Nouvelles Plot Twists Romance & Romans Hypocrisy Regret

After I landed a five-million-dollar contract and saved the company from financial collapse, my CEO wife wrapped me in an excited embrace and said she wanted to have a baby with me. She took out her phone and showed me a virtual baby on an app she had just signed up for. "Look, honey," she said. "Isn't it adorable? You can even change how it looks. Do you like it? Once things settle down at the company, we can have a real one." That night, I came across a post by her male secretary on social media. It was a photo of a positive pregnancy test, with my wife's figure visible in the background. I did not comment. I just liked the post. When my wife noticed, she panicked and called me immediately. "Honey, it's not what you think. Please listen to me! I wanted to surprise you. The baby is yours! "Can you clear things up on social media for everyone? I promise I'll give you a child of your own soon." She insisted the baby was mine, yet she seemed to have forgotten that we had not shared a bed in six months. "End the pregnancy," I said. "We're finished."

On New Year's Eve, I returned home. At the welcome party, my boyfriend, Grayson Caldwell, suddenly appeared, holding a bouquet of red roses and a diamond ring, dropping to one knee. "Although this proposal comes a full three years late, our love will never be late," he said. "Alexa, marry me!" Friends cheered from the sidelines, all expecting me to nod through tears and say yes. But they had forgotten that three years ago, on New Year's Eve, he had promised to propose. That night, I dressed to the nines and waited until dawn—but he never showed up. Instead, there was only a cold phone call. "Tanya is sick. I'm busy taking care of her. You'll have to wait a little longer for the proposal." And so, on New Year's Day, I left the country alone, bound by a family-arranged marriage. I had already married someone else three years ago.

I've been married to Austin Salazar for five years. Every time I accidentally touch him, he'll force me to kneel in a pool of disinfectants while reciting verses from the Bible. But there was once when I noticed a bright red hickey on Austin's collarbone. Instincts propelled me to touch it for a fleeting moment. While Austin did lose his temper at me before storming out of our home, for once, he didn't tell me to get down on my knees. Naively, I thought that he's starting to get used to my touch. But the next day, my virginity is set to be auctioned off at the auction house where the rich and the powerful of Bannerton regularly visit. The auction will officially start in two days. While Austin's buddies calculate the price they can afford to bid with lewd expressions, he remains unmoved as he keeps cleansing his collarbone with disinfectants repeatedly. "How dare she touch the spot Carol has kissed before! Who does she think she is? Just the sight of her taints my vision!"

After the New Year, some of my husband's former students are back to visit him. So, my husband, Isaac Cooper, treats them to dinner. They greet us warmly, but when they first see me, there is a hint of surprise in their eyes. In the private room, Isaac takes my hand. Everyone starts teasing us. "Mr. and Mrs. Cooper are so loving. I'm so jealous!" I lower my head shyly and excuse myself to the restroom, only to overhear two of his students chatting. "I was startled just now. I thought Mr. Cooper's wife would be Lilith Walker." "But Mrs. Cooper looks so much like her. When she walked in, I almost mistook her for Lilith." I freeze on the spot. I know Lilith is Isaac's ex-girlfriend, but I have never seen her in person. Cold water runs over my hands. As I look at my carefully made-up face in the mirror, I suddenly feel a wave of nausea.

In the third year of chasing the famously untouchable Hayden Lane, I still hadn't managed to marry him. The Lane family had an old rule. Any woman who wanted to marry into the family had to personally draw a fortune stick and receive a supreme blessing. I tried ninety-nine times. Every single time, the result was the worst possible omen. Before my hundredth draw, I personally saw Hayden replacing every fortune stick inside the cylinder. "No matter how many times she tries, she can only draw the worst omen." At that moment, I finally understood that he truly didn't love me. But that was fine. I didn't want to marry him anymore either. I tossed the fortune cylinder aside and turned away. Then I called my parents. "I accept the marriage alliance with the York family."

Jackson Dalton, my roommate, was a deeply disturbed voyeur. His greatest hobby in life was spying on me. Back in school, he stole my underwear. After we started working, he set his sights on sleeping with the woman I loved, Caitlin Watson. Because we were close, he constantly crossed the line, making crude, sexual remarks about Caitlin, who was a flight attendant. "Those legs are insane. Wonder what it’d feel like to have them on my shoulders." Every time he ran his mouth, Caitlin would throw water in his face and curse him out. "Stay the hell away from me, you freak." For my sake, she never called the police on him, but every time he acted up, she made sure to humiliate him in public. The night I successfully proposed, I bought a new house. Jackson showed up with a full set of appliances as an apology gift. Wearing her diamond ring, Caitlin leaned into my arms, smiling like she was the happiest woman alive. All my friends said I was lucky to have such a beautiful and loyal fiancee, who even put my worst friend in his place. Until I got up in the middle of the night for a drink. I noticed the guest room door was slightly open. When I pushed it open, I saw Caitlin wearing a collar and being led on a leash while crawling on the ground.

I logged into my girlfriend's account to sell her DSLR camera on a secondhand marketplace. The transaction went through fine. The next morning, the messages started showing up, and they were nothing I was ever meant to see. "Great shots this time. What's the rate for the outfit in the middle?" That’s when it hit me–the camera's memory card had not been wiped. However, the photos inside… were nothing I had ever seen before. Revealing shots. Intimate poses. Not meant for me. I forced myself to stay calm and tried to explain the situation to the buyer. His reply stopped me cold. "Drop the act. It’s not like this is the first time I've bought from you."

After I proposed to Kathy Johnson, my girlfriend of seven years, we went to City Hall to get our marriage license. Instead, she had her bodyguards throw me onto the street. Then, she walked through the doors, hand in hand with her childhood friend, Nate. She didn’t even blink when he saw me sitting there on the ground, shaking with disbelief. "Nate's son needs a legal guardian to secure his inheritance from the Johnson Group. The fastest way is for me to marry Nate and adopt the boy." "As soon as the paperwork is finalized, we'll get a divorce. You'll still be the one I really marry." Everyone assumed that I, the man who had been devoted to her for so long, would foolishly wait. After all, I had already waited for seven long years. But that night, I accepted the arranged business marriage my family had prepared for me and took a flight to Center City on the East Coast. I vanished from Kathy's world completely, and no one saw it coming. Five years later, I returned to Westlake City to visit my family. My wife, Rhea Weyland, was the sole heir to the Weyland family, a powerhouse that practically controlled the entire West Coast economy. She was tied up in a sudden international merger meeting. She had specially arranged for someone to pick me up from the airport. But I never dreamed that the "someone" she sent would be Kathy. The moment she saw me, her gaze immediately fell on the glittering watch on my wrist. "I can't believe that after all these years, you've stooped so low you're wearing a cheap knockoff." "Are you done with your little pity party? It's time to come crawling back. Nate's son is starting at an elite private school, and you're just in time to be his full-time driver and bodyguard." I gently stroked the watch on my wrist. What she didn't know was that this was one of the more modest gifts Rhea had given me.

My husband’s newly hired secretary had a terrible temper. Just because he casually picked a bite of food for me at the dinner table, she flew into a fit of rage and smashed every plate and bowl in the house. Then, she threatened to fake her death and deregister herself, saying she would disappear from my husband’s world forever. The moment he heard that, my husband panicked. He immediately abandoned me even though I was about to go into lung cancer surgery, and sped off on the highway, reenacting some over-the-top CEO drama of chase and pursuit. At three in the afternoon, the surgery was scheduled to begin. My husband called. His tone was apologetic. “As a boss, I have a responsibility to ensure the safety of my employees. “Once I find her and make sure she’s safe, I’ll definitely come to the hospital and accompany you for your surgery. I’ll even make it up to you with a wedding trip!” However, I no longer wanted to wait for him. “Julian, let’s get divorced.”

My husband kept making me see a psychiatrist. He said I had delusional disorder and kept imagining I was a corporate heiress. He once grabbed me by the throat and screamed that my parents had died in a car accident years ago. To cure my "illness" and stop him from worrying about me, I took my medication on time and tried to forget those "delusions". One day, I was handing out flyers on the street when a Rolls-Royce stopped in front of me. The driver respectfully opened the door. My father, who had only ever appeared in my "delusions", stepped out, pain written across his face. "The one million dollars I transfer to your account every month is supposed to let you see what life is like. Why are you out here putting yourself through this?" One million dollars? I could hear my ears ring. What exactly had my husband been hiding from me when he said he had spent all our savings treating my illness?

My mother-in-law, Lillian Pierce, gets into a car accident and needs a liver transplant from my wife, Elena Prescott. However, she is busy playing a murder mystery game with her first love, Ethan Bennett. In my previous life, I forcibly drag her away from the game and bring her to the hospital for the liver transplant. No one could have foreseen the tragedy that would happen. During this time, Ethan crosses paths with a deranged serial killer and ends up dead in an alley. After his tragic end, Elena doesn't show any reaction to his passing—until the anniversary of his death. On that day, she locks me in the basement and slices the flesh off my body piece by piece. "If it weren't for you, Ethan would never have died. Go down there and apologize to him!" Her smile is sinister, a tell-tale sign of the madness that has consumed her. When I open my eyes again, I am back to the day when Lillian gets into an accident. This time, I do not force Elena to do the liver transplant. She saves Ethan but loses her mother forever.

On the day I drive home from my business trip, I find out that my husband, Matthew Channing, has occupied my parking slot. His SUV is parked haphazardly between two parking slots, leaving me without any space to park my own car at all. I find it funny that Matthew is such a klutz when it comes to things like this. So, I take a video of the situation and upload it to the Internet. Little do I know that it will go viral shortly afterward. Thinking that everyone will laugh at Matthew with me, I'm surprised when I see the comment section. "Don't tell me you got tricked by your husband for real! It's obvious that he has a mistress at home with him right now! Once you reach home and call him to move his car, he'll know that you're back!" "Lady, leave the car be! What's more important right now is the mistress in your bed!" "Do not call your husband and tell him to move his car no matter what! Right now, you have to go home and catch him in the act!"

At the engagement party for one of our former high school classmates, the bride suggested we play King's Cup. Whoever drew Eight had to do a cross-arm toast with someone of the opposite sex in front of everyone. My husband, Luke Flandern, had always been a germaphobe. The second he saw the card in his hand, his brow furrowed. I stood up, ready to help him out. But then—Sarah Weaver, the girl everyone called the beauty of our class, who was sitting right across from him—asked softly, "Need a hand?" Luke looked at her, and the frown on his face instantly melted. "Yeah, sure." The room erupted. Everyone was laughing and cheering. "Classic Luke—always generous. No wonder he was valedictorian back in the day." "Someone get this on camera. The golden couple from high school is finally reconnecting after all these years? That's destiny right there." Sarah blushed and shyly reached her wine glass toward him. Luke smiled and didn't pull away. I just stood off to the side, quietly watching the two of them drink that cross-arm toast together. And then I remembered how I'd been ready to help him out. A bitter smile crossed my lips. Guess I was kidding myself.

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.

A week before our engagement, I finally learned that the man Madison Clarke had always secretly loved... was me. Overjoyed, I hurried to sign to her, wanting to tell her that I was LeoWinter—the gaming partner she'd been coupled with online. What I got in return was ridicule. "Charlie, how does a mute guy like you manage to pull so many tricks?" "LeoWinter already told me his account got stolen. He switched accounts ages ago. And you still want to pretend you're him?" It felt like a bucket of ice water had been dumped over my head. My entire body went rigid. She had forgotten that this game ID was permanently bound to the account. It was impossible for it to be stolen.

When I get married to Zachary Lennor, I know that he has a younger, depressed sister who's a huge pain in the ass. On our wedding night, she suddenly barges into our room with the excuse that she's terrified of the dark. That's why she wants Zachary to sleep with her. When I get hospitalized due to my illness and need Zachary to take care of me, his sister insists that he go home to eat all three meals with her every day. Otherwise, she'll go on a hunger strike. Even when Zachary and I are on a date, his sister will call him immediately, claiming that her depression is acting up. If he doesn't go home right away, she will jump off a building without hesitation. Unable to take it anymore, I unleash my anger on Zachary's sister. But Zachary is quick to shield her from my ire. With an icy expression, he tells me, "I only have one sister, whereas I can always get myself another wife. If you can't stomach her presence at all, we'll get a divorce right now." I keep tossing and turning in bed at night, unable to sleep at all. That's when I decide to get out of bed just so I can apologize to Zachary and his sister. As soon as I walk to the doorway, I hear a familiar voice whining from the master suite, where Zachary stays. "Zach, since Samantha got so mad at me today, does this mean she's found out that I'm not your actual sister at all, but your ex-wife?" Zachary pauses momentarily before saying reassuringly, "Even if she does, it's fine. Although I do love her, I've already vowed to stay with you forever the day I married you. "So, even though we're already divorced, I will still keep my word. I won't let you go." At that moment, I finally realize that Zachary's so-called younger sister is just a fake identity. Her depression is also a big fat lie. I'm the only one who's been kept in the dark about everything in this performance. In that case, I'm not going to humor these jerks anymore.

On the night of the Festival of Lights, Mother secretly took me out to wander the streets. Then, out of nowhere, a man and a woman stepped into our path. The man stared at my mother, his eyes turning red. "Emmeline?" The woman's gaze locked on me. She grabbed the man's sleeve, suddenly frantic. "Cedric, look! Those eyes, that face... She's our daughter, Rosalind!" She rushed toward me with her arms open wide. "Rosalind, I'm your mother!" I was so scared that I scrambled behind my mother. Mother pulled me behind her without a word. Her face gave nothing away. The man approached, looking guilty and full of himself at the same time. "Emmeline, it must have been hard on you all these years, raising my daughter with Seraphina so well. Now that I've returned to the capital, I'll make it up to you. I still remember the promise we made, our betrothal. "But Seraphina is already my lawful wife, so I'm afraid you'll have to settle for being a concubine." I was stunned. My father was the reigning Emperor. My mother was the Empress. What in the world was this man talking about?

My daughter, Nora Tyler, has congenital heart disease. When her disease relapses once again, I scoop her into my arms and travel to the hospital on foot on a rainy night. By the time I reach the hospital, I accidentally see the note my husband, Lionel Tyler, has left for the doctor. "I don't care what you do, be it dragging the time out to kill Nora or failing to save her life. No matter what, Nora isn't allowed to leave the hospital alive! "Chloe's due date is almost here. I want you to pay more attention to her. Only her child has the right to become the first child of the Tyler family." I can only stare at the note with bloodshot eyes. At that time, the medical staff has already wheeled Nora out from the ER. A white sheet can be seen draping over her body. When I was still pregnant with Nora, Lionel had taken leave for two years just to take care of me. He truly viewed me as the apple of his eye back then. After I gave birth to Nora, he even purchased an island and named it after her. My favorite gardenias filled every inch of that island. The Lionel who once refused to take any other woman but me as his wife and had prioritized me more than his own life… is also the same man who has personally killed his own daughter just because his first love, Chloe Meyer, is pregnant. My heart has officially died. After leaving a divorce agreement behind, I go home and inherit my family business. Now, Lionel can never hope to reach me ever again.

I've infiltrated into a private group chat called "The Domestication Project". The group owner is in the middle of spamming her experience of her destroying her husband's mental willpower. "I've secretly swapped out my husband's anti-depressants for something else. Every day, I keep telling him that he's a useless, pathetic loser. Once he's hopelessly dependent on me, I'll have him thrown into a mental hospital and take over his company naturally." All the group members keep praising the group owner for being a total professional in gaslighting her husband. Soon, they start asking for her methods and experience. I tap on the photo of an experimental journal that the group owner has just sent. To my shock, the name listed on the mental health report with a diagnosis of severe depression is actually my own! As for the haughty group owner, she's Sophie Hayes, my wife of ten years! Yesterday, that woman told me with red-rimmed eyes that she'd rather go bankrupt just to cure me of my depression! It turns out that her devotion and love toward me for the past ten years is nothing but a grand yet cruel plot to murder me slowly! Since Sophie wants me to get reduced into a lunatic who has lost all of his marbles, then I shall put on an insane show for her. After that, I lock the doors in the mansion and dump the gasoline that I've just bought all over the living room.

As soon as I get off the surgical table after my miscarriage, my husband, Presley Quinn, sends me a text message. "You were ten cents short when you paid your share of the power bill this month. Transfer the money to me immediately." I can only sit on the cold bench in the hospital on my own. The anesthesia has yet to wear out, but my belly is already hurting so much that I can practically feel it constricting on itself. The next thing I know, a new post appears on my social media homepage. It's a post made by Vivienne Ashford, the intern Presley is in charge of tutoring. In the photo, Vivienne can be seen holding a bouquet of flowers folded from money bills. A bright and radiant smile blooms on her face. The four-leaf clover necklace adorning her neck is the same necklace I've seen in Presley's purchase history two days ago. The caption of the photo writes, "I don't want a lot of money. I want a ton of love instead." Only then do I remember that today is Valentine's Day as well as my fifth-year anniversary with Presley. Over the past five years, Presley and I have been splitting every single bill, down to two decimal places. If I take a shower for more than 20 minutes, Presley demands that I pay extra for the water heater's power bill. When I cook myself some supper in the middle of the night, Presley wants me to split the gas bill generated by the stove. Even when my mom is hospitalized due to kidney failure and is waiting for her surgical bills to be settled, Presley refuses to lend me a single cent. Instead, he sends me a few links leading to web loans. As I stare at the social media feed, I chuckle all of a sudden. It turns out that Presley does know how to spend money. It's just that he doesn't have the heart to spend it on me. I smile once again as I leave a like on the post. Then, I transfer the ten cents to Presley. From now on, I don't owe him any single penny.