Historias cortas de After Death Romance y novelas ambientadas en Fake Death

On the eve of our engagement party, my fiancé, Andrew Graham, dies. According to the police, his car crashed through the guardrail and plunged into the river. The only thing they managed to find was a bloodstained watch. The Graham family pins all the blame on me. "If Andrew hadn't gone out to buy you a ring, would he have gotten into this accident?" "You're nothing but a jinx! As if it weren't bad enough that you cursed your parents to death, but now, you've even cursed your fiancé!" Andrew's best female friend, Katherine Yangley, has tears spilling down her cheeks as she plays the last voice recording he made. "Don't end your life for me. Live on well." I kneel before his coffin, hugging his watch, for three whole days. On the fourth morning, I drink some industrial herbicide, put on his favorite white dress, and head to the river alone. "Andrew, I'm coming to you." I have barely started to climb over the guardrail when cheers abruptly come from beneath the bridge. Katherine rushes over to me while clapping her hands gleefully. She is laughing so hard that tears roll down her face. "I won! I knew that she would come! Andrew, she actually believed it! She was genuinely going to jump into the river to end her life so that she could be reunited with you!" The crowd parts to reveal Andrew, who walks over with a bouquet of roses. His white shirt is so pristine that it's almost blinding to look at. He focuses his attention on Katherine first, saying in an indulgent tone, "Are you finally satisfied? No more kicking up a fuss in the future, okay?" Latching onto his arm, Katherine asks smugly, "Well, I contributed a lot by helping you test her true feelings for you, didn't I?" "Yes, you did," Andrew answers with a smile. "You like that wedding ring I picked out, right? Then as a reward, you can wear it for one week." Only then does he hand me the bouquet of roses. "Are you surprised? Kathy was just feeling rather upset that you snatched me away from her, so I decided to go along with her this once and let her have her fun. You don't mind, do you? Now that it's been proven that you truly love me, we can get married." Realization dawns on me. The car accident, the voice recording—all of that is fake. It's all simply part of a terrible prank Katherine thought up to satisfy her vindictiveness. As for Andrew, he did nothing but stand by while she put my life on the line. Agonizing pain shoots through me from my stomach. I shake my head. "Forget it. I can't go back anymore."

I came home a day early from my business trip and hid in the closet to surprise Eric Carter. At seven, he told the housekeeper to cook several dishes. At nine, he told me hoarsely that he had taken a bath and changed the bedsheets in my room. He was sure that I would love it. I did not believe him because I had heard him moaning in bed with Willow Summers for three hours from the closet. Willow Summers was his childhood sweetheart and my sister. I clicked on a webpage from my cell without hesitation. "Miss Summers, your appointment for creating a fake death has been confirmed. Time of Death: One week later Location of Death: The wedding hall on the top floor of the Century Building Cause of Death: Suicide from jumping off a building!"

On the day I donated my kidney, I never thought my wife, Rebecca Tanner, would cut open her own heart and confess her regrets. After all, she had staged her own death in a bombing, all so she and Mason Sanders could test my loyalty. All she left me was two billion in gambling debt and a contract selling me into slavery. The creditor said they would leave her body in the grave and spare it from being fed to the hyenas. But to do that, I had to sign a contract with my blood and become their pet from then on. After that, I was locked in an iron cage beneath an underground fighting ring. By day, they chained me up and forced me to lick the blood from the winners' shoes. At night, they injected me with drugs and threw me into the fighting ring, turning me into a living toy for the wealthy to bet on. One broken rib doubled the stakes. One lost tooth added another ten thousand dollars. When I heard that my parents had been stripped and thrown into the mouth of a volcano alive, I broke completely. Covered in blood, I snapped the iron chain and rushed to the volcano. Instead, I found my "dead" wife gently lighting Mason's cigarette. Mason puffed out a ring of smoke and sneered. "We still have ten seconds left on the bet, Rebecca. You've lost."

After my family went bankrupt, my husband, Felix Skye, paid the price. The debt collectors drowned him in the river. To pay off the debt, I took a job at an underground casino as a human punching bag. Every punch I took earned me five dollars. Then one night, I was sent to deliver drinks to a private room. Through the crack in the door, I saw Felix, my husband who was supposed to be dead, sitting at the head of the table and slowly savoring a glass of fine red wine. "It's been more than three years since I last saw Avery. I wonder how she's doing." My supposedly bankrupt mother, Ivy Schotz, sat there dripping in gold and jewels. She sighed. "She'll just hide away and grieve for a few years. Once she's over it, she can remarry. "No matter what," Mom went on, "as long as she believes you're dead, you and Riley can finally live in peace." Riley Mackenzie was the daughter my mother had with her first love. Every face in that room was familiar, including my best friend and the very "enemies" who had supposedly killed Felix. It had all been an act from start to finish. The only thing real was the three years of hell I'd lived through. Holding twenty bottles of beer, I smiled and shook my head. Once I scraped together enough money for my coffin, they would all be free.