Homewrecker Romance 단편 소설 & Face Slapping 소설

On our wedding night, my wife, Gwen Everett, has received a classified mission that requires her to go on an urgent business trip. After watching her leave with a smile on my face, I quickly turn on the GPS locator in her phone right away. The locator shows that she's making a beeline toward a love motel. Immediately, I hack into the motel's security cameras. In the monitor, I can see Gwen making love to my younger brother, Deacon Hopkins, passionately. After they've used three packs of condoms, Gwen shields her belly while whining cutely to Deacon, "Be gentle to me. Don't hurt the baby, okay?" Deacon just smirks as he begins peppering kisses all over her, making her blush brightly. "Then you should get pregnant for a few more times. At the end of the day, Derek's the one raising them anyway." My heart feels as though it has gotten plunged into the icy abyss. At that moment, my department calls me and asks me about Gwen's whereabouts. As I watch the couple entangling with each other on the screen, I reply calmly, "I want to report Gwen Everett for forging her schedule. She might have betrayed the nation by fleeing with core technology."

My girlfriend and I had agreed to marry as soon as we graduated. But after I waited three hours at the registration hall, she registered with my stepbrother instead. He had been in love with her for ten years, and now he was being sent to the deadliest front in space. “He won't survive without me,” she said. “Once he's gone, I'll still be yours.” My father and stepmother told me to be the bigger person. As I looked at their self-righteous faces, I accepted a command at the same front and became my stepbrother's highest-ranking superior. By the time news of my victories—and my wedding—reached home, every one of them had lost their minds with regret.

On my twenty-ninth birthday, I was supposed to be formally announced as the next head of the Ashford family. But before the charity gala began, my mother fed my succession speech into the shredder and replaced it with a written pledge to my sister. "Lydia hasn't had an easy time since the wedding. Announce in public that you're giving her the Harbor Hotel. Think of it as backing her up." It was the first property my grandmother had left me, and the only project I had been allowed to run on my own in eight years. I asked my mother, "And if I'm not willing?" My father looked at me coldly. "Don't forget, you'll inherit all of Ashford one day. She only has us." They had always used the inheritance to keep me in line, forcing me to hand over what was mine to my sister Lydia. This time, I didn't argue. I took out the resignation letter I had signed long before and set it in front of my father. "Then let Lydia inherit all of Ashford. "From today on, I want nothing."

My daughter Mia's congenital heart condition had worsened. She desperately needed the one-of-a-kind miniature artificial heart I'd spent five years developing. The night before surgery, my wife Victoria stole it from the cold storage unit. I rushed to the hospital like a madman, only to find her at the bedside of her first love Dominic Forsythe's son, prepping him for surgery. "Mia can hold on for another six months. Dominic's son can't wait." "What kind of father are you, being this selfish?" Victoria stood there, righteous indignation written all over her face. I looked at my daughter lying in her hospital bed, barely clinging to life, and dialed the overseas number I'd refused a dozen times before. "Professor Ellsworth, this is Nathan Hartley." "I'll accept your offer. But I need you to arrange a medical transport—immediately—to bring my daughter to your facility. Her heart needs emergency intervention." I spent five years developing a life-saving heart for my daughter. Victoria stole it overnight and gave it to Dominic Forsythe’s son. “Mia can hold on for another six months. Dominic's son can't wait.” She had no idea I held all the core patents for that heart. That same night, I took my daughter aboard a medical jet and fled the country. The next time we met, you would be on your knees begging me.

My wife, Jolene Stephens, and I both cheated. The difference was that she chose to betray me while I had been made to cheat. She got me blackout drunk the same night her affair with Leon Homes came to light. Then, she stripped me naked and left me in a hotel room with a stranger. She posed my unconscious body in degrading positions and took photos to create evidence of my "affair." Both our cheating photos were exposed consecutively, and the public outrage against her little lover was offset. A huge wave of nausea rolled over me, making me dry-heave over the sink. My body was covered in red marks. The thought of what the stranger had done to me drove me to fits of terror. My wife watched as I scrubbed my skin until it split and bled before saying quietly, "I didn't have a choice. Leon's from a conservative family. It would destroy him if word got out that he was a homewrecker." The internet tore me apart overnight. My grandfather, Bruce Tillman, the only kin I had left, suffered a heart attack after seeing the news and was rushed into the emergency room. I had to protect her just to protect myself. So, I repeated the lie she needed me to tell under a wall of flashing cameras and microphones. "Neither of us cheated. Ms. Stephens and I had already separated long ago."

On our seventh wedding anniversary, I found a hotel key card in my husband's pants pocket. A quick scan on my phone confirmed it: the city's best-known adults-only fantasy hotel. But we haven't had sex for three years. I clenched my fists, my heart aching, but I kept my temper. I silently slipped the key card back into his pocket. Then, using his phone, I sent out a group message: "It's my birthday tomorrow! The party's at the Velvet Ember Hotel, Room 520. Anyone who's late can't call themselves a friend!" The next day, my husband rushed into the room and started stripping. He came face-to-face with his entire office.

A week before our wedding, my fiancee announces that she is pregnant using my younger brother's frozen sperm. "I'm grateful that our love can carry on in another way," she gushes on social media, showing off the test results. My brother replies, "Meeting you was the luckiest thing that ever happened to me." Then Mom chimes in. "Jenny, you've been through so much. Nathan's apartment should be under your name alone." I don't argue and simply reply with a single word—"Congratulations". My phone rings almost seconds later. "Your brother can't have kids anymore. It's just one child, and it's still related to you. Why are you being so petty?" she snaps. I laugh under my breath, hang up, and dial another number. "Want to get married?"

Vanessa Langley lay on my operating table, pregnant for the eighth time by the man she'd grown up with. This time, I didn't break down the way I had the previous seven. Instead I calmly closed the incision and went over the aftercare with her. Seven times I'd performed the procedure on my own wife because she was carrying another man's child. I had long since become the joke of the hospital, the story everyone traded over coffee. From getting pregnant by him to pressuring me into ending it, she always had a reason she considered perfectly respectable. This time, Vanessa's eyes reddened and she caught my sleeve. "Adrian, someone drugged Damian. I couldn't just leave him... "Don't worry, I'll end the pregnancy. You're my husband. You're the only man I'd ever have a child with." Even the nurses talked during the procedure, wondering whether I'd fold the way I always had, worn down by a few soft words and a few tears. But nobody knew we'd signed an agreement before the wedding. I gave Vanessa eight chances to get it wrong, and she had used them all. The agreement took effect, and every asset in her name passed to me.

When Adrian Cozner went to a get-together with his fiancée and her friends, Lacey Mirren excused herself, saying she had something to take care of. Two hours passed. She still hadn't come back. Just as he was about to get up and look for her, he overheard her close friends mocking him in Portuguese. "This dumbass doesn't even know he's been cheated on." "Right about now, Lacey and Kevin are probably going at it." "Lacey said Adrian isn't as hung as Kevin. They've been childhood sweethearts. This poor idiot—ha, look at him, we're talking crap right in front of him, and he has no idea. So pathetic." Adrian had just started to stand up, but his body froze, his mind going blank. Right then, Lacey pushed through the door, face flushed, completely satisfied, sweat still glistening on her skin. "Haha, how was it? Isn't sneaking around a thrill? You're something else." "Absolutely. Couldn't get enough."

Damien and his ex-wife got divorced five years ago, and then he married me. When I married him, he had a 13-year-old adopted daughter named Lily. After our marriage, Damien treated me exceptionally well and I always treated Lily like my own daughter, even when she occasionally showed hostility towards me, I didn't mind. That's normal for a teenage girl. Until my father was accidentally hit by a car and left in a vegetative state, I accidentally overheard a conversation between Damien and his assistant. "Boss, I don't get it. Why block the craniotomy?" the assistant asked, sounding confused. "The doctors say there’s a high chance he could recover. Why are you insisting on conservative treatment?" "He can't wake up," Damien’s voice was suppressed with pain. "He saw Lily's face." I clamped my hand over my mouth, my fingernails digging deep into my flesh. Lily is the adopted daughter of Damien and his late ex-wife, Sarah. Sarah died saving Damien, so he has always treated Lily with a mix of guilt and utter indulgence. Damien continued, his tone incredibly conflicted. " But Lily didn't do it on purpose! She is only thirteen... If she gets a criminal record, her life is over. Sarah’s only dying wish was for me to take care of Lily and see her grow up safe and sound. I can't give up on her." The assistant fell silent for a few seconds. "And what about your wife?" "I’ll make it up to her," Damien’s voice softened. "I’ll provide her with the most prosperous life, and secure the largest private ward along with the best caregivers for her father who’s suffered from the car accident. I don’t care how much it costs." My heart sank completely. Just because you feel guilty towards Sarah and Lily, you're going to sacrifice my father? With trembling hands, I saved the recording and had my lawyer prepare the divorce papers. But when I completely disappeared, the once powerful CEO went mad.

On the third night of my business trip out of state, I scrolled past a video of my wife locking lips with my best friend at a music festival. Jack Wilson and I had been brothers for twenty years. The day I married Emily, he cried like a baby and swore he'd give up everything he had if it meant I'd be happy for the rest of my life. But tonight, my best friend and my wife proved that promises don't mean a damn thing. After a few minutes of silence, I called Jack. "Hey, you end up catching that Bruce Springsteen show? Heard the production was insane." He paused. Then, casual as ever: "Yeah, it looked good. Saw some clips online." "Too bad you weren't there, though. Kinda boring going alone. When you getting back? We'll catch the next one together." I said sure. Hung up. Caught the next red-eye straight to his apartment. They took everything I gave them—my loyalty, my trust, my love. Now I'm going to take everything they have.

I finally agree to purchase all the items in my wife Serena Porter's wish list after she bothers me about it for a month. Serena is overjoyed as she leaves the house with my black bank card. Some time later, I receive a notification on my phone, informing me that someone had purchased ultra-thin condoms from Francisia using my card. I'm still utterly confused when I coincidentally come across Serena's junior, Felix Jenkin's, social media account. He's showing off a screenshot of an order of the same condoms. "Serena treats me so well! She's going all out this time!" His comment section is filled with people urging him to secure Serena as soon as possible, since she is wealthy and is already being unfaithful to me. They also ask him to create a tutorial on how to charm their way into an easy life so that they can follow his example. I scoff and dial Serena's number. I also take a screenshot of Felix's post and send it to her. "What's the meaning of this? You're not even bothering to keep a low profile even though you're cheating on me?" I can hear the bed squeaking on the other end of the line. "Why do you get jealous over everything?" Serena snaps impatiently. "It's just one of the gifts that I prepared. It's almost Christmas, so I'm giving presents to all my employees." I immediately freeze my card after I hang up. I also send the screenshots of Felix's post and the order to the Porter family's group chat. I'm willing to match Serena's energy if that's how she wants to play the game. However, I don't think that she's ready to face the consequences after I freeze the card.

On Christmas Eve, with the temperature at thirteen below zero, a blizzard shut down the interstate in northern New Jersey. The motel at North Ridge Travel Plaza had only two heated rooms left. My hands and feet were numb with cold, but I still walked happily toward Daniel Walker, my husband of five years, a man known for his thoughtfulness. Instead, he walked right past me and handed the last two room keys to his first love Claire Miller, who had just ended her marriage, and her dog Buddy. A woman stranded beside us watched enviously. "Your boyfriend is so thoughtful. He even got a separate room for the dog." Daniel didn't correct her or look back at me. He was too busy taking off his down jacket and draping it over Claire's shoulders. "Eileen is an adult. She can take care of herself. You have depression. You can't take any more cold." He seemed gentle and reliable, but what he truly loved was the feeling of rescuing someone vulnerable. The more helpless a person appeared, the more he gave them, even when I paid the price. Claire eased closer to him. She apologized to me, but her eyes stayed on the room keys. "Sorry, Eileen. Buddy is too skittish to stay with strangers." I didn't remind Daniel, point by point as I used to, that he had forgotten which of us was his wife. I didn't demand that he explain why a dog needed heat more than I did. I only tightened my grip on my car keys and stepped back into the storm. All his easy, considerate devotion went to Claire. All the humiliating, bone-deep cold went to me. But Daniel didn't know that the four-wheel-drive SUV he planned to use to chase me belonged to me. Before I left the apartment, I would take my ID and keys, and I would make sure the SUV stopped somewhere he could no longer follow. And the blizzard was only beginning.

My name is Janet Chance, and I am a researcher focusing on cancer drug development. I have a blissful family life and a career worth fighting for. However, just as I am about to go save a life using my newly researched drug, I discover that the car specifically used to transport the drug has inexplicably disappeared. Upon checking the surveillance footage, I learn that my high school classmate, Melissa Lane, has driven it away. "What do you mean it's your car? This is my husband's car!" I snap back anxiously. "Give me back my car! Right now!" Just as I finish speaking, I hear a crowd's mocking laughter coming from the other end of the phone. "Do you know who you're talking to?" "Your car? This car belongs to the wealthiest man in the country!" Melissa immediately adds, "I'm about to marry the wealthiest man in Azlude! He was worried about my safety, so he specifically allowed me to take this car. "He told me it's very well protected with its bulletproof glass. How dare you say this car is yours, you penniless loser?" In order to take back the drug, I have no choice but to rush over to Melissa's wedding venue. That is when I see the man embracing her in the poster is Samuel Fuller, who is none other than the husband I have been married to for the past three years.

My wife, Denise Hawkins, and I are invited to a hypnosis reality show. The hypnotist, Magnus Pitt, asks her, "What's the most unforgettable day in your life?" Denise's answer is our wedding night. While I'm secretly happy about it, I hear her add, "Back then, the fun I had with Alan was too intense and spicy that we ended up ruining the sheets." I initially thought that Denise is working with the production crew to play a prank on me. After all, she was with me the entire night. How is it possible for her to sleep with her childhood friend, Alan Parker, anyway? But then Denise continues, "Alan came when it was past midnight. I was afraid that I might wake my husband up, so I dared not make a sound at all." Immediately, the entire studio goes eerily quiet.

While greeting guests on Christmas evening, I realize that my wife, Carol Wilson, is nowhere to be found. Just as I'm about to look for her, a barrage of comments flashes before my eyes. [They're getting it on in the balcony! Oh my god, things are really heating up between the male and female leads, even in this freezing weather! This is so exciting!] [It's all the villainous male side character's fault for being clueless and interfering in their relationship! If not, the female lead would have slept with her brother-in-law ages ago! ] I slowly head toward the balcony, but my parents-in-law, Harry Wilson and Rita Malone, immediately stop me. "Hey Alec, I already asked Carol to go and check on our reservations at the restaurant. It's almost time anyway. We should head out." [That was close! Good thing the female lead's parents were smart enough.] [Aww, the moment the female lead heard it was almost time to go, she fell right back into her brother-in-law's arms and got kissed so hard it left her breathless.] So, Harry and Rita are in on it, and they are lying to me to cover for Carol. I decide to do the exact opposite of what they want. I look at the balcony again—where the temperature is well below freezing—then turn to address the rest of the guests and relatives in the apartment. "It's freezing out there, so maybe we shouldn't put ourselves through such misery. I'll call the restaurant and change our reservation to a delivery instead. Let's all stay in and have fun all night long!" The comments, along with Harry and Rita, are all stupefied by my decision. [What? All night long? At this rate, the two leads are going to freeze into ice sculptures outside!]

My uncle, Jackson Yates, was a born pervert. While studying abroad, he was arrested for harassing female classmates and making lewd comments toward a female teacher. He was expelled and sent back home. After returning to the country, under the protection of my billionaire grandfather, he lived like an emperor, keeping hundreds of lovers in a villa. All of them vied for his attention. One day, he set his sights on my gentle, well-mannered wife—the rumored piano prodigy, Janelle Sanders. “My dear nephew, all because you grabbed your grandpa’s hand during your first birthday party game, the entire family chose you as the future heir. But as long as I don’t agree, you’ll never succeed.” He constantly harassed her, both verbally and physically. Janelle never tolerated it. She reported him to the police several times, resulting in him getting detained. She even scolded him sternly, “Cyril and I grew up together. Uncle Jackson, please remember your place!” Out of respect for his seniority, Janelle usually just reprimanded him coldly and walked away. Two years later, Jackson seemed to change. He took the initiative to manage a subsidiary and handled everything with impressive efficiency. Grandfather was pleased and handed the entire branch over to him. Just when I thought everything had returned to normal… At our son’s one-month celebration banquet, I saw Janelle in the kitchen. She was dressed provocatively as she desperately pressed herself against Jackson. Jackson lifted his head from her chest and gave me a smug smile.

On my second day of employment at the city hall, I took over my colleague’s tasks. A young man came requesting for a new copy of his marriage certificate. It was far from his first visit. My colleague, Bernard Anderson, laughed. “This is the 99th time he’s here to get a copy of his marriage certificate again! We have all of his information ready, so the process wouldn’t take long.” I was stunned. “99th time?” Bernard laughed. “That’s right. He married a rich older woman. They always fought, and they would tear up their marriage certificate whenever they fought. “He’s so immature. Only an older lady would be able to tolerate him. I heard his wife is from the wealthiest family of our city, the Jameson family.” Immediately, I frowned. “The Jameson family has always kept a very low profile. Is his wife a fraud?” Bernard immediately stopped me from talking. “Don’t say that, she’s the rightful successor of the Jameson family, Mae Jameson.” I was stunned. My phone slipped from my hand and fell onto the desk. It was a photo of Mae and I on my lockscreen. Before me, the young man’s face fell. He snatched my phone. “Who are you? Why do you have a photo with my wife?”

While waiting for my sons, Mason and Cayden Cox, to get out of school, I come across a post online. The poster asks, "What's the proudest thing you've ever done?" Some people in the comments talk about their happy families, while others mention achieving financial freedom. However, the top comment stands out for all the wrong reasons. "My proudest achievement? My childhood friend's wife had twins, and one of them is mine! That poor idiot has been raising my son for me all these years." Everyone's confused. "How could twins possibly have different fathers?" He responds, "Let's just say the timing lined up perfectly… You can figure out the rest. Now that the boy looks more like me every day, I couldn't be happier!" My breath hitches in my throat.

During interviews, Ashley Freeman always smiles when she says that I'm the man behind her success. She claims that it is only through my support that she has become queen of the courtroom. Now, I have just secured the final cross-border merger for her. Her firm will officially rank among the global elite the moment this contract is signed. I rush to the airport carrying the merger documents, preparing to board my private plane and fly out to Tedlar Street to seal the deal, but I am stopped at the boarding gate. "Ms. Freeman gave strict orders. She's taking Mr. Luke and Mr. Collins to Swakosland for a vacation today. No outsiders are allowed on board." "Outsiders". The word leaves me briefly speechless. Through the door of the VIP lounge, I spot Ashley sitting inside. She cradles a three-year-old boy in her arms, while Eddie Collins, her first love from college, sits right beside her. The boy snuggles in her chest, his tiny hands clutching the lapel of her coat. He looks so familiar and comfortable with her, as if he has been held this way from the day he was born. "Mommy! Daddy said the three of us will fly on a giant plane to see the snow!" Ashley doesn't correct him. Instead, she kisses his cheek with such gentleness that she feels like a stranger to me. "That's right, sweetie. Are you happy?" The three of them lean in close to one another, looking like the picture-perfect family. After staring at them for a long time, I let out a soft, low chuckle and dial a number on my phone. "Pull every authorization and funding agreement I've ever signed for Ashley in the last ten years." Since she believes she already has everything, I'll destroy everything I've spent the last decade building for her.