Melodramatic Romance Short Stories & Family Emotions Novels

My husband had a bizarre obsession with role-playing. In every scenario he invented, I was always the devoted wife he eventually cast aside. One day, he became the ruthless CEO who fell for the nanny; the next, he turned into a respected professor who could not resist his students. Each time he handed me a divorce agreement, watched me sign it through tears, and then tore the papers to shreds the following morning with a satisfied grin. "It's just a game, babe." That changed when my mom was in a catastrophic car accident and needed 200,000 dollars for emergency surgery. Deep in character as a penniless failure, he said, "I'm flat broke. Where am I supposed to get that kind of money for your mom?" I watched my mother take her last breath because we couldn't pay the bill. On the day of her funeral, he arrived with a pretty college student on his arm. "I've fallen in love with one of my students. It's time we get divorced." He pulled a folder from his briefcase and handed me the agreement. This time, I didn't wait for him to rip it up.

The year I lost my sight at five, I found Stellan Hale half-frozen in the snow. I told my mother I wanted a companion to guide me and begged her to take him in. Then I leaned close to his ear and whispered a promise. "I don't need you to be my guide dog. Just stay alive. Go wherever you want to go." Still, Stellan stayed. After Mom remarried, he became the only person I had left. He watched over me as I grew up, serving as my eyes and my cane year after year. He even gave up his extraordinary talent for painting to study medicine, all for the sake of my sight. Even after he became one of the most brilliant ophthalmologists in the country, I still could not see. On my 25th birthday, someone he had once been close to won a prestigious art prize. He shut himself inside the study, and I could hear pages rustling behind the door. He told me, his voice carefully even, that he was writing my birthday wishes. I smiled and moved toward him, wanting to kiss his cheek, when words suddenly scrolled across the darkness behind my eyes. "Wake up, you blind little fool. He's tearing every one of his paintings to shreds. On the back of each one, he even wrote 'Go to hell, Elara Langley.' "Stop walking. There's a wire on the floor ahead of you. One more step and you're dead." I froze. Then I smiled again and kept walking. "Stel, Stel, every wish you made for me is going to come true."

After my husband's car accident, I did a checkup and found out he had a malignant brain tumor. Instead of telling him right away, I stuck the report in my bag, planning to wait for the right moment. Guess what? He found it first—and thought I was the one with the tumor. A few days later, I overheard him in his office, laughing with a buddy: "My wife? No looks, no figure, just money—and now she's got a brain tumor. Talk about a win for me. If Rainee hadn't gone abroad, I'd never have married her. Bad luck, huh? At least I dodged the kid bullet. Once she's gone, I get everything." Then he pulled the amnesia card, blamed it on the accident, and started treating Rainee like his wife. He even welcomed her into our house. I smiled and said, "Nathan, let's get a divorce."

Garrick Langdon and Josephine Hawthorne had been together since their school days, all the way through to their wedding. They had once been the envy of everyone around them, a couple everyone considered a match made in heaven. In the fifth year of their marriage, Josephine had an affair. Garrick gently set a stack of damning photos on the desk in front of her. He did not yell or demand an explanation. He simply said, his voice remarkably calm, "Either he goes, or I take the kids and go." It was the first real storm they had faced since their wedding. In the end, Josephine chose her family. Life seemed to return to normal. Josephine came home on time every day, doted on the children, and treated Garrick with tenderness and care. But an invisible crack had formed between them, and things could never go back to the way they had been. One day, Garrick finished an interview early and decided to surprise the kids by picking them up from daycare himself. He had just reached the daycare gate when he saw his five-year-old twins, Caleb and Ruby, rush forward like two joyful little birds. With delighted laughter, they threw themselves into the arms of a tall, thin man in a gray coat. The man crouched down and welcomed both children into his embrace with a warm, affectionate smile. Garrick stopped dead in his tracks. His chest tightened inexplicably. The man was Silas Morrison, the very man Josephine had cheated on him with. Why was he there?

On my wedding day, the groom, Robert Jensen, is nowhere to be seen. All that's left of him is a letter and a baby who's born with a heart disease. "I love you, Winona, but I've also fallen in love with Claire. Since I can't give her a proper title at all, I decided to go on a world trip with her in order to make it up to her. "I'll also give you a chance to raise my and Claire's baby. While we're enjoying our trip, you can spend some quality time with our baby." The thing is, I don't have any blood relations with this baby. Why the hell should I raise Robert and Claire's baby, to begin with? Six years later, I take my son, Anson Jensen, to the airport so that we can see my husband, Joshua Jensen, off to his business trip. When I turn around, I spot Robert, who's pushing his suitcase toward me. As he stares at Anson in my arms, he exclaims in surprise, "Winona, is this my and Claire's child? You raised him well! "Unfortunately, we're already married overseas, so I can no longer marry you. But don't worry, Winona. To me, you're already my wife." As I look at Robert's face, which is rather similar to Anson's features, I let out a soft chuckle. "Don't go around mistaking other people's children for your own, Robert. Anyway, this is your younger cousin."

My stepdaughter, Alana Greenwood, brought me some abortion medicine on her Coming-of-Age Ceremony. Everyone around knew of her little "prank", but none came to stop her. Even my husband just stood and watched. I smiled bitterly as I took the medicine and drank it in one go. I immediately felt the pain in my lower abdomen. My head began to spin, but I could still hear the harsh tone in Alana’s voice. "Well, did you think you could replace my mother after giving birth to your child? Let me tell you this, Dad agreed to marry you back then because I was young and was in need of a free nanny! If you dare think about replacing my mother, you will be kicked out of the Greenwood family!" I covered my stomach and took a deep breath. "There's no need for the trouble. You're an adult now and I've completed my task. I'll leave... tomorrow."

Three years after my release from prison, I ran into my ex-wife in the presidential suite of the most exclusive hotel in Bayshore. It had been years since I last saw her. She was draped in a silk robe, radiating wealth. When she recognized me, something unreadable passed through Cecily Monroe's eyes. "On the day you got out, why didn't you wait for me to come pick you up?" I said nothing and handed over the takeout. Her gaze dropped to the scar on my wrist, and her breath caught. "I went too far with that. But you've always been tougher than Adrian. You can always get back on your feet." She was talking about what happened six years ago, when Adrian Burke was involved in a catastrophic medical malpractice incident. She fabricated evidence to pin the blame on me and sent me to prison. I stepped away from Cecily. Over 1,000 days and nights of hard labor behind bars had ground away every last trace of whatever I once felt for her.

My brother calls me his princess and transfers money to me as allowance; his wife-to-be misunderstands and thinks I'm his secret lover. She crashes my new apartment, which I've lovingly decorated, with a group of friends and family. "I can't believe you're someone's secret lover when you're so young! I'll teach you a lesson on your parents' behalf! I'm going to spread your illicit relationship online so your teachers and classmates will all know how shameless you are!" They trash my new apartment and rip my clothes off. Then, they make sure to get my student ID in the scene as they record me getting bullied. My brother rushes over, his eyes red and bloodshot. "Have you guys lost your mind? How dare you bully my sister!"

On the day my wife, Adele Bellamy, rang the opening bell on Merrow Street to take her company public, my daughter and I sat in the audience. When my daughter was invited onstage to speak, she took the microphone and asked me in her small, childish voice, "Daddy, did you really get Mommy by being a homewrecker?" The hushed hall erupted as if a boulder had crashed into still water, and countless camera flashes swung toward my pale face. "Mr. Linwood, is what your daughter said true?" "If his own daughter said it, it has to be true! That's a juicy high-society secret. Bet he never expected his own kid to be the one to spill it." "Haven't you heard? Ms. Bellamy used to have a childhood sweetheart, and then they split up out of nowhere. Maybe he broke them up so that he could take that guy's place!" Amid the uproar, I rushed onto the stage in a panic to explain myself, but the moment I opened my mouth, Adele pressed her hand down on the back of mine. "Yes. He was the homewrecker."

Only because our son begged to go to the amusement park, my wife, Nyla Frost, a wealthy heiress, ended up in a car accident on the way there, leaving her permanently paralyzed from the waist down. To punish us, she slashed our daily allowance to a mere ten cents. For the past three years, my son and I had no choice but to survive by scavenging through trash every day, even fighting the dogs for scraps. One day, my son was so hungry that he lost all reason. He ate a few crumbs of a cookie that our family doctor had accidentally dropped on the floor. My wife flew into a rage, accusing him of having filthy, thieving hands. As punishment, she made him stand outside in the pouring rain for the whole day before he was allowed back inside. Furious, I marched over to her room to demand an explanation, only to freeze in my tracks. Despite supposedly being unable to walk, she was already standing. She was holding the family doctor's hand, dancing a romantic waltz with him. Her best friend gazed out the window, her heart aching with pity. "Nyla, back then, your kid threw a tantrum because he wanted to go to the amusement park. That's why you missed your first love's last chance to see you. But you've already punished your husband and son for three years. You even found a stand-in to stay by your side and pretend to be your doctor. Don't you think it's time to let it go?" Nyla scoffed, her voice cold. "Failure to teach the son falls on the father. They ruined my seven-year pact with my first love. This punishment is hardly enough. Don't bring it up again. There are still two years left. Once their punishment is over, I'll make it up to both of them." What she didn't know was that I'd been saving every decent meal for our son while going hungry myself. By then, I had terminal stomach cancer. I wouldn't live long enough to see those two years pass. I’d never let my son stay by her side and suffer any longer.

My bride went missing on the night of our big day but woke up in my brother's room the next day. My parents persuaded me to ignore it for the sake of fame but scolded my wife as an easy girl. Angrily, I moved out of the villa with my wife. Soon after, my wife had a miscarriage and suffered from depression due to gossip. She jumped off from the top floor in front of me. Desperately, I followed her. Opening my eyes again, I found myself back to the time when the wedding ended.

Shortly after I married Andrew Lorne, my mother-in-law has my husband's widowed sister-in-law move in with us. She wants my husband to bear the responsibility of caring for two families. My husband says he wouldn't be who he is without his elder brother's help, so he won't let his sister-in-law suffer. And so, she and her son steal my home and my husband's love. Meanwhile, my daughter and I are banished to the countryside. On the first day of our banishment, I'm violated and murdered by beggars who barge into the house. … It takes three years for my husband to remember me. He comes to the countryside to take me home. "Come out, Jovana. I'll immediately bring you home as long as you agree to give your property to Tiana as an apology for the things you've done." As soon as the words are out of his mouth, my daughter emerges from the yard, which is overgrown with weeds. She tells him I was dead. He doesn't believe her. He allows his mother to beat my daughter half to death and berates me while he's at it. "How dare you, Jovana! You haven't learned your lesson at all, have you? These dirty tricks are all you know, and you even taught our daughter to lie! It's been years, yet you still can't compare to Tiana!"

"Whose illegitimate child are you pregnant with?" My parents demand to know, looking crazed. They want to know whose child I'm carrying. I look at them and laugh. "One of the kidnappers, of course." My parents and brother are stunned, and they turn ashen. I continue softly, "Don't you guys remember? The kidnappers asked for a ransom, but you guys were only willing to save your other daughter. You wanted to teach me a lesson." Mom collapses on the couch. "That can't be. We wanted to teach you a lesson so you would stop bullying Eden. I didn't… We didn't…" I crouch before her. "You guys never expected the kidnappers to violate me, right?" I don't wait for an answer. "Do you think a few kidnappers would have morals and ethics?" She parts her lips to speak, but I don't give her the chance. "I was covered in injuries when I got home. Why didn't any of you ask me about them? "You guys took Eden away without bothering to save me. You didn't return for a day, for two days, for a month… Did you think the kidnappers would think that they could still receive the ransom?" They should be happy now—I'm about to die.

My wife, Lani Fort, finally answered my calls only after my daughter, Anjou, stopped breathing. “Didn’t I tell you that Warren Stafford’s dog was having a difficult labor? I’m in the middle of saving a life right now. “You’ve called 108 times in two hours. What on earth is going on?” Two hours earlier, my daughter had suddenly developed a high fever, so I took her to the hospital. The doctor diagnosed her with acute myocarditis and said her only chance of survival was to use an ECMO machine. The $50,000 initial fee for the treatment had become an insurmountable obstacle for me. I called her 108 times, but she had rejected every single call. My voice trembled as I held my daughter’s lifeless body. “Anjou... she’s gone...” Loud cheers erupted from the other end of the line. Her childhood friend cheered joyfully. “They’re here! They’re here! Pudding gave birth to eight puppies in her first litter.” Lani’s voice also carried a note of relief. “I drove two hours to take her to the veterinary hospital. Spending $50,000 to save the lives of eight dogs was well worth it.” During the proposal, she said she would love me forever. After we got married, she said she could not give up her career. So, she made me quit my job to stay home and take care of the kids. The $50,000 treatment bill had cost my child her life. On the other hand, she had spent $50,000 to save Warren’s dog. Our marriage would not survive this.

After his twin brother dies, my husband, Cassian Howell, starts supporting two households, splitting our family's money equally between them. Half goes to our daughter and me, and the other half goes to his late brother's widow, Esther Heaton, and her son, Noah Howell. He says he can't let his nephew grow up without a father figure. When our daughter, Anne Howell, graduates from elementary school, her teacher asks each student to contribute 50 dollars toward graduation photos. Cassian refuses at once, calling it an unnecessary expense. It's the same excuse he used the week before when I asked him for new undergarments. I call him. "I'll go without if I have to, but everyone in her class is getting graduation photos. Anne is the only one who hasn't paid." He sounds annoyed. "Faye, you know I have two households to support. We have to cut costs wherever we can." Before I can answer, he hangs up on me. Moments later, Esther posts a photo in our family group chat: a limited-edition children's camera and a brand-new designer bag. Her caption reads, "Thank you for the gifts, Cassian! I'm so grateful Noah has a father figure in his life, all thanks to you." I stare at the words "father figure" for a long moment before I finally understand. In Cassian's heart, Esther and her son are his real family. Anne and I are just outsiders he can afford to neglect.

My grandfather's Alzheimer's check-up is coming up. But I'm out of town running an investment deal for Casey Watson, so I call her to remind her to make the appointment. "Make sure you arrange Grandpa's check-up properly. He's old and can't handle the hassle." Casey agrees readily. Even though she has always been obsessed with painting, she immediately sets down the canvas she's working on. Yet, soon she forgets all about it and runs off to help her childhood sweetheart, Tommy Hurst, touch up his pieces for an exhibition. By the time I rush back from out of town and track down my missing grandfather, three days have passed. Grandpa's sitting in a pile of trash, clutching a beat-up ball he's found for me. "Lawrence, do you like the ball I got for you?" he asks, grinning. Weeping silently with my hand over my mouth, I nod. I call Casey dozens of times to ask about what happened that day, but she declines every time. It isn't until evening that she finally texts back. "I'm too busy to reply." I turn off my phone and watch Grandpa, his hair streaked with gray, hobbling toward me. Suddenly, it all feels so pointless to me. It's time for Casey and me to end our marriage.

At two in the morning, my sister, Paige Boyce, paid men to smash up my barbecue stand. I fought to make them stop, ignoring the embers that scorched blisters into my skin as they landed. It was the first time in my life I'd ever raised my voice at her. "After Mom and Dad died in that plane crash, this stand paid for four years of your college education and helped you become a flight attendant for Golden Crest Airlines," I said. "Are you really going to destroy the only thing keeping us alive?" Something flickered in her eyes, a flash of reluctance, but she steeled herself and scoffed. "I've told you a hundred times to get rid of this dump of a stand, and you never listen. Do you want my boyfriend's parents to see what an embarrassing family I have and decide I'm not good enough for their son?" I looked around at the wreckage. The vegetables and cuts of meat I'd hand-picked at the market that afternoon, spent hours threading onto skewers myself, were buried under ash and grime. My eyes stung, tears threatening to spill. I didn't have the heart to argue with her. Hands shaking, I started picking up whatever skewers were still salvageable, one by one. That was when a black card appeared in front of my face. "The day after tomorrow, I'm bringing Paige to meet my parents," the voice said. "This should be enough to buy yourself a real shop, so you don't embarrass her in front of everyone." I recognized that voice instantly and looked up slowly. The hand holding the black card belonged to Charlie Anton, the boyfriend I'd been secretly dating for five years.

On the day my daughter, Dakota Bradshaw, gets into a car accident, I rush over to save her, only to get crippled instead. Both my wife, Delilah Rowland, and Dakota don't mind the fact that I'm being a burden to them. Instead, they put in a lot of effort to take good care of me. But one day, a fire breaks out at home. Yet, Delilah personally closes my room door. Since I'm crippled, I end up falling to the floor in my state of panic. That's when I notice Dakota's shoes through the gap under the door. "Dakota, save me!" I call for help at the top of my lungs. But only the sounds of the crackling flames respond to me. I have no idea how much time has passed when I catch wisps of a conversation hazily. "Mom, the firefighters are here. What should we do?" Dakota's voice is very low. Delilah replies calmly, "Tell the police that your father started the fire when he was cooking. We just reached the corridor at that time, so the doorknob was already warped from the fire." Dakota simply says one word. "Okay."

After my husband's death, I long for him so much that it becomes a mental condition. To put me out of my misery, my in-laws order a custom-made robot to be my companion. But I'm only more sorrowed when I see the robot's face—it's exactly like my late husband's. Everything changes when I accidentally unlock the robot's hidden functions. Late at night, 008 kneels before my bed and asks, "Do you need my third form of service, my mistress?"

Four years after marrying Wesley Coleman, Emma Payne is expecting a baby. She shows up at the hospital with her forms to get registered, but when the nurse runs her info, she tells her that the marriage certificate isn't valid. Emma simply can't believe it. "No way. That can't be right." The nurse taps on the stamp. "Look at that. The seal is all crooked, and the code doesn't check out." Emma isn't convinced yet. She rushes to the courthouse, but they tell her the same thing. "Mr. Coleman is married, and his spouse's name is Sandra Payne." The news hits her like a ton of bricks. Her mind just goes blank. Sandra Payne is Emma's half-sister. Worst of all, she is also Wesley's first love. Years ago, she went abroad to chase her dreams. She never showed up to her own wedding and left Wesley heartbroken. And now, she is actually his legal wife.