Feel-Good Story Romance Short Stories & Independence Novels

My fiancée canceled the five-million-dollar investment I'd made in my best friend's company and replaced it with a five-hundred-dollar transfer. She told me that real friendship shouldn't be measured in money. Three days later, she invested a hundred million dollars in her childhood sweetheart's company at the most expensive hotel in Manhattan, in front of Wall Street investors and the media. Everyone started cheering, telling her she might as well just marry the guy. She didn't stop them. Why would she? She believed that no matter what she did, I'd never leave. What she didn't know was that I owned the core system that generated most of Nexora's profits. I'd spent eight years building Nexora, the company she was so proud of, from the ground up. She also didn't know my last name was Hale. I was the sole heir to Hale Global Group, a conglomerate powerful enough to bankrupt Nexora with a single word.

I grew up alongside the three most powerful young CEOs in Ashford. They once said that anyone who made me shed a single tear would never work in Ashford again. But today, because of a broke college student, they shoved me into an icy lake in fourteen-degree weather. "Vivienne, you're so dramatic. A little cold water won't kill you." Harrison stood on the shore, his expression ice-cold. "But Chloe can't handle being hurt." I shivered uncontrollably as I watched them gather that girl into their arms. The same men who used to panic if I so much as frowned now looked at me with nothing but disgust. I climbed onto the bank. I didn't cry or make a scene. I simply pulled out my phone and dialed the number I'd refused countless times before. "Mr. Thorne, I accept the marriage arrangement." Three days later, when the private jet of the country's richest man arrived for me, they chased it like they'd lost their minds. What they didn't know was that Damian Thorne, the ruthless, supposedly disabled head of the Thorne family, could walk perfectly well. He was also someone none of their families could afford to cross. As for me, I would never look back.

To end two years of long distance, I quit my job behind my boyfriend's back on Valentine's Day and moved to his city. The candlelit dinner he'd promised to welcome me turned into him leaving halfway through when his boss Diana called, asking him to entertain a client over drinks. I told myself it was just the way corporate life worked. We made plans to see an exhibition that weekend. We'd barely reached the entrance when another call pulled him away to fix an urgent proposal for Diana. I told myself he was just ambitious. We'd planned an island getaway to celebrate my birthday. The night before we were supposed to leave, he called. His voice was tinged with guilt. "Diana says this business trip is a test from upper management, and I really need to make a good impression. You understand, right?" Then he went to the neighboring city with Diana. I was silent for a few seconds, then said okay. I quietly canceled the hotel and sat alone in our rental apartment, eating instant noodles. The next day, the doorbell rang. It was a courier. "Hi, I have a delivery for Diana Lawson." "You've got the wrong address," I said. The courier looked certain. "That's impossible. I've been delivering here for a year. It's always this address." That's when it hit me. All his so-called overtime, business trips, and obligations he claimed he couldn't get out of were just excuses to keep his boss happy. He thought she was his ladder to climb. He had no idea that I was the one who could have taken him straight to the top.

After Alfie Lawson, the young heir of an elite family, is dumped by his sweet, innocent girlfriend, he develops selective mutism. His mother announces that whoever can get her son to speak will be rewarded with 100,000 dollars. I push my way through all the women trying to coax him out of his shell. "Hey, remember how you were calling me 'Mommy' in bed last night?" "I did not!" Alfie blurts out. Immediately, his mother wires 100,000 dollars to my account. I'm elated. From then on, I follow him around every day, teasing him and collecting my money. I rake in a fortune without even lifting a finger. Alfie won't speak, and he can't exactly hit me either. So whenever I push him too far, he resorts to shutting me up with his lips. Overnight, I go from being his study companion to his girlfriend. Every time I make a dirty joke, he makes sure I regret it by punishing me in bed until I'm too scared to say another word. Then, just before our wedding, Alfie's innocent old flame, Wendy Brown, returns after getting a taste of the real world. That night, he never comes home. I take the remaining half-box of condoms and the savings I've scraped together over the past decade, then drag my suitcase out of our marital home. I deliver the condoms to them. As for the savings, I use them to buy myself a ticket back home.

I was an employee of Starmax Group, the country’s business giant, and the husband of its president, Willow Lawrence. To keep our love untainted, I refused every shortcut she offered me and stubbornly chose to work my way up from the bottom, determined to prove through my own abilities that I was worthy of her. Until Jasper White came along. He was more handsome than I was and had a more tragic past. The way he pretended to be strong easily brought out Willow’s instinct to protect him. Thus, Willow personally gave him the promotion meant for me at the most pivotal moment in my career. Afterward, she offered me hefty ‘compensation’. I did not argue or make a scene. I accepted it all with a smile, completely at peace with the outcome. Because from that moment on, Willow was no longer my lover. She was simply my ‘top-tier investor’ and a reliable ‘human ATM’.

On my wedding night, I find out my childhood sweetheart, Sean Clay, has a mistress who is highly fertile. She's already given him a son and a daughter. "My family line is dying out, and your health has always been fragile. Paige gets pregnant easily. With her around to take the pressure off, it'll be easier on both of us. As long as you don't make a fuss, I promise she'll never take your place." I can't believe what I'm hearing. I trash everything in the room and kick everyone out. Clutching my chest, I collapse in front of the bronze mirror, only for the glass to reflect me ten years into the future. The woman in the reflection is gaunt, her hair completely white. "I've already tried throwing a fit and divorcing him. It only led to mutual hatred and absolute ruin. Let me give you a piece of advice. Accept Paige. "She might be fertile, but most of her children won't survive past the age of five. The ones who do will end up mentally impaired." She taps the surface of the mirror, and a flood of unfamiliar memories rushes into my mind. When I come to, tears are streaming down my face. Looking at the aged face in the bronze mirror, I reach out to touch it. "I will save you. And I will save myself."

Everyone knew I was crazy for Mandy Willow, and tragically so. Ever since I fell for her at first sight, my loyalty never wavered as I swore to myself that I'd never marry anyone else. But Frank Young the hellraiser was the one she ever loved! For his sake, she lied to me and gaslighted me for years, even working with him to plan my parents' murder, stealing my sister's organs and all my family's fortune. I died as I learned the truth, overwhelmed with resentment and regret! When I opened my eyes again, I was back in my senior year, when I had confessed my love to her. But this time, I would not let the same thing happen again. Instead of helping her to destroy my own family, I would slowly tear her apart until she was completely destroyed!

When I was five, the wealthy Whitmores adopted me from an orphanage so their only son, Caleb, would have someone to grow up with. The first time we met, Caleb pulled his best friend Audrey Ellis over and gave me half his candy. After that, the three of us were inseparable. That changed in the summer after our college entrance exams, when Audrey confessed her feelings to me—and I accepted. Caleb quietly chose a university a thousand miles away. The night before he was supposed to leave, he went drinking alone. Someone dragged him into the alley behind the bar and beat and humiliated him until he died. Audrey and I spent the next two decades burdened by guilt. At forty, I was diagnosed with ALS. The night before I died, she held me and cried so hard she shook. "Julian, I love you. I always have." "But if there is a next life, I have to stay with Caleb. I can't let anything happen to him again." When I opened my eyes, I was back. I had returned to the day Audrey was going to tell me she loved me.

The villagers raised me as a child. So, when I became successful, I initiated a development plan for the village to repay their kindness. However, because of forced evictions, the village chief’s family, who were the kindest to me, four villagers, and two youngsters died miserably under the excavator’s shovel. I gave away every penny I had, knelt in the rubble to beg forgiveness, and was beaten bloody by the enraged villagers. I was left disfigured, crippled, and eventually thrown in prison for ten years. After I came out of prison, I went to a faraway place, changed my name, and worked on a construction site. I planned to just drift through the rest of my miserable life in obscurity. However, my ex-wife and daughter tracked me down. “Max, why didn’t you tell me when you got out? That whole thing has passed now. Weylon has built a great career. He can get you a decent job. “Come home. Our daughter and I miss you.” Our daughter, Josie, glared at me with grievance. “Who misses this murderer? He’s the reason I can’t hold my head up. Everywhere I go, people curse me. I don’t want a beast like him for a father. “Mom, you and Uncle Weylon are all the family I need…” I caressed the scar on my face, looked at my crippled right leg, and felt my numb heart ache once more. Back then, the person who skimmed the compensation money, forced the evictions, and caused those deaths was Weylon, my ex-wife’s foster brother. To protect him, she had threatened me with our daughter’s life and made me take the fall. At that moment, she was standing before me, offering charity from on high.

On day forty-three of the end of the world, my fiancée, Selena Reed, injected me with poison herself and left me outside the shelter. She was wearing my hazmat suit, curled against Damian Hale, the man I had trusted like a brother. Damian took my storeroom keys and smiled down at me. "You had everything handed to you from the day you were born. Too bad you were never any good at reading people." Fallout rained down. Mutant beasts closed in through the black rain. I watched helplessly as they shut the iron door and survived on the supplies I had gathered. When I opened my eyes again, I was back seven days before global nuclear war broke out. This time around, Damian still played the concerned friend, offering $2.4 billion for my stake in the group, a stake worth $3.8 billion. Selena still talked to me sweetly over the phone about selling the company and taking her around the world. They thought I did not know that the two of them had betrayed me long ago, and that together they had killed my father. I did not call them on it. I only signed my name on the contract. Seven days later, the company, the stock, and the mansions would all be worthless. Only cash could still buy food, medicine, weapons, and a fortress. They took the shares and started planning the wedding of the century, waiting to watch me go broke. I used their money to clear out warehouses and turn a hilltop estate into a nuclear-proof fortress. On the night of the wedding, the city's elite stood outside my door and laughed at me for hoarding canned food. A second later, a strategic alert tore through the night, and the first warhead detonated high above the city. Selena threw herself at the closing steel gate, covered in blood. "Noah, save me—" I watched her through the blast glass. This time, I am your god!

The day my husband, Leon Ford, won Best Actor, a video smearing me went viral. In the video, my sister, Lucy Carter, tearfully accused me of using my position as Leon's manager to break them up. She claimed I'd threatened to ruin his career and forced him to marry me, a 250-pound woman. Leon liked the video the moment it went up, making it look like he was backing Lucy's story. Within minutes, the entire internet had turned against me. "She used her power to pressure an actor into marrying her? Someone like that should be blacklisted!" "God, she stole her own sister's boyfriend! What a vicious woman. Leon must've been miserable waking up to that disgusting fat pig every day!" "I hope Leon and Lucy finally get to be happy. That damned woman can go to hell!" What no one knew was how much I'd sacrificed for Leon over the years. I'd found investors for him and spent countless nights drinking with clients until I ended up in the ICU with a perforated stomach. I'd even been injured protecting him from a hater. The medication I needed afterward made my weight spiral out of control. Back then, Leon had sworn he'd never be ashamed of me. He called me his only treasure and chose to marry me of his own free will. I believed him. Despite what the medication had done to my body, I kept working tirelessly for him until he finally won Best Actor. But now that he'd made it to the top, all I got in return was a public smear campaign and divorce papers. Just when I had nowhere left to turn and despair was closing in, I received a text from Stephen Moretti, the mafia Don. "Want revenge? Lose weight and I'll make you a queen."

I'm born with a congenital heart condition. But when my illness flares up, my longtime boyfriend, Zeke Fulton, doesn't try his best to save me. On the contrary, he forces me to sign over my shares while I'm in agony. Then, he stands by and watches as the pain rips through me. I end up dying on that hospital bed. Thankfully, I'm given a second chance at life. I'm reborn on the very last day of filling out college applications. This time, I don't fall for Zeke's sweet talk. I turn my back on him and run straight into the arms of my childhood friend, Hugo Lodge. Hugo wraps me up in his embrace, his lips brushing against the side of my neck. He says, "Elisa, come to Joslin University with me."

The Crown Prince loves poetry, but my legitimate elder sister, who wants nothing in this world so much as to be Crown Princess, hasn't an ounce of talent. My mother was born in a brothel, and because of her I grew up skilled in verse, music, and letters. So my sister turned her attention to me, and had me write the poems she sent to the Crown Prince. She promised that if I helped her become the Crown Princess, I'd become a true daughter of House Vale. Because my mother was only a mistress, I'd entered the house as nothing but my sister's maid. But once I'd made her Crown Princess, she repaid me with a cup of poisoned wine. Before I died, I heard her say: "Only with you dead will no one ever find out my secret." When I opened my eyes again, I'd come back to the day she asked me to write the Crown Prince a poem. This time, I bowed my head and agreed, just as I had before. But I changed what I put in the poem. We're both daughters of House Vale. So why shouldn't the Crown Princess be me?

A week before our wedding, Damian Hale threw me a pre-wedding party at his family's private racetrack. His racing partner, Sienna Belmont, tossed a set of car keys into my lap. "Every bride should take a spin, right?" I wanted to refuse, but Damian slung an arm around me and said with a laugh, "It's just for fun. Sienna will show you around the track. You'll be fine." I let my guard down. But when I reached the third turn, I hit the brakes. Nothing happened. The car crashed through the barrier. My spine snapped, leaving me in a wheelchair. Three months later, I saw Sienna walk out of Damian's bedroom wearing my engagement ring. All he had to say was, "Avery, I need a wife who can stand beside me." Sienna wheeled me out to the rooftop terrace. "Want to know why your brakes failed?" With a smile, she released my wheelchair's brake and gave me a hard shove. I plunged 40 stories. When I opened my eyes again, I was back a month before the party. I called my father, who was out driving his cab. "Dad, before you became a cab driver, you were a championship coach. You trained some of the best racers in the business. Would you teach your daughter to beat one?"

On the seventh Christmas of our marriage, my husband, Alan Seaton, who worked in France, finally agreed to let me visit him. That was when I learned he wasn't renting some basement apartment at all. He had bought a spacious three-bedroom apartment. His mother, Maria Seaton, had the primary bedroom. He slept in the second, and the third had been turned into a pink princess room for his mother's goddaughter, Daisy. Even Daisy's dog had a climate-controlled kennel on the balcony. When he caught me staring at the kennel, Alan laughed and patted Daisy on the head. "You treat that dog better than your own mother. You insisted he couldn't suffer, so you even had radiant floor heating installed for him." I stared at the border collie eating imported beef in his kennel, and something inside me broke. For a moment, I had no idea what to say to Alan. Should I tell him that I had worked three jobs to fund his business overseas and that when I had a fever, I could only afford expired acetaminophen? Or that I had lived on sandwiches until a bleeding ulcer made me pass out in my rented room? Before I could decide, Alan pulled me over to the dining table. "You haven't worked in Texas in years anyway. Why don't you sell your house there and move here to take care of my mom? You can look after Daisy's dog too." He had no idea I had sold that house in Texas years ago to clean up the mess he had left behind. Nor did he know that I was the real owner of the multinational company he worked for.

I agreed to leave the firm with Adrian Cross, my childhood friend, after he claimed he was being bullied out of his job. But the day before we were supposed to resign, he changed his mind for Mia Foster, a new intern. One of his colleagues laughed. “Impressive. You pretended to be bullied at work for months just to trick Evelyn into leaving.” “But you two grew up together. You’re really going to send her to a new firm alone?” Adrian rolled the bourbon around his glass. “She’ll still be working in the same city. How far away can she possibly go?” “Besides, isn’t she always saying she’s independent and the department can’t function without her? This works out perfectly.” I stood outside the office for a long time that day. In the end, I turned around and walked away. I withdrew my application from the firm we had planned to join together. Instead, I accepted the offer my parents had arranged for me at Bennett Global’s London headquarters. Everyone had forgotten one thing. Adrian was the one who begged me to stay.

My husband called me fat, ugly, and disgusting. Then he used that as an excuse to cheat on me with his secretary, Joanna. I threw him a birthday party, hoping to make him happy, but he chose to spend the night with her instead. Tired and fed up, I signed the divorce papers and walked out of his life. Three years later, I was no longer the unwanted XXL wife of Adrian Wellington. I was Miranda Wright, a billionaire heiress who had just bought my ex-husband’s company under a fake name. When Adrian finally discovered who I was, he was shocked. Then he fell at my feet, pleading for another chance. “Miranda, don’t do this to us.” I ignored him, pulled my hand away, and barked an order at my security guards. “Throw him out, and make sure he never comes anywhere near me again.” He once thought I wasn’t good enough for him. Now, he was begging for the woman he had thrown away.

At the hockey game, my neighbor Bianca confessed her feelings to the team captain, Hudson, right in front of everyone. The moment she finished speaking, someone dumped an ice-cold soda right over her head. "Look at this greasy freak. Does she really think she has a chance with our star player?" The bleachers instantly erupted into cruel laughter. I watched her soaked hair stick to her face as tears mixed with the dripping soda. I walked over and shielded her from the cruel jokes. Then I pushed through the crowd and offered her a tissue. She slapped my hand away. "Stop being so fake, Harper! You're the biggest hypocrite in this school!" The next morning, I woke up and realized I was in Bianca's body. Before I could process it, my phone rang. It was a FaceTime call from Bianca from my own account. On the screen, wearing my face, she gave a smug smile. "I paid a witch a fortune to swap our bodies." "Now it's your turn to see what it feels like to be a loser everyone steps on." "Your life as a top model is mine now. As for Hudson and his insane abs, I'm keeping them for myself!" I hung up, stared at myself in the mirror, and smiled. I finally escaped the toxic mother who was draining the life out of me. I was also totally free from that cheating jerk who only played games with my heart. This idiot had no idea what kind of nightmare was hiding beneath my supposedly flawless skin.

On the night of the final showcase for the three-year designer development program, my parents weren't in the family seats reserved for me. They were sitting at the VIP table with Sophie, my foster sister. My boyfriend, Adrian Cole, was giving interviews in a silver-gray outfit that matched hers. A reporter smiled and asked, "You're both headed to New York, and tonight you're even dressed as a couple. Did the two of you plan that?" The people around them whooped. Adrian only smiled. "We've known each other for years. We have similar taste." No one knew that the dress Sophie was wearing was mine. I'd drafted the pattern and sewn the dress myself, and Adrian and I had planned our matching outfits around it. When I found her wearing it that morning, all my mother said was, "The gown her sponsor sent is ruined. You're the designer. Just wear something else." Adrian frowned at me, too. "There's a lot of press here today. Don't embarrass Sophie over a dress." So I threw on a black suit at the last minute and stood alone outside the interview area, watching an entire room assume the two of them were a couple. The bigger joke was that they all assumed I'd lost. Adrian had lined up an assistant position for me at a second-tier studio, and my parents thought I should stay in Boston and apply again next year. Only my mentor knew the truth: I was the sole winner of this year's Grand Fellowship. My contract already guaranteed me a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in grant money and an eighteen-month independent residency in San Francisco. After the showcase, she asked me, "You're really going to San Francisco?" I looked over at my family, still gathered around Sophie and talking about apartments in New York, and for the first time, I felt no guilt at all. "I am." I wasn't going to let anybody else decide my life again.

My husband sent me to prison on our third wedding anniversary. I thought Bryce Holloway was the love of my life. My high school sweetheart and husband. The man I had spent three years trying to build a family with. So when I found out I was pregnant, I couldn’t wait to surprise him. But instead of celebrating our anniversary, I was arrested for my father’s murder. “I didn’t kill my father!” The evidence said otherwise. And when Bryce finally came to the police station, I thought he would save me. Instead, he leaned closer and whispered, “Didn’t you say you wanted something unforgettable for our anniversary?” My heart shattered when he added, “Enjoy your life sentence.” He had framed me. While I was rotting in prison, he divorced me and married my stepsister, Daniella. “He should’ve chosen me from the beginning.” Daniella said. I thought my life was over. Then I discovered I wasn’t carrying one baby. I was carrying twins. And I made one decision… Bryce would never know they existed. But keeping my children a secret wasn’t enough. My stepmother wanted me dead, my inheritance was at risk, and the people who destroyed my life were determined to make sure I never walked out of prison. Until someone helped me disappear. My father’s attorney, Roman Ashford. Two years later, everyone believed Kaia Bennett was dead. But they were wrong. I returned to California under a new identity, with my twins by my side and one goal in mind. Taking back everything that belonged to me.