Plot Twists Romance Short Stories & Independence Novels

At my husband's book launch, the young woman beside me leaned in close. "Are you a fan of Professor Gyver too? I don't think I've seen you here before." Julian and I had kept our marriage private, so I shook my head. "I was just passing by. It sounded lively in here, so I came in to look." She noticed the white cane by my feet, and understood at once. Onstage, the host asked Julian where the book had come from. He looked toward my side of the room, and his voice went soft. "I promised the person I love that we'd watch a sunrise together. It never happened, for various reasons. So I wrote the regret into the book." When it ended, applause filled the hall. The girl beside me went bounding up and threw herself into his arms. "Professor! The book's out. When are you taking me to see that sunrise you promised?" My smile froze on my face. The sunrise was mine. It had always been Julian's promise to me. Julian ruffled her hair, helpless, let his eyes sweep past me from across the room, then took her hand and left. He didn't know I could see again. That was the only reason I'd come. To tell him that the sunrise we'd waited so long for was finally ours to watch. He'd always said the auditorium was too crowded, that he couldn't find me. So I'd wait alone until every light went out, then leave with my cane. He could find me. That was never the problem. He just wanted a different girl beside him when the lights were on him. I dropped the plane tickets I'd bought for him into the trash. The sunrise doesn't wait. Neither do I.

At the National Diving Championships, I pushed through the searing agony of seven painkiller injections in my shoulder to execute a flawless dive. Yet, I ended up losing by a mere 0.3 points to Seren Lockwood, whose splash was visibly far worse. Only after the event did I realize it was my boyfriend, Cassian Blackthorne, who handed me a bottom score of 65. I stormed into the judges’ lounge. “Cassian! You knew this event determined qualification for the world tournament, and you knew Seren didn’t dive better than me! Why give me the lowest score?” Cassian rubbed his temples with a weary expression. “Seren needs this spot far more than you do, Elowen. Just step aside for her this once. You’ll have other chances.” I was twenty-four. For a diver, there was rarely ever an “after.” Exhaustion washed over me. For three years, Cassian had used that same dismissive, disappointed tone to force my retreat. My phone vibrated in my pocket. It was an email invitation that had been sitting in my inbox for weeks—an offer from the World Aquatics Federation in Switzerland to serve as the technical advisor and head coach for its youth team. I had repeatedly turned it down for Cassian’s sake. I unlocked my phone and tapped accept. “Elowen, you’ve always been the sensible one,” Cassian said softly. I looked up at him and smiled. This time, I had no intention of being sensible ever again.

I took my husband's suggestion and got myself a college-aged boyfriend. Only then did I understand why my husband never came home whenever he was with his college-aged girlfriend. In simple terms? It was too damn good. I let the young man stay in our house. I let him wear my husband's pajamas. I let him drink my husband's wine. I even gave him my husband's research data to help him write his thesis. I stood my husband up on a date so I could celebrate my boyfriend's 100th day with me. He responded by shoving me onto the bed, his eyes bloodshot. "Today's our third wedding anniversary, Madeline! Why do you only seem interested in spending time with him instead of me?" I stared at him in confusion. "What? You're the one who said we had an open relationship and that I could take another lover too!" I shot back. "I'm just doing exactly what you told me to!"

Before my father passed away, he arranged for me to be married. My future partner, Shane Zimmer, is an influential business mogul in Javensburg, and he's notoriously difficult to deal with. Before I marry him, I set three rules for myself. One, we don't talk about love, only dividends. Two, we stay out of each other's lives. Three, if one day he finds his true love, I walk away immediately, and all I want is double the alimony. Shane is pleased that I know my place. One day, a teenager who resembles him knocks on the front door. He calmly says, "Hi there, I'm Shane's son. He's been raising me in secret. I'm 17 this year."

I stumbled across an encrypted folder on my husband's phone, filled with photos of a little girl I'd never seen before. From newborn to first steps, sorted by month—two full years' worth. But the child in those photos wasn't our daughter. When I confronted him, he said she was a girl named Rosie from the children's home I sponsored. The director sent growth updates, and he'd been saving them for me. I never imagined that my warm, thoughtful husband would use my charity to spin a lie. Because every single photo was geotagged to the apartment complex next to his office. And the children's home was on the other side of the city. I didn't call him out right then. Because I wanted to know whose child she really was.

It had been five years since Julian threw away his status as the heir to the Young family just to be with me. Now, we were crammed into a leaky, run-down apartment, screaming at each other because we couldn’t make ends meet. The rent was one thousand five hundred dollars, our child’s medical bills were three thousand dollars, and he needed thirty thousand dollars just to smooth things over for his career. Yet, right in the middle of all this, Julian got into a fight with his boss and impulsively quit his job. I yelled at him, saying he still thought he was some high-and-mighty rich kid who refused to grow up. He just sneered at me coldly, claiming I had deliberately set a trap years ago to get pregnant and ruin his life. “If you hadn’t gotten pregnant on purpose, would I ever have ended up in a place like this?” I wanted nothing more than to slap him hard across the face. However, I remembered that last month, just to land a contract, his former business associates forced so many drinks on that once-arrogant man that he ended up with alcohol poisoning. With a quiet sigh, I accepted a fifth part-time gig from an agency, working as a clinical trial subject at a private hospital. By the time they drew my twelfth vial of blood over the course of seven days, I was so dizzy I could barely stand. However, as I finally stumbled back to our neighbourhood, I saw one of his old high school sweethearts hugging him, crying. “As long as you leave them behind, you can go back to the Young family! Why are you suffering like this? I’ve… I’ve been waiting for you this whole time.” Julian stayed silent for a moment before gently pushing her away. “She bore my child. Where else could I possibly go?” That very night, however, he came home wasted. He stumbled over, his trembling hands reaching out to choke me. “Why do I have to waste the rest of my life on you? Why couldn’t you and that sickly kid just die on the operating table?”

A new game had become the latest craze among Jexford’s wealthy elite: drawing lots to choose a bride. On the day of Grandpa’s eightieth birthday celebration, the two women I had grown up with decided to settle which of them would get to marry me by drawing lots. However, when the time came, they drew a mute waitress into the game on a whim. After the waitress drew the losing slip, they started egging me on to marry her, all because they wanted to make the underprivileged student I was sponsoring happy. I watched the mute waitress stand surrounded by the crowd. She seemed overwhelmed and unsure of what to do, so I stepped forward to defend her. “Fine. I’ll marry her!”

Castellora, Santoria. "You're the illegitimate daughter. So what does that make your kid?" Dante Locatelli looked at the pregnancy test in my hand. I froze. "What's that supposed to mean?" "Means he's illegitimate too, babe." Before I could even breathe, he kept going. "You're my side chick now. I'm marrying your sister. She's the real Ambrosi daughter. She actually fits my life." "What about me? What about our baby?" He lifted a brow, that cocky little smirk sliding onto his face. "If you can be illegitimate, why can't he?"

My husband, Xylo Green, fell in love with the locust tree in our yard. At night, he would wrap his arms around it and kiss it. One day, my dad decided to plant vegetables in the yard, so he cut the tree down. The tree died in the morning, and by midnight, our whole family was gone. Suddenly, I was reincarnated to the day when Xylo was passionately chasing after me. He looked at me lovingly and said, “Olivia, can I be yours?” I smiled flatly. I did not want him anymore, but I would definitely take his life!

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!

On the day of our wedding anniversary, my husband, Xavier Marshall, gave me a bangle. I tried it on and found it a size too big, with the bangle almost dropping off my wrist when my arm was down. I asked casually, “Why is it so big?” My husband stood in a daze for a second before wrapping an arm around my shoulders and saying with a smile, “I found this bangle beautiful, but it didn’t come in your size. You can still wear it even if it’s a little big, right?” I thought nothing much of it and happily put it back on. During a family gathering, I saw my husband’s best friend, Melissa Shanks, wearing a glass-grade jadeite bangle on her wrist. She smiled as she answered someone’s question, “This? It’s a birthday gift from Xavier. There were two of them, but I didn’t fancy the other ice-grade one, so I just kept this. “It’s hard to find a bangle in my size. I didn’t expect him to find two at one go.” I quietly hid my wrist under the table as my face flushed with embarrassment. The gift I had so treasured turned out to be a leftover from Melissa. Melissa, and not me, turned out to be Xavier’s priority. In that case, I no longer wanted the man or the bangle.

My executive boyfriend, Marcus Winters, had always wanted the regional president seat. Then his favorite protégée, Sophie Moresby, complained that I always got the spotlight, and he deliberately sabotaged my car. The crash broke both my hands, leaving me unable to compete in the design contest that could decide the board vote. He handed my entry slot to Sophie and expected me to accept it quietly. When I confronted him, he said it was only one competition and that, as design director, I should give younger employees a chance. To prove his "fairness," he stripped me of my director title and docked six months of my pay to compensate the team. Everyone waited for me to fight back. Instead, I nodded, calm and silent. Marcus was pleased. He promised that once his promotion came through, he would restore my position and publicly announce our relationship. I smiled coldly and told him we were done. I had already submitted my resignation. What Marcus did not know was that the board and I had made a private agreement: if I won the championship and secured the decisive vote, the person I named would become regional president. I had been preparing to name him. Now he had not only replaced me with Sophie, but also encouraged her to submit a fraudulent design. Once the contest ended, the only thing waiting for him was termination, a ruined career, and a bill he could never afford.

My online boyfriend dropped a bomb on me the day before freshman orientation day. He had been playing dice with a group of friends and lost a bet. Apparently, I was the prize. Before I could even figure out whether he was joking, he added me to a gaming group chat packed with more than a hundred people. The announcement at the top had already been changed. "Congratulations, Oliver! You just won yourself a 200-pound girlfriend!" A few seconds later, someone posted an old high school photo of me. It was a picture of me in my loose school uniform. As I was at nearly 200 pounds, my neck had practically disappeared into my shoulders. The chat instantly erupted. "Holy shit! That's not a girlfriend. That's a pig in human form." "A bet's a bet. Oliver, you have to do the couple challenge with her tomorrow." The jokes only got worse from there. Before long, someone even started a betting pool over whether I would have the nerve to show up the next night. My own boyfriend threw 10,000 at me and then backed out. "Don't blame me, man. You rolled a six. You won her fair and square." Oliver, the guy who had supposedly won me, stayed completely silent. Then, the girl everyone in the freshman group had already crowned the hottest girl on campus suddenly tagged me. "Lauren, you're coming tomorrow night, right?" I watched message after message fill the screen. Then, I smiled. They had no idea that I had spent the past several months preparing for the day I finally met my boyfriend in person. I was no longer the girl in that photo. I had gone from 200 pounds to 110. I'd been stopped by plenty of guys over the past two months. I'd gotten so many men asking for my number in the past couple of months than I had during the first 18 years of my life combined. None of the people laughing in that chat knew any of that. And I… Well, I didn't see the need to explain myself. Instead, I quietly put 3,000 on myself. My bet was simple. I would show up exactly on time. The entire group chat went crazy the moment they saw it. Mocking comments, jokes, and laughing emojis flooded the screen. I didn't say anything, letting their jeers fill the screen. Then, I sent one final message. "A bet's a bet."

For eight years, Damian Caruso kept me as his secret wife. I handled his family's lawsuits, protected his empire, and raised the son he refused to acknowledge in public. Ethan wasn't even allowed to call him Dad when anyone else was around. I told myself Damian had his reasons. Until our son's seventh birthday. Damian promised he would come home. Ethan waited beside an untouched birthday cake until nearly midnight. Damian never showed. Because Sofia Bellini—the childhood friend everyone already treated as Damian's real woman—had the same birthday. And Damian had chosen hers. That night, I stopped waiting. I signed the divorce papers. The next morning, Damian was in such a hurry to rescue Sofia that he signed the documents I placed in front of him without even reading them. He didn't realize he had just given me permission to take Ethan out of New York. Then he moved Sofia into our home—and asked his wife and son to leave so she wouldn't discover we existed. Ethan looked at the father he had spent seven years trying to love and called him "Mr. Caruso." Damian finally looked shaken. But it was already too late. On the day we left, he told me he had to fly abroad to handle a divorce case for a client. I said nothing. Because that divorce case was mine. He was flying across the ocean to finalize the end of our marriage—and he still thought I was just taking our son out of town for a few days.

When I came home after a three-day business trip, my daughter ran straight into my arms with a bright smile. "Mommy, I've been really good while you were gone. Look how clean I kept the house." Too clean. The trash can was full of empty soup cans and bread wrappers. I pulled up the footage from the living room security camera. The first night, Sadie sat alone on the couch watching TV until she fell asleep, then slipped off the couch and landed on the floor. No one was there to help her. She got back up on her own, grabbed a pillow, and curled up on the floor to sleep. The next morning, she stood on a little step stool, trying to reach the kettle in the kitchen. The kettle was too heavy for her. Hot water spilled across the table and burned her hand. She jerked it back, then ran to the bathroom and held it under cold water. She didn't cry once. On the third day, she came down with a fever. On the footage, she sat holding a thermometer and looked straight into the camera. "I think Mommy can see me. I'm a little warm, but I'm okay. You don't have to worry." Then she found the fever medicine herself, broke a tablet in half, and swallowed it. Three days. Three whole days. Gavin Halstead hadn't come home once. I checked his social media and found a post from three days earlier, tagged at a seaside resort. Celeste Rowan had written, "Thank you, Mr. Halstead, for taking Millie to see the ocean. She had so much fun." I saved the security footage to a flash drive. Then I crouched down, pulled Sadie into my arms, and buried my face against her shoulder. "Sweetheart, you don't have to be alone anymore. "From now on, wherever Mommy goes, you're coming with me. Just you and me. We don't need Daddy anymore."

The empire's most beloved princess suddenly fell victim to a mysterious illness, slipping into a deep coma that no physician could cure. In the end, the royal astrologer delivered a chilling prophecy: only the man destined to be her true soulmate could awaken her with a kiss of genuine love. In the first lifetime, my eldest brother, plain-looking and desperate for the enormous reward promised by the crown, volunteered to go to the palace and kiss the princess awake. However, the moment she opened her eyes and saw him, she let out a horrified scream. Calling him a fraud, she ordered the guards to drag him into the royal fountain and drown him alive. "You liar! How could someone who looks like you possibly be my fated one?" In the second lifetime, my second brother listened carefully to the warning left behind by our reborn eldest brother. Determined not to repeat the same mistake, he sought out an underground black-market surgeon and took on the face of the most handsome man in the entire country before going to awaken the princess. This time, everything seemed perfect. The princess fell deeply in love with him, and for an entire year they lived in bliss. However, on the day their child was born, she took one look at the baby and completely lost her mind. In a fit of rage, she ordered my second brother to be beaten to death on the spot. "How dare you deceive me? Die!" By the third lifetime, after witnessing the horrific deaths of both my brothers, I hid silently in the corner, too terrified to say a single word. Unfortunately, the queen had other plans. She ordered her servants to forcefully hold me down and make me kiss the princess awake. I never expected that on the very night of our wedding, the princess would suddenly go mad, rush out of the castle, and accidentally fall into the lake, where she drowned. The queen was furious beyond reason. Believing me responsible for her daughter's death, she ordered my public execution, leaving not even my bones behind. Then came the fourth lifetime. Once again, the Royal Chamberlain arrived at our home with a line of armed guards surrounding the estate. "The astrologer has confirmed it," he declared calmly. "The princess's destined soulmate is one of the three sons of the Lynch family. "You have three days to decide. Whoever succeeds in awakening the princess will marry into the royal family and enjoy limitless wealth, power, and honor." This time, the three of us only exchanged uneasy glances. The fortune and status being offered were enough to tempt anyone in the empire, yet not a single one of us dared take a step forward.

I spent three years winning the heart of Audrey Levingston, a woman everyone thought was untouchable. I gave up my entire career just to marry her and willingly became a stay-at-home husband. When she told me she was afraid of childbirth, I underwent a vasectomy the very next day. Everyone who knew us believed we would grow old together and love each other for the rest of our lives. But on our fifth wedding anniversary, I decided to file for divorce. My best friend and divorce attorney, Evan Chauncey, asked me again and again, “Are you sure? Back then, you turned down an offer from Vogue without hesitation just to marry her, and now, you’re telling me you want a divorce?” I swallowed the ache in my chest and replied, “Just draft the divorce agreement. The sooner, the better.” “Why?” he asked, clearly bewildered. My gaze fell on the exquisitely wrapped bouquet of black roses sitting on the dining table. After a long silence, I finally gave him my answer. “Because of a single bouquet.”

A few days before my postpartum period ended, I found two plane tickets to Mirelia tucked inside Daryl’s wallet. I was secretly delighted. I thought he had planned a surprise for me. But on the very day I was supposed to recover, he told me that his company had suddenly sent him on a business trip. I tossed and turned all night, unable to sleep—only to see his first love post on social media. [Finally fulfilled our promise to kiss at Saint Vyron Cathedral. Thank you, God. After all this time, it’s still you.] The photo showed the two of them holding hands and kissing. I didn’t confront him right away. Instead, I turned to look at my sleeping daughter beside me, then picked up my phone. [Dad, I've made up my mind. I'll take over the family business.]

Vivian Langford and I had been secretly together for five years. Everyone else thought we were bitter business rivals. Then, at a mutual friend's pre-wedding party, the groom came up with a game. Every single woman was blindfolded while the single men walked past. Each woman had to pick the man whose scent she liked best and claim him as her date for the day. I deliberately slowed down when I reached Vivian and paused in front of her for half a second. But when the blindfold came off, the man in her arms was Julian Rourke—her childhood sweetheart, her first love. "Damn, Vivian! Out of all those men, you grabbed Julian in one shot. Even fate thinks you two belong together!" Julian's eyes reddened. Vivian looked up at him with an indulgent smile. Neither of them let go. I stood a few feet away and suddenly laughed. Just last night, Vivian had been tracing the scar over my chest and telling me she was going to marry me. How had she forgotten in the blink of an eye?

My girlfriend, Olivia, had one way of measuring how much I loved her: how fast I replied. In the two years we dated, she blocked me 88 times. The first time, I was in the shower and missed her call. The 17th time, I was bringing her coffee when I missed a message asking for extra ice. The 56th time, I was at dinner with a client and didn't respond quickly enough to a video she'd sent me. This time, I worked until ten and missed the 9:50 p.m. movie she'd asked me to see with her. I told her there was a problem with the project and my manager wouldn't let me leave. She just laughed. "Anyone who really loves me would make it to a movie even with ten minutes' notice." When I got home that night, she'd changed the door code and removed my fingerprint from the lock. I sat outside all night. After work the next day, I went to her favorite jeweler and bought the necklace she'd wanted for the past three months. I kept telling myself I hadn't done enough. I just needed to do a better job balancing work and our relationship. She was in the shower when I got home. Her phone lit up on the dining table. A notification from a group chat called "Do Not Bring Him Tonight" flashed across the screen. Olivia, her childhood friend Ethan, and my best friend Daniel were all in it. Daniel had sent a voice message. "Olivia, I'll keep Chris at work late again tomorrow. Let's see if he chooses overtime or you." Ethan replied almost immediately with a laugh. "I found another beautiful piece of jewelry. It costs three times his salary. Send it to him and see if he chooses his paycheck or you." That was when I finally understood. I hadn't failed to prove that I loved her. They'd been setting me up to fail from the beginning. And if that was how things really were, I was done.