Familial Bond Romance 短篇故事與小說

【What should I do if I’ve fallen in love with my sister’s fiancé?】 I came across an Instagram post from an account with a default profile picture on my flight back to New York. The comments were brutal, each one harsher than the last. Then I saw a reply from a burner account: 【Don’t blame her. I was the one who led her on.】 【She acts tough, but she’s more fragile than anyone. I just can’t help feeling sorry for her.】 My finger froze on the screen, because the profile picture on that account was the cat my boyfriend, Vincent, had given me. With trembling fingers, I opened the poster’s profile. There was only one video on it. In the video, a woman had her back to the camera as she bent down to water a nearly dead plant, a silver bracelet on her wrist. It was the matching bracelet mom had left for my sister Clara and me before she died. For a long moment, I could barely breathe. Suddenly, I thought back to the first time I brought Vincent home to meet Clara. After one failed relationship, Clara had decided all men were the same. She looked at Vincent coldly and said, “He’s no different from the rest. One day, he’ll betray you too.” Vincent held my hand then and said, each word clear and steady, “If I ever betray Nora, may I lose everything.” Clara only scoffed, “Then we’ll see.” But if all of this was true, I was caught between the sister who had raised me and the man I had loved for five years. What was I supposed to do?

On the first day of summer break, my husband, Alfred Manning, cancels the family trip I have booked again. He reasons that his childhood sweetheart, Edna Moore, has just gotten divorced. She needs a trip to Flordale with her son to clear their heads. Alfred finds her pitiful, so that is how the trip my daughter, Bella Manning, has spent two semesters earning with her gold stars turns into another child's vacation. Hugging her stuffed animal, Bella looks up at me with tear-filled eyes and asks, "Is Daddy not coming again?" The word "again" makes my heart throb in pain. Alfred wires some money into my account and sends a soothing voice note. "Just take Bella to a local park or something. She's just a kid, so it's the same to her no matter where she goes." Meanwhile, Edna posts a photo on X, showing Alfred cradling her son in his arms. "You don't need a biological bond to be the best dad in the world." It hits me then that Bella and I are the only ones working hard to protect this family. That night, I change our family passes into two one-way tickets that are bound for the new city where I'm relocated for work. "What about Daddy's pass?" I tear the canceled boarding pass into shreds. "He has already made his choice."

My husband was like a broken record. His answer was always the same. "I can't leave." On our wedding anniversary, he said he couldn't leave because he had to take Natalie Rivers out and cheer her up. When I miscarried, he couldn't leave because he had to take Natalie to therapy. Even when my mother died, he still gave me the same answer. "I really can't leave. Natalie's depression has come back, and she can't be alone." Still weak after my miscarriage, I kept vigil alone for three days. That was when I finally understood. To him, neither our baby's life nor my mother's life mattered. My relatives were shocked to see me handling everything alone. "Josh really isn't coming?" After saying my final goodbye to my mother, I stood up and answered calmly. "No. He doesn't have that obligation anymore."

My mom's dying wish was simple. She wanted to meet the guy I'd been with for eight years. That day, I called Tyler Carlton sixty-seven times. Not once did he pick up. Mom was already gone by the time his text came in. [The project's locked down right now. I can't leave. When things calm down, I'll come see your mom.] I held Mom's cold hand, my fingers shaking over the screen. [Okay.] Then, that night, I found the video. Tyler stood in a white suit at some fancy riverfront restaurant. Beside him was another woman, smiling softly as he held a birthday cake. The caption said: [Four years after graduation, I'm finally back by your side. Happy birthday, Vivian.] The comments were packed with congrats. I knew a lot of the names. Then someone asked: [So you two finally got your happy ending?] I stared at the screen, my chest going tight. Then I replied: [They got their happy ending. I was just the extra who didn't know.]

Adrian Vance and I had been secretly married for ten years, and I had always been his perfect wife. He was the president of a hospital. But lately he'd fallen in love with playing broke. I asked him to pick up blackberries; he came home with bananas and a sad little story about money. I needed a ride to my own surgery; he drove me there rattling along in a beat-up van, because the van fit the part. And when our daughter was dying and the one person who could save her was him, he looked a stranger in the eye and swore he was nobody, just an assistant, certainly not the hospital's president. That was the moment it finally landed. He hadn't drifted into an affair on a whim. He had chosen, with his whole heart, to walk away from his wife and his child. Fine. I'd take our daughter and clear the way for his great love.

On my way home after a night shift, my wife, Lilian Jones, the associate chief of neurosurgery, suddenly called. "Honey, Garrett Lowe in Room 9 has suffered a ruptured cerebral aneurysm. You're the only surgeon in the hospital who can perform this operation. Come back now!" In my previous life, I did not hesitate. I made a U-turn and sped back to the hospital. However, by the time I burst into the operating room, Garrett was already dead on the table. Right in front of his family and the entire surgical team, Lilian slapped me across the face and insisted that my surgical error had cost Garrett his life. The hospital immediately suspended me from clinical duties, stripped me of my position as an attending neurosurgeon, and suspended my medical license for six months. Three days later, Garrett's family ambushed me outside the emergency department and stabbed me to death in broad daylight. Only after I died did I learn the truth. To give surgical resident Ethan Smith a chance to gain hands-on experience, Lilian violated hospital protocol and allowed him to take the lead in the operation. His inexperience cost Garrett his life, and I was nothing more than the scapegoat they sacrificed to cover it up. Less than a week after my funeral, the two of them moved in together openly. A few years later, they even became the hospital's model couple, admired and envied by everyone. "The patient's already under anesthesia, and the OR is fully prepped. Where are you?" Lilian's voice came through the phone again in this life, her barely concealed panic impossible to miss. I fell silent for a moment before answering in a hoarse voice, "Okay. I'll be right there."

Before my wife went into labor, a nurse handed me a stack of consent forms. Buried among them was an optional prenatal paternity screening offered through St. Briar Medical Center's new genetic-services program. I'd barely started signing when my mother-in-law, Margaret, charged at me and slapped me across the face. "You monster! My daughter is risking her life to give you a child, and you want a DNA test?" Before I could explain, the hospital-room door flew open. Vanessa pressed a pair of medical scissors against her neck, her eyes bloodshot. "Daniel, I've given you seven years of my life. You know who this baby's father is. Why would you humiliate me like this?" When I saw the thin line of blood on her throat, my heart broke, and I dropped to my knees. I tore up the testing form and ordered my attorney to draft an unconditional agreement transferring assets to the baby. To comfort her, I drove across Aldercrest searching for her favorite honey-lavender shortbread. But when I returned to the hospital room, I heard laughter inside. "Vanessa, thank God we reacted quickly. If he'd signed that testing form, everything would've been over." "Why worry? Daniel's an idiot. I only have to cry, and he believes me." Then a familiar male voice said, "Once the birth certificate gives the child the Raleigh name, everything Daniel owns will belong to the three of us." The words froze me outside the door. I turned away and called my attorney. "Cancel the agreement. Then hire an investigator and uncover everything." At the baby's welcome reception, I would personally present Vanessa with the gift she deserved.

Just after I finish a meeting, the parents' group chat for my daughter's kindergarten suddenly buzzes with activity. Someone shares a viral post. The poster writes, "A daughter is always her daddy's sweetheart. She's already using her allowance to buy her dad a birthday present! I wonder who my gentle, wealthy little princess will marry someday." The one who shares the post adds excitedly in the comments, "She's the one and only successor to the Webb family in Jemton! She's a true heiress!" The parents in the group chat eagerly offer their sycophantic compliments. They can hardly wait to offer their own sons as potential suitors for the little girl. But I'm puzzled. Other than my wife, Lucy Webb, I don't think there is any other family with the surname Webb in Jemton. Then, I open the photo attached to the post and instantly freeze. The sweet little girl smiling as she holds the gift is unmistakably my daughter, Emilia Webb, whom I personally drive to and from kindergarten every single day.

It was my daughter's first day of kindergarten, but she was nowhere to be found. My wife's first love texted me. "Guess where your daughter is." This was already the fourth time Donald Shaw had played a cruel joke like this. On the day Claire Wilson and I went official, he told me she got into a car crash. I cried as I ran nearly two miles through the freezing night to reach her. When the truth came out, Donald hid behind Claire and laughed. "Just a prank. I only wanted to see how much you loved her." On the day of our wedding, he took Claire away and disappeared with her for twenty-four hours, leaving me alone to face the guests' mockery and her parents' anger. The next day, he came back holding her arm and said casually, "I just wanted to play a little game." When Tina was born, he came with a fake DNA test and said she was his. Only after I was overwhelmed with rage and ended up in the hospital did he finally reveal the real report. Every single time, my wife protected him like a heartbroken girl defending her first love. Then she would turn around and scold me. "He's just a bit childlike. Don't be so serious." And now, that bastard was using my daughter as the punchline of his latest joke. I was shivering with fury and I called my wife. But Claire only said impatiently, "He just wants to play hide and seek. Stop crying already." Then she hung up. My eyes stayed fixed on the screen. It showed my daughter's location. And right now, she was in the middle of a river.

My wife is sitting on a talk show and announces that she's already divided up every asset under her name. The host jokes that she must have left her husband and daughter a massive fortune, but my wife smiles gently and shakes her head. "I only left them enough to get by," she says. "Everything else goes to my adopted son. It's a promise I made to his father. I stood at his grave and promised his son would never have to worry about a thing." I'm standing in the kitchen, cooking for the two kids, and my hands go still. My eyes lift to the TV screen. The woman on it is going on and on about the man she lost, like she could talk about him forever, until the host finally cuts in. "Does your husband know about this?" She blinks in surprise for just a moment, but the smile on her face doesn't falter. "He won't object. He's been great with my adopted son all these years. Honestly, he's better at it than any nanny we could've hired." I untie my apron and walk out of the kitchen. My daughter is crouching on the floor, picking up toys for the boy. I gather her into my arms and carry her back to her room. Five years, and I've had enough. If nothing in this family belongs to me and my daughter, then whoever wants the nanny job can have it.

My girlfriend, Aria Zimmer, only agreed to marry me after I transferred one million dollars to her. My parents took the train from our hometown to discuss the marriage arrangements. We had to wait for three hours at the restaurant before Aria finally answered the phone. “What’s the rush? My mom’s facial treatment isn’t finished yet. You small-town folks always make such a big deal out of everything.” I felt so dejected that I even forgot to hang up. That was when I heard her mother, Jesicca, speak on the other end of the line. “Good job, sweetie. That’s exactly how you keep him in line. Otherwise, once you’re married, he’ll forget who’s the boss. Besides, he has already given you every penny he has, and you’re pregnant. He can’t run away now.” Through the blaring speakerphone, my parents lowered their heads in embarrassment. Out of nowhere, a desperate child’s voice echoed in my mind. “Dad, don’t marry her! And don’t let her give birth to me!” I shuddered and looked around frantically. “I’m your future daughter. I’ve returned to the past. Back then, you gave in and married Mom. Her mom hated that I was a girl, so she locked me outside in the middle of winter until I froze to death. Grandpa tried to stand up for me, but they broke his legs too. Dad, run!” After the child’s voice faded, I broke out in a cold sweat. At that moment, my father’s eyes welled up in tears as he tremblingly took my arm and said, “Philip, let’s just go home. We may not have much, but we can’t let ourselves be treated like this.” I took my parents’ hands and said resolutely, “Okay. Mom, Dad, let’s go home tomorrow. I’m calling off the wedding.”

"Daddy, I want to see Mommy," my son, Simon Lloyd, murmurs after he regains consciousness on the hospital bed. I freeze for a moment and instinctively look toward the hospital room door. No one is there. Yesterday, after Simon came out of the operating room, my wife, Selena Aston, held his hand and said, "Don't worry. I'll be right outside waiting for you. I'm not going anywhere." Why is she nowhere in sight? I begin to panic and pull out my phone to call her, but there's no answer. Just then, I see a new photo posted on Instagram. Her male colleague, Joe Carter, is the one who posted it. The caption reads, "I'd like to thank a certain someone for filling the role of a mother in my daughter's life." In the photo, Selena is wearing matching outfits with Joe's daughter, Katy Carter. She holds Katy in her arms while smiling brightly the whole time. They look like a happy family of three. That is, if Selena weren't my wife at all.

"Mommy, can I stop being a Lawson?" My daughter has a peanut allergy. We always kept an EpiPen at home. But on her birthday, my husband took the only one and gave it to his first love's son. He said, "Tommy's school has a field trip. Serena's worried something might happen. What's the big deal about lending it?" Later, my daughter accidentally ate peanut butter. Her face turned blue and she couldn't breathe. I rushed her to the hospital and called my husband seventeen times. He didn't answer. His first love's son had just won first place in a speech contest. He was in the audience, taking photos of the two of them. When my daughter woke up, her first words weren't "Where's Daddy?" She just clutched the hem of my shirt and whispered, "Mommy, can I stop being a Lawson?" I looked at the needle marks on the back of her hand and nodded. "Yes." "From now on, you'll have Mommy's last name."

Before the holiday ticket rush started, my fiancée, Lisa Jetrow, and I had agreed to go back to my hometown for the holidays. A minute before the train tickets went up for sale online, her phone suddenly rang. Her male assistant's voice was trembling on the phone, sounding flustered. "Ms. Jetrow, what should I do? My mom sprained her ankle, but my signal's terrible so I can't buy tickets to go home..." I was totally focused, double-checking all the info in the last thirty seconds. But Lisa suddenly grabbed my phone, deleted all my travel details, and keyed in her assistant's details instead. When she tossed my phone back to me, she and her assistant had successfully booked tickets, and the destination was his hometown. All the other tickets were already sold out. "Are you out of your mind? You promised my grandma..." "His hometown is really far, so he can't wait. I'll explain to your grandma later." I was speechless. My grandma was critically ill, and she wanted to see her grandson and future granddaughter-in-law one last time. Lisa had only reluctantly agreed to go back with me after I'd asked her three times. But she wasn't going back to my hometown now. She gave that precious ticket to someone else. Taking a deep breath, I opened a WhatsApp chat and typed: "Come pick me up. Grandma wants to see you."

According to the family tradition of the Denvers, I could only marry Elaine Denver if I picked an ace out of a pack of cards. I had picked out other cards for the past five years, but this year I cheated by bringing my own ace card, and I waited happily for Elaine to return home to marry me. However, she suddenly went missing. My childhood friend suddenly appeared after getting drunk, and he leaned in close to me with a puzzled look on his face. "How did you manage to get an ace when there wasn’t one to begin with?" That was when a notification from a family group chat that I had seen before popped up on his phone. Elaine had just shared a picture of my illegitimate brother, Scott Jones, and her getting married. She was leaning in his arms and smiling happily. "I have gotten married to the love of my life and had the cutest baby in the world." This was followed by a picture of a newborn baby. My father was the first to tag Scott. [I'm so happy for you, Scott!] [This is for my grandson!] My future mother-in-law had transferred $400,000 to them and sent a screenshot of the transfer to the group. The family group chat included my childhood friend and several of Elaine's best friends, who used to see me as Elaine's husband. "Elaine and Scott are finally together! Congratulations to the happy lovers!" "Lucas was so gullible to believe that excuse of picking aces. It was a great way to stall for time, and the only way to find some peace for all of us." Something broke inside of me once I knew the truth. My mother was seriously ill, and her dying wish was to see Elaine and me get married. However, everyone knew about her relationship with Scott, and they let me continue waiting for a marriage that would never be. I wiped away my tears and added myself to the group. [Congratulations on your wedding and the baby.]

An hour before the registration deadline, I woke up with a start in my hotel bed in Escal. I realized that my boyfriend, Brannon Zimmer, and my adopted sister, Luna Hearn, were both gone. I quickly called them both to urge them to register right away. Instead, I was met with a burst of laughter on the other end. “We’ve flown back home already. We finished applying last night. Haven’t you applied yet?” In the background, I could hear my parents grumbling. “That’s just how she is. She’s so carefree and thoughtless that she doesn’t even pay attention to her own affairs. “Couldn’t she be more sensible like Luna?” It was a lively scene on the other end of the line, but I was shaking with panic. I had almost missed the deadline. After our test scores came out, the three of us had agreed to apply to the same university. Luna had been agonizing over her choice, while Brannon had looked at her with nothing but affection. “No rush. We’ll help you take your time choosing.” Then, he casually told me, “Just go with whatever we pick. Have a blast in Escal these next few days.” Just then, my phone vibrated. Brannon had sent me Southshire University’s application code. “Stop dawdling. The deadline’s almost up.” I stared at the application screen. My eyes stung with tears. My score had been about 120 points higher than theirs. It turned out that no one cared about the “sacrifice” I thought I was giving them. One second before the deadline, I clicked the “Apply” button and chose the one farthest from home, Attarport University. With three of us, it would have been too crowded. So, I stepped aside on my own.

After I quit my job to become a full-time househusband, my wife, Brooke Lowell, left me with nothing but a bank card capped at 1,000 dollars a month. She said children had to be raised with hardship to grow up strong, and was always worried I might secretly give our daughter special treatment. But 1,000 dollars was nowhere near enough to cover a household's monthly expenses. Every time the kindergarten asked for nutrition fees, I could only swallow my pride and beg for leniency. "She's just a child. Why does she need that much money? You've got some nerve, living so comfortably on 1,000 a month." I had thought Brooke's harshness was meant to temper our daughter's character. That illusion lasted until I asked Brooke for 300 dollars to buy clothes for our daughter's Children's Day performance. What I received instead was humiliation and ridicule from everyone. Brooke accused me of acting like a spoiled rich kid, wasting money on unnecessary clothes. My mother-in-law complained that I dressed too poorly, like a beggar bringing shame to the family. Even my daughter blamed me for embarrassing her, saying I had ruined her Children's Day and damaged her props. I bowed my head, apologized, and paid compensation. Only then did I discover that my bank card had been frozen. The very next moment, Brooke's crush posted on social media about his son receiving a luxury mansion. 'Already a house-owner at three! Who'd believe she's not his birth mother?' Only then did I understand. People who truly loved someone would never be stingy when spending on them.

At my best friend Naomi Dodson's Sip and See, my husband, Joe Walsh, gifts her a luxury villa. I think it's a mix-up, but he stays deadly calm. "Naomi's baby is mine. The villa is her reward." The world goes cold around me. Desperate, I push for answers. "When did this start?" He knit his brows, annoyed. "Does it matter? You're still Mrs. Walsh. You get the money, the freedom, and a kid without the birth pains. What's not to like?" What he doesn't know is that he has severe azoospermia. I am never the infertile one. He is.

Today was my younger son, Luke's, eighteenth birthday. My ex-husband, Major General Arthur Ashford, let himself into my house without knocking. He headed straight for the liquor cabinet like he still owned the place. He poured himself a glass of whiskey and looked at me with open contempt. "Allison, how have you enjoyed the last eight years? Stuck here in Briarwood because of a family court order. "All because I broke a couple of glasses and put my hands on you a few times, you just had to file for divorce." "And what did that get you? The judge stopped you from taking the kids out of the city and made sure I got regular visitation." He swirled the whiskey in his glass, spilling a little onto the carpet. It was the same cocky look he wore the night he came home drunk and beat me with his belt. "You really thought you could get away from me? As long as I say no, you'll spend the rest of your life under my control. "After Luke cuts his cake, I am filing for emergency guardianship. You will never take my son away from me." I looked at his smug face, gripping the edge of my sleeve, and said nothing. Then he lifted his glass, ready to start barking orders at everyone. My daughter, Kate, rose from her chair and set a thick stack of papers onto the table in front of him. "General Ashford, you should read these. "As of midnight, Luke is legally an adult. Every travel restriction the family court placed on Mom is gone. "And this is the filing receipt for the name change petition for the two of us, which I filed with the Supreme Court." Arthur gave the papers a dismissive glance. Then his smile disappeared. Printed across the top in bold letters were the words: Petitions of Kate Ashford and Luke Ashford to Change Their Surname to Pierce.

On the night of our wedding, Simone Laurent did not inject the promised capital into the Holt family's company. Instead, she had someone carry in a crate of scratch-off tickets. She undid the top buttons of her blouse, her eyes lazy with amusement. "Here are 2,000,000 dollars' worth of scratch-offs. Whatever you scratch off, that is what you get. Be good, Spencer, and maybe next time I will give you something real." I knew what she was doing. She punished me because yesterday I had ruined her evening, and I had thrown a glass of red wine all over her assistant, the one in the see-through shirt. I did not cry this time. I did not make a scene. My fingers found an ultra-thin condom in her pocket that was not my size, and I simply wiped my hand clean and said nothing. The surprise in her eyes lasted half a second before it softened into a satisfied smile. She wrapped her arms around me from behind, warm breath spilling against my ear. "That is right. Now you are starting to act like a husband who knows his place." She pulled out an unlimited black card and pressed it to my chest, the plastic cold through my shirt. "Take it. This should be more than enough for your family's company." I managed a stiff smile, pulled the card free, and handed it back. "I do not need it." She did not know this. During the days she spent breaking me in, my father had already been cornered by debt collectors on a rooftop and forced past the edge. Dead men did not need money.