Face Slapping Romance Short Stories & Novels

The day I was acknowledged as the real Sinclair heiress, Moon Sinclair, the fake heiress, stood before me with tears in her eyes and said she wanted to give the engagement back to me. I placed a hand over my stomach. I had only recently found out that I was pregnant. I said softly, “I don’t need it. I already have feelings for someone.” As soon as the words left my mouth, several lines of text suddenly appeared before my eyes. [This is hilarious. The so-called villain is turning down the engagement so confidently right now. Just wait until she sees the male lead. She’ll regret it immediately.] [But the male lead will still choose the heroine, the fake heiress. The villain will use her pregnancy to cling to him and refuse to let go.] [The heroine will eventually be driven to slash her wrists. Everyone in the family will despise the villain, and the male lead will hate her too. In the end, she and her baby will both die during childbirth.] I lowered my gaze. The whole thing felt absurd. How could I become obsessed with a man I had never even met? At that moment, I heard footsteps behind me. Moon wiped away her tears and hurried over. “Cameron, this is my sister. This engagement should have been hers from the beginning.” I turned around and met a pair of familiar eyes. He was the man who had supported me for the past five years. He was also the father of the baby in my womb.

I have been married to Andrew Connolly for four years, but whenever his gaze meets mine, there is no recognition at all. Even my voice doesn't register. He remembers everyone around him, yet the one person he never remembers is that I am his wife. If I put on a hat, he asks who I am. When I tie my hair up, he assumes I am a new hire at his company. To help him remember, I repeat the same outfit, the same makeup, the same hairstyle. Still, despite my daily presence, he treats me like a stranger. I tell myself Andrew is simply buried in work, that the neglect is accidental, right up until a concert night. I watch him cut through the crowd and embrace his first love, whom he has not seen in years. When the stage suddenly collapses, I seize his arm and beg, "Honey, please save me." Andrew shoves me away, his voice flat and cold. "You're not my wife. My wife is at home." I am crushed beneath the falling debris. Choking on blood, I can only watch as Andrew rescues his first love and walks away. That is when I realize it's not that he can't remember me, he just doesn't love me. The bodyguards drag me out of the wreckage. Later, I spend a month confined to bed with serious injuries. While I am in the hospital, I get a photo of Andrew kissing his first love. The blows land one after another and mercilessly jerk me awake. I am done with love, and I am done with him!

I was 10 minutes late to my own housewarming party. When I finally walked in, Wren Halley, the college girl my boyfriend, Austin Blanchard, had been supporting, was already chatting with my relatives like she owned the place. My parents sat at the head of the table, both of them looking furious. Austin walked over to me, looking completely relaxed. "What took you so long? Wren's been handling the guests for you." Everyone in the room went quiet. Wren moved behind him, almost shyly. As she shifted, her sleeve slid up and revealed an emerald bracelet on her wrist. It was my grandmother's jade bangle. Wren looked down. "I'm sorry, Lily. I've never been somewhere this beautiful before. I just thought I could help." Austin quickly stepped between us. "She's never had a chance to experience this kind of life. Let her enjoy it for one night. You don't have to make everything a big deal." I looked from him to the bracelet on her wrist and chuckled. Apparently, Austin had forgotten something important. This penthouse with its sweeping view of Bellmere belonged to only one person, and that person was me.

Five minutes before the ceremony, I called off the wedding. In my last life, right in the middle of our vows, Sandra Crowe suddenly demanded another 300 thousand dollars as a "marriage guarantee." She pulled out her phone in front of everyone, chin tipped up, a payment screen glowing. "Three hundred thousand! Not a dollar less, or I'm not putting on that ring." Ten years together, and we were right at the finish line. I forced myself to go through with it and transferred the money. It was what Dad had scraped together over two years for his kidney transplant. That same night, his condition crashed. I went to Sandra and asked if she could lend me the money back for his treatment. She yelled at me instead. "You're asking me for money on our wedding night? Seriously? That 300 grand is mine! Don't even think about touching it!" Dad missed his window and died in the hospital hallway. The day he died, Sandra was out shopping with her friends, dropping thousands on a Chanel bag without a second thought. "Good. One less burden. At least he won't drag us down anymore." When I filed for divorce, she brought her guy friend to the funeral and made a scene, knocking over Dad's urn and damaging the headstone. Then she turned around and accused me of sexual assault, demanding 500 thousand in damages. Mom couldn't take it. She drank pesticide and died. On my way to pursue the case, I was hit by a car. When I opened my eyes again, I called off the wedding. Then Sandra stepped closer, already pulling up her payment screen. "Transfer me three hundred thousand as a marriage guarantee, or we're not getting married." I tossed the ring into the trash. "Works for me."

I spent countless sleepless nights developing a breakthrough drug for a devastating illness, and I expected at least some recognition from my CEO girlfriend. Instead, she accused me of wasting the company research budget and promoted a newly hired young assistant to oversee the company finances. It was the middle of a brutal heatwave with temperatures that soared past ninety-eight degrees. The assistant locked the lab air-conditioning controls away so no one else could use them, while he shut himself inside his private office with the AC set to sixty degrees. He wrapped himself in a blanket and played video games. I complained to my girlfriend, and she brushed it off as part of building company culture. She claimed she gave him authority for my own good because she believed it would prepare me for a future management position. According to her, I was too narrow-minded to understand her intentions. She then shut off the lab main power supply and locked the control panel as if she wanted to teach me a lesson. The fans stopped working, and the heat grew worse. Several coworkers collapsed from heat exhaustion and were taken to the hospital. The assistant posted photos of himself and my girlfriend at an indoor ski resort. They wore winter jackets and ate ice cream together. The caption read, “Some people are sweeter than ice cream.” I finally understood everything. Her idea of company culture had never been anything more than an excuse to favor him. Everyone expected me to confront her or demand an explanation. I packed up my things instead. She mistook my silence for obedience. She believed her air-conditioning punishment had worked, and she promised that once she returned from closing her business deal, she might consider letting me enjoy the AC again. She did not know that when she shut down the lab power, the research equipment stopped running. The drug we had just finished developing became unstable, and the experimental data was destroyed. By the time the delivery deadline arrived, there would be no formula left to hand over. She would face a catastrophic breach-of-contract lawsuit and enormous financial penalties. Without access to the medication in time, she would also suffer permanent long-term complications from the illness we had tried to treat.

Five years after moving abroad, I return to the country for the first time at the invitation of a business partner. My partner sends a reliable assistant to meet me at the company entrance. I never expect to see my ex, Roy Henderson, who disappeared without a trace five years ago. Back then, a car accident lands me in the hospital. I need his signature, but he is nowhere to be found. Later, I find out he has gone to celebrate his lover's birthday. Everyone assumes I will forgive him like I always do. After all, I have forgiven him countless times before. As soon as I get out of the hospital, I leave the country and disappear from his life completely. Roy frowns as I walk into the company. "You actually tracked me down?" He lets out a sigh. "Forget it. Since you've found me anyway, Ava just had a baby and is still in postpartum recovery. Go take care of her."

Ten years ago, my ex-wife, Hailey Anderson, secretly signed an organ donation agreement without my knowledge. She donated the heart of our son, Jayden Smith, to her lover, Seth Parker’s dying son, Charlie Parker. When I arrived at the hospital, Jayden’s body was already in the cold morgue. Hailey was waiting outside another ward. She teared up in joy when Charlie regained his heartbeat. On the day of Jayden’s burial, I signed the divorce agreement. Then, I changed my name and left the city. After ten years of excruciatingly hard work, I specialized in cardiovascular surgery. Other than inventing the first fully implantable artificial heart, I also became the top surgeon globally. Many wealthy people begged me to save their lives. One day, my assistant, Finn Reid, passed me the latest emergency name list for a heart transplant. The first patient in need of a heart was Charlie. Charlie was in a critical condition due to an acute rejection of Jayden’s stolen heart. I was the only doctor who was able to carry out that surgery. Without expression, I picked up my red pen and slashed a big cross on his application form. “I’m not operating on this patient.”

Sasha Barlow receives a call from Aidan Gallagher when she leaves the hospital after getting an abortion. He says, "Get ready. Mr. Conley is coming tonight, so bring five bottles of whiskey and three bottles of red wine." Sasha subconsciously clenches her hand around her phone. "Can I skip tonight?" Aidan pauses. "I know you're angry about yesterday, Sasha. Natalie hit you yesterday, but I reprimanded you instead of helping. "You need to remember that she's my girlfriend, though. She comes from a good family, and her parents have always treated her like a princess. She's bound to be a little willful and spoiled. You're older than her, so cut her some slack."

At our bachelor party, Harry Cole, my fiance and I played Truth or Dare with his friends. We spun the bottle, and it stopped in front of Joanna, a woman he had known since childhood. The dare was to do the deed with the person placed right next to you, and Harry had been sitting beside her the entire evening. Feeling uncomfortable, I quickly said, “Why don’t you just pick Truth instead of Dare?” Joanna, however, did not back down. She sent me a look full of contempt and replied, “Don’t be such a prude, Suzie. It’s not that big of a deal. If I don’t mind, why should you?” She then looked at Harry. “Do you mind, Harry?” Everyone around us started cheering them on. Someone said, “Suzie can’t have fun to save her own life. If Harry doesn’t want to, I will gladly do it. Pick me, Joanna!” I grabbed Harry’s hand and turned to leave, but he flung my hand off. “What about Joanna? She has no one to help her if I leave. We’re about to get married, Suzie. Can’t I have one last night of freedom?” After saying that, he pinned Joanna under him, and his friends just cheered even more. I stared at him and Joanna. At that moment, I no longer saw a future for us.

On my seventh wedding anniversary, I personally whip up a nice feast. But my husband, Davis Stark, only takes a few bites before telling me that he has something urgent to deal with at the company. I trail behind him the whole time, only to witness him walk into a fancy banquet hall, where a banquet is being held for his newborn fraternal twins. Davis even produces a black card and gives it to his secretary, Sonia Robertson, in a solemn manner. "Thank you for your hard work, Sonia. In the future, I will give all of my assets to the children." Sonia's expression lights up immediately. Then, she presses her lips against Davis' happily. "It's an honor to be able to give birth to your children, Mr. Stark." I let out a cold chuckle as I open the banquet hall's door. I want to see how on earth is Sonia capable of giving birth to Davis' children when he's already infertile, to begin with.

In the fifth year of her marriage, Natalie Shaw is taken to the police for the 199th time after being mistaken for a mistress. Someone comes to bail her out. Her face is covered in scratches and blood. A chunk of her hair has been ripped out, exposing raw, bleeding skin. It's a horrifying sight. She cries from the pain. But soon, she goes numb. She sits in the chair in silence, trying to untangle her hair, which has been clumped together by thick, sticky blood. Only when a police officer hands her a document and tells her she is free to leave does she slowly lift her head. And sure enough, the person who has come to bail her out is not her husband, Adrian Carter.

During a street interview, the interviewer asks, "What's the craziest thing you did in high school?" My best friend, Juniper Young, looks shyly into the camera. "I secretly changed someone's college applications so we'd end up at the same college." My childhood sweetheart, Flynn Sadler, takes over the microphone and smiles casually. "I left the last question on the math exam blank, so when someone changed my college applications, they wouldn't have to feel so sorry for me." Carrying three orders of omelet rolls, I hurry back and fall flat on my face. Their answers stun me. Before I can gather my thoughts, Flynn reaches over and ruffles my hair. "Don't ask her. If she can't answer, she'll end up crying." My nose stings, and tears well up in my eyes before I can stop them. Juniper immediately grabs Flynn by the ear. "You idiot. You made Sophie cry again! This time, you're the one who's going to make it up to her!" He winces in pain. "Alright, my bad… But she's so timid. The chances of her doing something crazy are lower than the chances of her not following us around everywhere." The two of them shove each other, laughing and bickering. Before long, they have forgotten I'm still there. The day we submit our college applications, they have each come to me, asking where the other has applied. Out of a one-minute audio message, only the very first second has anything to do with me. The remaining 59 seconds are all about each other. So, naturally, they have no idea that I have also done something crazy. I have submitted my application to my dream university abroad. From now on, our paths will finally diverge. I will never trail behind them again.

I grew up alongside the three most powerful young CEOs in Ashford. They once said that anyone who made me shed a single tear would never work in Ashford again. But today, because of a broke college student, they shoved me into an icy lake in fourteen-degree weather. "Vivienne, you're so dramatic. A little cold water won't kill you." Harrison stood on the shore, his expression ice-cold. "But Chloe can't handle being hurt." I shivered uncontrollably as I watched them gather that girl into their arms. The same men who used to panic if I so much as frowned now looked at me with nothing but disgust. I climbed onto the bank. I didn't cry or make a scene. I simply pulled out my phone and dialed the number I'd refused countless times before. "Mr. Thorne, I accept the marriage arrangement." Three days later, when the private jet of the country's richest man arrived for me, they chased it like they'd lost their minds. What they didn't know was that Damian Thorne, the ruthless, supposedly disabled head of the Thorne family, could walk perfectly well. He was also someone none of their families could afford to cross. As for me, I would never look back.

My boyfriend suddenly posted something on his Instagram. [I’ve offered my body and soul to the country.] I was about to ask what he meant when he sent me a plane ticket to the northwest. He explained that the mission was confidential and that he could not be in contact with me during this time. Ten months passed. He was supposed to be away, but he came home unexpectedly and caught me at a prenatal checkup. When he saw my eight-month-pregnant belly, his face turned pale with anger. “I’ve been gone for ten months. How are you pregnant?” I shrugged and said, “Weren’t you supposed to be gone for three years? Why are you back after just ten months?”

My boyfriend's tablet, left behind at my place, suddenly lit up with a group chat notification. "Ron, that gold digger's totally hooked, right? When are you taking her to the luxury boutique so we can humiliate her in public?" "Everything's ready. We're just waiting to film her fawning over the designer goods like the greedy little gold digger she is. The guys are gonna love it!" The group chat was called "Exposing Gold Diggers." And my boyfriend Ron was the one who'd created it. I opened the tablet and scrolled through the message history. Screen after screen of vile, disgusting garbage. My blood boiled with every word. So that so-called love at first sight at the designer boutique had been a setup from the very start. He'd spent the better part of a year carefully worming his way into my life, showering me with attention, all while treating me like prey, waiting for the perfect moment to humiliate me for an audience. What a joke. I was the real deal, a genuine heiress from one of the wealthiest families in the country. The gifts he'd gone to such lengths to give me? I couldn't have cared less about any of them. If he was so obsessed with playing people, then I'd give him a taste of his own medicine! Let him see what it felt like to be the one getting played!

Right before my sugar daddy’s untouchable first love was about to return, he told me to get along with her. “She knows about us?” I ask. David nodded. “I told her. Anyway, we’ll be living together.” I take a sharp breath. After all, was this first love really that open-minded? As a diligent and professional sugar baby, I’d do my absolute best to win her over. [Baby, I’m David’s sugar baby. The three of us living well together is what matters most.] [Baby, don’t worry. I have a very high tolerance for morally questionable situations!] We chatted enthusiastically for an entire month until she returned. Wait. Wasn’t the man standing in front of me, over six feet tall, David’s sworn enemy?

My husband's childhood sweetheart kills my parents in an accident due to drunk driving. I want to call the police, but my husband blindfolds me and takes me to the cellar. I'm tormented and subjected to inhumane treatment for the next three years. After each torture session, an icy male voice will ring out in my ear. "Do you still hate her, Sabrina?" One day, I finally cave and submit to the icy voice. "No, I don't. I don't hate her anymore!" I hear my husband's joyous laughter on the other end of the line. On the day he welcomes me out of the cellar, I avoid his embrace. Yet he loses his mind when I ask him for a divorce.

When I'm paying the pension for my jobless wife, Lilith Ingram, I accidentally find out that she's had a job this whole time. She's paid a salary of two thousand dollars, which is wired into her personal bank account. Every month, the money will be transferred elsewhere, leaving her without a single cent. I've never seen the money before. Back when our daughter, Maisy Ingram, was severely ill, we were 200 dollars short to pay for her hospital bills. I was so poor that I had to sell my blood and beg everyone around me just to get them to lend me money. But during that time, Lilith never thought of sharing the burden with me. She merely comforted me with empty words before transferring two thousand dollars to her first love, Hayden Grant, the next day. Our marriage of 30 years is reduced to nothing but a laughingstock. I place the divorce agreement that I've printed out in front of Lilith. It's a silent confrontation between us. "Must you really resort to this method?" Lilith snaps impatiently. "It's just two thousand dollars! You have an annual salary of 200 thousand dollars! Why care so much about chum change?" Even Maisy takes her side by calling me a petty, stingy geezer. "Everyone has an unattainable first love when they're still young! You should be grateful that Hayden has been holding back his urges without crossing the line for so many years!" I feel as though I got struck by lightning at that moment. It's then that I belatedly realize I'm the only outsider in this family. "Getting a divorce is fine by me. Hayden's getting on with the years. I just want to take care of him and send him off when his time eventually arrives." Maisy adapts a righteous tone. "As compensation for me, I get the house, the car, and the savings. You're leaving this marriage without a single cent under your name."

I once believed mutual respect was the bare minimum in a political marriage. My fiancé, Cassian Blackwell, Duke of Northmere, proved how foolish that belief was. On the day of our engagement ceremony, his childhood sweetheart stole the necklace I had chosen and threatened me with the Blackwell protection crest he had personally given her. I called Cassian and asked him to handle it. He hung up before I could tell him who I was. When he finally arrived, he ordered his guards to force me to my knees and gave her permission to do whatever she wanted. She slapped me, kicked me, and cut off my hair while Cassian watched without lifting a finger. To him, I was nothing more than a bargaining piece my family had offered for an alliance. What he didn’t know was that the Blackwells had surrendered three of their richest estates for the privilege of marrying me—or that my brother was the Crown Prince of Aurelia. Ten minutes later, the royal guard sealed off the street. Only then did Cassian realize the woman kneeling at his feet was Aurelia’s only princess—the bride his family had sacrificed everything to obtain.

On April Fool’s Day, my CEO husband cut out my heart to save his childhood sweetheart's son. After the surgery, he tossed me into a cold rental apartment, where I died in agony. Three days after my death, my five-year-old daughter played in the room as usual. Walking by the sofa, she wrinkled her little nose and mumbled, "Mommy, there's a weird smell in here." She touched my face and murmured, "Mommy, are you pretending to be Snow White? Why are you so pale?" She shook my arm harder and raised her voice, "Mommy, it's my birthday today—get up and blow out the candles!" Confused, she picked up the phone and called her father. “Daddy, did I make Mommy mad? I lit the candles, but no matter how much I call her, she won’t wake up.” On the other end of the call, Patrick Hart’s voice was cold and impatient. “What could possibly be wrong with her? She’s just pretending to be asleep for sympathy. It’s Johnny’s birthday, I’m busy. Don’t bother me! Tell your melodramatic mother to stop playing her little tricks. I don't have time to humor her." My daughter removed the candle from her bun, pinched off a piece of the bun, and fed it to me. "Mommy, I made a secret wish… I really wish you could hold me again, just like before."