Plot Twists Romance Short Stories & Bias Workplace Novels

At our company's annual team-building event, my team lost a game, and the group made my girlfriend pick someone to play a card-passing game with. It was the kind where you pass a piece of paper from mouth to mouth without using your hands. I stood up, trying not to look too eager. I thought this was finally my chance to make our secret relationship public. Instead, my girlfriend picked the new hire before I could even step forward. A gust of wind knocked the paper loose, and their lips met right there in front of everyone. The room erupted. "Look at Ms. Chase go. Ms. Untouchable really does have a thing for pretty young things." "I'll take a bite of that free relationship content, thank you very much." I sat there stunned until a coworker pushed a drink into my hand. "What are you spacing out for? Go toast Ms. Chase and her new boy toy." I stared at my girlfriend, unable to believe what I'd just seen. She turned away to shield her new hire from another round of shots, ignoring me completely again. With tears in my eyes, I downed the drink in one go. Then I accepted a job offer from our biggest competitor.

On the day before the Christmas holidays start, my wife, Irene Owens, intends to promote me and give me a raise in order to celebrate my feat of closing a hundred-million-dollar deal. But her assistant, Cody Harrington, purposefully feeds her some cake. Irene, who's known to be a germaphobe, doesn't show any trace of disgust as she subconsciously accepts the spoon, which is tainted with Cody's saliva, into her mouth. The employees begin cheering for them on the spot. Some ask if they are about to get married. Not only does Irene not refute those questions, but she also promotes Cody to a department manager on the spot. When a colleague next to me realizes how silent I've been, he nudges me in the side. "Hey Seb, you're the veteran employee who's stuck by Ms. Owens' side for so long. Why aren't you reacting to the news?" I merely sneer as I toss my share transfer agreement to Cody. "A promotion isn't enough, is it? You can have these shares as your wedding gift."

During a game of Truth or Dare at a gathering with friends, my girlfriend, Bridget Ellison, loses. Her punishment is to buy coffee for everyone. Half an hour later, she returns carrying more than a dozen bags and starts handing out drinks with a smile. "Francis, you've been pulling all-nighters for two days straight. Here's your iced long black." "Daryl, you like java chip frappe with extra mocha sauce, right?" "And here's yours. Lemon black tea, no ice. You've ordered it hundreds of times." One by one, everyone gets their drink. By the time she reaches me, only an empty bag remains. Everyone at the table freezes. "Where's Aiden's drink?" She pushes her peach frappe toward me and says, "I forgot. He can just share mine." A friend immediately groans and complains, "It's the same every gathering. If you two want to show off how loving you are, can you at least come up with a new routine?" Everyone around us laughs and teases us, but I can't bring myself to even take a sip of the drink. I'm the only one who knows the truth. The display of affection is an act. In reality, she has truly forgotten to buy me a drink. After four years together, Bridget still can't remember that I'm allergic to peaches. I set the peach frappe back on the table. I've spent four years settling for less. Now, it's time for me to leave.

At the space agency's awards ceremony, my husband gave the honor that should have been mine to his first love, who had just returned from overseas. He accused me of plagiarism and rescinded my promotion in front of everyone. Everyone thought I would argue and make a scene, but I simply smiled and personally placed my work badge around his first love's neck. "A new position calls for a celebration, doesn't it? Why not make it a wedding? I'd be happy to officiate." They didn't know that I was the only one capable of drawing the rocket's design blueprints. Even the resources keeping the project alive had been secured because of my reputation and connections. This time, I wanted to see whether she really was the brilliant overseas-trained expert they claimed she was—or merely a pretty face with nothing to back it up.

My Black Friday live stream has pulled in over 500 million dollars. But on payday, my wife, Amber Shepherd, transfers every cent of my commission to her personal trainer, Darwin Whitley. Then, she tosses a voucher for an adult toy store at my feet. "There's your bonus. Throw in a little of your own cash, and it should cover a blow-up doll." Darwin slides an arm around Amber's waist and says provocatively, "That brand makes great condoms. Amber and I tried them out last night. You should check out their other stuff." I lose it and shout, "Amber Shepherd! My mom is in end-stage liver failure! That money was supposed to pay for her transplant! What the hell am I going to do with a voucher?" Amber just snuggles closer to Darwin and sneers at me. "A transplant? What are the odds of success? Why throw good money down the drain? Anyway, I've already cashed out the commission. Take the voucher and go play with yourself." Suddenly, a strange calm washes over me. She thinks she just won everything. She has no idea I still hold the exclusive contracts for every single supplier. I open the supplier backend management portal and blast a message to every group chat. "All partnerships are terminated effectively immediately. Contract termination fees will be billed to the signing parties."

At the company's annual design awards, my wife, Susie Miller, gives the grand prize to her male assistant, John Walker, who has only worked there for three months. My coworkers gasp in disbelief. "Mr. Lloyd, how could your design not even make the cut? I could've sworn you had the most votes." I look at Susie, who looks perfectly composed. She calmly looks up. "I'm the chief judge, and I have veto power. I have to appear impartial. Otherwise, people would accuse me of favoritism. Besides, John's design has a lot of potential. He just needs more experience." I stare at her in disappointment. "So, you'd rather sacrifice me? I stayed up night after night working on that design!" Susie frowns. "It's just a design. You can make another. You're blowing things out of proportion." It's the same thing all over again. I'm just tired at this point. "If you're always going to put everyone else first just for the sake of appearing impartial, then there's no reason for you to have a husband either," I say hoarsely. "Let's get a divorce. From now on, we'll go our separate ways."

At our company's tenth-anniversary party, my four childhood friends, who were also my business partners, slid a contract in front of me. "There's a serious PR crisis in Dayaka, and we need the whole team out there. "Pull this off, and we'll own this industry. "Cora, you've always been decisive. You're not going to back out just because there might be fighting, right?" Jared Blake wore his usual confident smile. Standing behind him was Faye Sterling, the illegitimate daughter the Sterling family had only recently brought home. I signed it right in front of them. As everyone cheered, Jared made me a promise. "Cora, once this is over and we're back, we'll get married." Later, I pushed open the conference room door. The projector was still hooked up to Jared's laptop, and on the screen was a group chat they'd forgotten to close. "Dayaka's settled?" "Done. One empty promise was all it took to get her to that hellhole. Now Faye can stay in Nova City and take over as senior partner, fair and square." "Jared's taking the biggest hit, though. He has to keep playing fiancé to that control freak." I stood in front of the screen, holding my files. Behind me, the door opened, and I heard the four of them laughing and talking as they crowded around their little princess. I turned around. The moment our eyes met, every smile in the room froze.

I struck a deal with the richest corporation on behalf of my company. My wife was the CEO, Natalie Ford, and she hurriedly said she would give me a villa as a reward. However, what I got was just a children's drawing of the villa. "Honey, the company is about to go public this year, and we're having trouble with capital turnover. I'll give you a large villa next year." Later, I came across the TikTok account of her male assistant. Morgan Shaw was showing off how Natalie had spent 300 million dollars to buy him a large penthouse in the business district. The caption was: [Those who truly love you will give you a warm home.] It turned out it was not that the company was short of funds; it was that she did not think it was worth it to spend that money on me. I saw that the commenters were full of envy for Morgan, so I liked and reposted the video. Immediately, people flooded his post with more comments. Less than a minute later, Natalia called anxiously. "Honey, have you misunderstood something? I bought Morgan a house just to make it easier for him to get to work. Hurry and remove your like and repost. "If you help him clarify things, I promise to go to your family's house for Christmas this year, okay?" She always broke her promises. This time, I refused to believe her again. "Forget it. Let's get a divorce."

I spend eight years being Ashton Clark's secret girlfriend, bending over backward for him like a maid. It takes the company's cleaning lady to finally make me see the truth. Late that night, while working overtime, I place some stomach medicine and a bowl of warmed seafood chowder on his desk. "Eat while it's warm, Mr. Clark. Don't let your stomach flare up again." His eyes stay glued to the financial reports on his screen. He doesn't even bother to grunt an acknowledgment. I reach out to push the bowl a little closer to his hand. Nearby, the cleaning lady emptying the trash suddenly stops. "Save it, sweetie. Mr. Clark already ate something someone else brought him. The fancy lunchbox is sitting right here in my bin." My hand freezes mid-air. Ashton's fingers pause over his keyboard, his brows knitting slightly. Even a woman in her 50s who just quietly cleans the office every day can tell that he doesn't love me. Looking down at that bowl of chowder, I suddenly feel like the last eight years of my life has been nothing but a joke. I pick up the bowl and dump it straight into the trash. "Right. Mr. Clark's tastes have changed." That's the last time I ever put him at the top of my list.

On the day of the business dinner, my boyfriend, Sebastian Lambert, makes up an excuse to send me away. He then has Laura Jensen, the woman he's never gotten over, take over the fashion design proposal I'm about to finish. She goes to the dinner in my place. By the time I get back, Laura has already replaced me as the lead on the project. Everyone expects me to lose it. Instead, I just smile and decide to hand Laura my job too. "It's just one proposal. You can have it. In fact, you can have my job as head designer too!" What none of them realizes is that the company only got this far because of my family's investment. The moment I walk away, my family will pull its funding. The company will be headed straight for bankruptcy, and Sebastian will be left covering all the losses and paying a huge amount in damages.

After my girlfriend returns from a month-long business trip with her first love, she notices that I've changed. She sides with him to take over my project, but I don't quit in anger. Instead, I throw myself into helping him, even drafting proposals for him. She destroys the design I worked so hard on to help him snag the year-end bonus, yet I don't try to defend myself. I take all the blame and let her punish me however she likes. Even when she goes as far as to promote him to general manager against the rules, I don't get upset. I hand over all my shares, letting her distribute them as she wishes. My girlfriend wonders why I've suddenly become so submissive, while her first love just grins smugly. "See? I told you—giving him the cold shoulder works. Once he's afraid of losing you, he'll fall in line," he says. It clicks for my girlfriend. She smiles, tells me I've been good, and offers me a promotion. Then, she unexpectedly asks me to propose. But she doesn't seem to realize that while we weren't speaking, she has already signed my resignation papers. And I've already broken up with her. From this moment on, I sever all ties with her, and we no longer have anything to do with each other.

On the day of the company’s annual meeting, Victoria Quinn brought a man onstage and publicly announced that he was the newly appointed vice president. All eyes in the room instantly turned to me. Mr. Lane looked at me with undisguised mockery. “Ms. Quinn, Mr. Cabell has been with the company for so many years. How did this promotion skip over him?” Victoria smiled casually. “Mr. Cabell is a pillar of the company. He’s most effective staying at the grassroots level.” I knew she was certain I would not object and that I would not leave her. When I glanced at the new vice president, I understood why. He looked exactly like her first love from college, the one who had died in an accident. Suddenly, I felt exhausted. I ripped off my ID badge, tossed it in front of Victoria, and said, “Ms. Quinn, I quit.”

I was the A-list celebrity in the country, the youngest actor ever to win all three major acting awards, and the man Monroe family's heiress treasured above everyone else. Zara Monroe had not only founded a talent agency dedicated to promoting me alone, but had even set aside her status as the heiress of the Monroe family to work as my personal assistant for love. Everyone in the industry knew that crossing me meant crossing the Monroe family. Yet no one could have imagined that in the latest S-tier film production, the male lead I had been all but guaranteed to play would be snatched away by an obscure actor barely known beyond the industry's bottom tier. People across the industry all placing bets on how long it would take before Zara had this newcomer, Kyson Bentley, blacklisted across the entire industry. But instead of a public takedown, they got an official announcement from Monroe Media. [Welcome to our company's second signed artist, @Kyson Bentley! Mr. Bentley will be partnering with Monroe Media from here on out. His future is full of promise.] The entire industry was shaken. Everyone mocked me for having fallen out of favor. The award-winning actor himself was now expected to play second fiddle to a newcomer. On set, I watched Kyson deliver a painfully amateurish performance. My face cold, I followed the and slapped him using a camera angle that made it look as though I had hit him. But Kyson clutched his cheek and fell to the ground, accusing me of using the scene to get revenge on him. Zara ordered her people to pin me down and made the production team add a hundred more slapping scenes to my schedule. By the time they were done, I had been slapped until I lost my hearing in my right ear. My face was so swollen that I was barely recognizable.

As I head to see my boyfriend, Howard Schultz, who is working late, I get into a car accident. I call him dozens of times for help, but he doesn't answer a single one. Staring at his brightly lit office building not far away, I sink into despair. When I wake up in the hospital, I see a post from his subordinate. It's a picture showing the reflection of the two of them in the glass door, standing far closer than they should, with the caption, "What do I do when my boss is scolding me late at night?" Unwilling to believe it, I call him again. This time, he finally answers. My voice trembles. "Howard, I got into a car accident…" "Celine, I'm still working. I'll send my assistant to take care of it, okay? Be good. I'll see you after I come back from my business trip." I try to say more, but his angry shout suddenly cuts through the line. "Crystal Jennings! You're only allowed to bring one suitcase for this trip. Why do you have three? Do you think we're going on vacation?" Crystal Jennings—the new intern Howard just hired. I stare at the disconnected call, tears drying on my cheeks. I then call my parents instead. "I agree to the engagement you arranged."

At the company's year-end awards ceremony, just as it is supposed to be my turn to go on stage and officially announce the relationship between my wife and me, my wife's first love suddenly proposes to her in front of everyone. Angela Reed does not refuse. Instead, she laughs brightly and promotes Samuel Hayden to the new department manager. Employees throughout the entire company cheer loudly for their romance. Seeing that I have no reaction, someone beside me cannot help but ask, "Ronald, you've worked for Ms. Reed for nine years. How can you show no response at all?" I smile as I walk onto the stage, take off my wedding ring, and toss it to Samuel. "How can you propose without preparing a ring? Here—it's yours."

The day I finally secured an investment worth over 20 million dollars, I walked into the office and immediately caught sight of that calculating assistant wearing a smug look as she spread gossip around. According to her, my husband, the CEO, was planning to strip me of my position and exile me to some forgotten branch in Northreach. Contract in hand, I headed straight for the CEO's office. I stood behind my husband and rubbed his temples while joking casually, "You won't believe what I just heard. Apparently, you're sending me off to a branch office. If only they knew we've been married in secret for seven years and are about to make it public." He didn't look surprised at all. He gently pushed my hand away and smiled. "It's not a rumor. Andrea messed up the last project, and the board is breathing down my neck. They want someone sent to Northreach, and they picked her. That place is brutal. She wouldn't survive it. She's not like you. She doesn't have the luxury of failure. If she goes there, her career is finished. She was my junior back in school. I can't let her life fall apart." He paused, then added softly, "Once you come back, I'll announce our marriage. And I'll make sure you get what you've always wanted. A child." I smiled, but it held no warmth. I turned around and walked out without another word. Before I reached the elevator, I made a call to his biggest competitor. "Looking for a vice president? I'm bringing 20 million dollars of funding with me. I only ask for one thing: Don't send me to Northreach."

I have an appointment with my client in 30 minutes to discuss a project. I'm just about to retrieve some important documents from the office when I realize there's no one around. I call the person in charge to ask what's going on, only for them to tell me, "The records room is locked. The entire company is off today." I'm utterly confused. "It's not a public holiday. Why isn't anyone working?" "It's… Mr. Harrington's decision," the person on the other end answers hesitantly. "He arranged a company outing today to celebrate Ms. Shaw's achievement." I'm stunned for a moment. "What achievement?" "Ms. Shaw just landed her first deal since joining the company. Mr. Harrington said this is great news and worth celebrating together." I almost laugh out loud. Joel Harrington is my husband, and Elodie Shaw is his first love. He recruits her into our company as soon as she's back in the country, claiming that it's only right to do so as a friend. The deal she lands brings in a profit of only a few tens of thousands, while the project I'm meeting my client to discuss in half an hour is worth millions in profit. "Where's the company outing being held?" I ask, suppressing my anger. The person goes silent for a moment before replying, "Right here at the office." I'm about to ask another question when a burst of laughter comes from outside the door. The next second, the office doors swing open. Joel and Elodie walk in side by side, standing so close that they're practically pressed against each other. Behind them, my colleagues follow with a cake, bouquets of flowers, and party poppers. A loud pop fills the air as confetti explodes above my head. The smiles on everyone's faces freeze the moment they see me.

The day the company is exposed for accounting fraud, my wife, Megan Grant, immediately holds a press conference to protect Liam Johnson. She shifts all the blame onto me, publicly declaring that I will be punished by the law. Liam puts on an act of heartbreak, saying, "Flynn, I warned you a long time ago that you can't just take the company's money. Why didn't you listen?" My coworkers stare at me in disbelief, expecting me to defend myself. Instead, I smile, take responsibility for everything, and resign. Megan thinks I've finally come to my senses and quietly promises me, "Once this blows over, I'll find a way to get your position back. I'll also tell everyone about our marriage. Consider it my way of making it up to you." However, there's one thing she doesn't know. In order to protect the company's interests, the chairman ordered me to install monitoring software on all the company's computers on the day we opened our doors. Once he retrieves those system logs, their lies will fall apart! When the truth comes to light, they won't just be facing massive financial fines; they'll be facing prison time too!

Unable to take it anymore, I upload a photo of my husband, Johann Garner, holding hands with his secretary, Eva Ford, to the company's group chat. A long while later, Johann finally replies, "It's just something we do when we're working together. Those who are vile in nature will always view things differently from others." Messages from his colleagues begin flooding the group chat immediately. They all discuss whether or not I'm delusional. But I'm the only one who knows just how skilled Johann is at manipulating others as an expert manipulator. After muting the group chat, I look down at the ring Johann has slipped onto my finger when he first proposed to me. When exactly can I escape from the prison he has built around me?

Tristan Moore, the low-income student whom my wife, Yvonne Zeller, has been sponsoring, tells her that he wishes to repay her for her benevolence. So, they end up spending long hours of passion in my laboratory. Because of that, the fluids they've left behind have tainted my experimental samples. On top of that, Tristan specifically texts me and makes me witness everything. I waste no time in barging into the laboratory. "Oh? Are you that poor that you can't afford a hotel room anymore, Ms. Zeller? Is that why you brought your side piece to my lab?" Yvonne wraps her top around her chest, her expression devoid of any guilt. "Get out. I'm the one who has invested in this lab, so I'm free to use it however I see fit. A leech like you don't get a say in this matter." I turn on my heel and walk away. That night, I hand over my new patent to Yvonne's older brother, Joshua Zeller. I'd like to see how Yvonne, who's still in the middle of fighting for the position as the heir, will still be able to stay calm after finding out about this.