex-wife had taken with her when she left me. "Do you regret everything you've done?" she asks, her voice dripping with arrogance. "If you apologize to my new dad, Liam, I'll try to convince Mom to forgive you." Before I can respond, an adorable little boy throws himself into my arms. "School's finally over, Dad. I missed you so much!" he exclaims. I take his hand and turn to leave. My ex-daughter is furious. "If you walk away from me now, I'll disown you!" she yells after us in frustration. I remain unbothered. She's free to do whatever she pleases. After all, none of it matters to me anymore.

It's Family Day at my daughter, Hannah Neel's, preschool, but my wife, Samantha Miller, says she has to work and tells both Hannah and me not to go. Seeing the disappointment on Hannah's face breaks my heart, so I bring her to school anyway. As soon as we step through the gates, I see Samantha. She's holding her childhood friend—Oscar Barnett's—hand, with a little boy clutching her other. The three of them look like a perfect family, laughing and chatting, as if they belong together. When Samantha sees us, her smile fades, and she lets go of Oscar's hand. "Zach, it's not what you think. Oscar's raising his son alone. Today's his fifth birthday, and he just wanted to give him a little taste of a mother's love," she says quickly. I study her for a moment, then kneel and gently take Hannah's hand in mine. "Sweetheart, say hello to the lady."

My mom and I work our butts off in order to clear Gregory Hudson, my boyfriend's crippling debt. Because of that, Mom even contracts lung cancer. But when I rush to the hospital to pay off the hospital bills, I find out that she's already taken her life by hanging herself. All she leaves is a suicide note. "I can't hang on anymore, Hailey. You should use the money to pay off the debt. Gregory is a good man. I know he loves you; it's just that he's stepped down the wrong path. "Once the debt is cleared, both of you should stay together and live a good life." After collecting Mom's ashes in an urn, I entrust the 300 thousand dollars—the money that Mom has earned with her blood, sweat, and tears—to Gregory. When I return to the company, I accidentally overhear the conversation between Gregory and a few of his debtors. "Mr. Hudson, Ms. Jackman has already passed all of your trials so far. What other arrangements do you have for her?" Gregory's childhood friend, Sophia Wagner, suddenly speaks up. "Even though Hailey can endure all the suffering with you, we still need to test if she can still handle living a good life with you." Gregory purses his lips. "Next, I'd like to know if Hailey's love for me is pure and sincere. If she doesn't pine for my wealth and doesn't become materialistic after finding out about my identity, I will marry her." As I look down at Mom's ashes, I can't help sobbing like a lost child. Both my mom and I are wrong about Gregory. I don't want to marry him anymore.

My daughter Mia's congenital heart condition had worsened. She desperately needed the one-of-a-kind miniature artificial heart I'd spent five years developing. The night before surgery, my wife Victoria stole it from the cold storage unit. I rushed to the hospital like a madman, only to find her at the bedside of her first love Dominic Forsythe's son, prepping him for surgery. "Mia can hold on for another six months. Dominic's son can't wait." "What kind of father are you, being this selfish?" Victoria stood there, righteous indignation written all over her face. I looked at my daughter lying in her hospital bed, barely clinging to life, and dialed the overseas number I'd refused a dozen times before. "Professor Ellsworth, this is Nathan Hartley." "I'll accept your offer. But I need you to arrange a medical transport—immediately—to bring my daughter to your facility. Her heart needs emergency intervention." I spent five years developing a life-saving heart for my daughter. Victoria stole it overnight and gave it to Dominic Forsythe’s son. “Mia can hold on for another six months. Dominic's son can't wait.” She had no idea I held all the core patents for that heart. That same night, I took my daughter aboard a medical jet and fled the country. The next time we met, you would be on your knees begging me.

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.

On my twenty-ninth birthday, I was supposed to be formally announced as the next head of the Ashford family. But before the charity gala began, my mother fed my succession speech into the shredder and replaced it with a written pledge to my sister. "Lydia hasn't had an easy time since the wedding. Announce in public that you're giving her the Harbor Hotel. Think of it as backing her up." It was the first property my grandmother had left me, and the only project I had been allowed to run on my own in eight years. I asked my mother, "And if I'm not willing?" My father looked at me coldly. "Don't forget, you'll inherit all of Ashford one day. She only has us." They had always used the inheritance to keep me in line, forcing me to hand over what was mine to my sister Lydia. This time, I didn't argue. I took out the resignation letter I had signed long before and set it in front of my father. "Then let Lydia inherit all of Ashford. "From today on, I want nothing."

On the night of the final showcase for the three-year designer development program, my parents weren't in the family seats reserved for me. They were sitting at the VIP table with Sophie, my foster sister. My boyfriend, Adrian Cole, was giving interviews in a silver-gray outfit that matched hers. A reporter smiled and asked, "You're both headed to New York, and tonight you're even dressed as a couple. Did the two of you plan that?" The people around them whooped. Adrian only smiled. "We've known each other for years. We have similar taste." No one knew that the dress Sophie was wearing was mine. I'd drafted the pattern and sewn the dress myself, and Adrian and I had planned our matching outfits around it. When I found her wearing it that morning, all my mother said was, "The gown her sponsor sent is ruined. You're the designer. Just wear something else." Adrian frowned at me, too. "There's a lot of press here today. Don't embarrass Sophie over a dress." So I threw on a black suit at the last minute and stood alone outside the interview area, watching an entire room assume the two of them were a couple. The bigger joke was that they all assumed I'd lost. Adrian had lined up an assistant position for me at a second-tier studio, and my parents thought I should stay in Boston and apply again next year. Only my mentor knew the truth: I was the sole winner of this year's Grand Fellowship. My contract already guaranteed me a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in grant money and an eighteen-month independent residency in San Francisco. After the showcase, she asked me, "You're really going to San Francisco?" I looked over at my family, still gathered around Sophie and talking about apartments in New York, and for the first time, I felt no guilt at all. "I am." I wasn't going to let anybody else decide my life again.