Independence Romance Short Stories & Regret Novels

For another girl, Lex Hamilton—my fiancé of several years—dumped me in the middle of nowhere and left me to fend for myself. Three years later, he showed up with her to bring me back. "It's been three years," he said. "Even a dog would've learned its lesson by now. I did this for your own good. If you don't fix that attitude of yours, don't expect to ever become my wife." They thought I'd crumble. They thought I'd beg, cling to him, and unload all the pain and humiliation I'd carried for the past three years. Instead, I smiled. "Sorry, Mr. Hamilton. I'm already married."

"If you could start over, who would you date?" That night, one of my fiancé's friends threw a party. We were playing truth or dare when the spinner landed on Julian Hale. All eyes in the room turned to Julian, who sat beside me. Then everyone turned to me with knowing, slightly envious smiles, ready to tease. Just yesterday, Julian had proposed to me with a three-million-dollar drone light show and a nine-million-dollar diamond ring. Glass in hand, my smile froze before it could fully form. Julian toyed with a metal lighter between his fingers. His gaze passed right over me and settled on the girl in white sitting in the far corner of the room. "Summer Lowe." His voice was flat. He didn't hesitate for even a second. The teasing in the room died instantly. A few of the guys across from us exchanged awkward looks. Someone coughed, then quickly tried to smooth things over. "Julian's joking. Everybody knows he's marrying Nora next month." Summer's head snapped up. Her eyes immediately welled with tears, and she twisted her fingers together nervously. "Julian, stop joking around. Nora's going to be upset." Sitting beside Julian, I felt my blood run cold.

Everybody said my life was over after Brad Coleman called off his engagement with me. I had been with him for five years. The things I had done to pander to him had left my reputation in tatters. Nobody was willing to be with a woman like me anymore. After word started spreading within our social circle that Brad had gotten a new lover, everybody was waiting for me to go crawling back to him. However, what they did not know was that I had volunteered to take my younger sister's place and go to a faraway city, Clason City, to get married. Before I got married, I returned the treasure box that Brad had given to me. The coupon for a free wish that he had given me when he was younger was still in it. I left without leaving anything behind. However, one day after a long time, Brad suddenly thought of me. "It's been a while since I last heard from Leah Young. Is she dead?" he said. Meanwhile, I was awakened by kisses from my new husband. "Good girl, Leah. You promised me to go four rounds. We can't go any less…"

The storm hit just as our graduation gala ended. The lights went out. Rain swallowed the front steps. In the dark, I called my fiancé, my childhood best friend, and my brother. None of them answered. With seven percent left on my phone, I huddled against the auditorium wall. Then headlights swept across the windows, and I saw my twin sister. My fiancé was carrying her to the car. My best friend held the door while my brother kept her graduation cap and flowers dry beneath his jacket. All three of them had come for her. Not one had remembered me. They remembered the strawberry cream cake she loved, but never my dairy allergy. They helped her study while I figured things out alone. Even my fiancé had asked where she wanted to live before discussing our future with me. Every time, they promised to do better. Every time, I was told not to make a big deal of it. This time, I stopped calling. Seven percent was enough to cancel the wedding, turn down the job my brother had arranged, and book a one-way flight to Chicago. By the time they noticed I was gone, I would already be on a plane.

After my husband topped the wealth rankings, he hired his first love as his personal housekeeper at a high salary. “Quincy, you hail from humble beginnings. I don’t want you embarrassing me in high society, so I specifically brought in Vivian to teach you the rules. From now on, everything you do must be reported to her for approval.” From that moment on, in public, I was the glamorous Mrs. Lane. However, behind closed doors, to even enjoy simple marital moments with my husband I had to write a thousand-word application seeking Vivian’s approval. Then, my adoptive father had a heart attack. I dropped to my knees, begging her to transfer me five hundred thousand dollars. She laughed coldly. “What kind of surgery costs half a million? Stop making excuses to pad your family’s finances.” “This isn’t a small sum. Write a 10,000-word application, and this time it’s denied.” Rage coursed through me, my body trembling uncontrollably as I spun toward Tyler and fell to my knees, begging him to save my father’s life. There wasn’t even a flicker of emotion on his face. “Vivian did nothing wrong. I know you’re still clinging to your old poor habits even after getting rich, but my money doesn’t grow on trees.” “This time, your father’s medical treatment will be put on hold as a lesson. Next time, don’t blame me if he’s kicked out of the VIP ward.” In the end, my adoptive father died on the operating table due to the delay in treatment. Completely disheartened, I finally asked Tyler for a divorce.

After four years with Killian, I got pregnant. I took the pregnancy test and my ID to a private hospital to set up a file, but when entering insurance information, I was stopped by the blonde administrative specialist. "Mrs. Smith, the system shows there is a problem with your marital status." She looked at me awkwardly. "Your marriage to Mr. Killian is not legally effective." I was stunned and instinctively retorted, "That's impossible. We registered in Las Vegas, all the procedures were..." "There is only an application record, no final signed effective document." The specialist turned the screen around and tapped the keyboard a few times. "Moreover, Mr. Killian's legal wife... shows another lady's name." That name was like a thorn, piercing fiercely into my retina. Elena. Killian's personal secretary, and also publicly recognized as the benefactor who saved his life in the Alps avalanche five years ago. I felt all the blood in my body flowing backward. How could it be her?

Three years into our long-distance relationship, my daily conversations with Evan Crawford turned into a three-person group chat. He said the company was busy preparing for its IPO and that he didn't have time to check his phone. If I needed anything, I should tell his "buddy," Nicole Pearce, and she'd pass it along. From then on, everything came through Nicole: what time he left the office, when he traveled for work, what he took for his stomach pain. She knew every moment of his day. Every message I sent him just sat there on "unread." On my birthday, I asked in the group chat if he could spare ten minutes for a video call. Nicole replied, "The launch event is right around the corner. Don't distract him." And yet somehow he had time to like her latest Instagram post. The night the company went public, I took an overnight bus to the celebration dinner and arrived in time to hear him raise a toast. "I owe these past six months to Nicole. She took care of all the little things for me." When he spotted me, he frowned. "Why didn't you check in through the group chat first?" Nicole took the gift from my hands. "He's exhausted. Whatever you need to say, I'll pass it along." A wave of helplessness hit me. I pulled my hand back and left the group chat. If even missing him had to go through her, I had no reason to report my life to him anymore.

I was superstar Grant's most obedient canary. By day, I handled multi-million dollar deals for him. By night, I played the role of his perfect plus-one. I never questioned his whereabouts, never fought for his favor, and never asked for a title. Until Tessa, the new starlet at his agency, showed up. She took my seat, took over my mansion, and even clung to Grant's arm to rub it in my face. "Reese is so understanding. She definitely won't mind, right?" And the superstar who usually cared so much about his public image just smiled, silently allowing her to cross the line. It was a pity Tessa didn't know that a canary who forgot her place would eventually get torn apart. And Grant didn't know that once the canary decided to settle the score, he wouldn't be able to survive in this industry anymore.

Six years after my divorce from my ex-wife, Enya Taylor, we meet again in a courtroom. She sits at the prosecution table, representing the prosecution in the case brought against me. I stand in the defendant's dock, accused of five counts of murder. The moment Enya sees my face, her eyes widen in shock. "Eric?" Her reaction doesn't surprise me. After all, no one would ever imagine that Eric Beckett, the man known for his gentle nature, and Ezra Beckett, the serial killer, were the same person. Tears well up in her eyes, and she clenches her jaw so fiercely that it trembles. "Six years. Five lives. Five families destroyed forever... Eric, how could you do something like this?" A low chuckle escapes me as I watch her. "Not just five, Ms. Taylor. Ryan White, your fiance and my former best friend, has been missing for a week, hasn't he? Care to guess where he is?"

While accompanying my husband, Austin Lockhart, to his class reunion, we run into his true love, Leticia Gomez. After the gathering, Austin learns that Leticia's been having a tough time. He corners her against a wall and says, "How much do you still owe? Be with me, and I'll give you a hundred grand a month. Is that enough?" I stand quietly at the street corner, capturing their touching reunion on camera. Then, I send the photos to my lawyer. I also forward them to Austin with a simple message. "Since you two are so in love, why not go ahead and marry her?"

While packing Ethan's flight bag, I found a custom solo wings pin. The engraving on the back read: For Lark, to celebrate your first solo. Beneath the box sat the receipt for Skyler's flight school tuition, paid in full by Ethan, along with a photograph. In the photo, she was sitting in the pilot's seat. Ethan's gloved hand rested over hers on the control yoke. Seven years ago, I had sat in that same seat. Back then, I was one step away from my first solo flight, but Ethan talked me out of it again and again, always claiming it was "for my own good." He said flying was dangerous, that someone had to stay home and take care of things. I put down my logbook, pressed the wrinkles out of every one of his captain's uniforms, and spent seven years living by his flight schedule. Only now did I finally understand. It wasn't that he didn't want to take anyone flying. He just didn't want to take me. What made it even more absurd was that the night Skyler first flew through the clouds, I was alone in a hospital, losing our baby. I called him over a dozen times. At three in the morning, he finally called back, his voice flat and indifferent. "I just took Lark through the clouds. Next time something comes up, give me a heads-up." I put the wings pin back exactly where I found it, then pulled the crumpled ultrasound printout from the bottom of the drawer and tucked it inside the logbook that had been gathering dust for seven years. This time, I wasn't going to wait for him to look back. He convinced me to leave the pilot's seat, then turned around and put another woman in the sky. So I would leave him and take back the sky that had always been mine.

At the dinner table, my wife's best friend suddenly speaks to her in Lytian. "Three years ago, you married Julian in a grand wedding just to help Jace get Julian's letter of forgiveness. Over the years, I've seen Julian fall more and more deeply in love with you. Yet, you're still lying to him. "You gave him sterilization pills but passed them off as his depression medication. Aren't you afraid that he'll fall apart if he finds out the truth?" My wife, Erica Inman, briefly shows a conflicted expression on her face. She then gives a bitter smile and says, "A child unwanted by their mother has no reason to be born. As long as Julian doesn't stand in the way of Jace's happiness, I will keep my promise and stay by his side for the rest of his life." No one knows that I've learned Lytian to keep up with Erica. I stand in the living room and look at the fresh kiss mark on my neck. As I glance at the medication I take regularly for my depression, my whole body turns cold. It turns out that all of Erica's affection toward me was fake. What I thought was my salvation turns out to be nothing but a carefully planned deception. Since that's the case, I'll do my part to make sure they all get what they want.

30,000 emergency meals meant for the disaster-stricken area were all sent to the incinerator as hazardous waste. The order to destroy them came from the deputy chief of the Health Department, Joanne Shea, my wife. The whistleblower was her childhood friend, Kevin Stafford, who claimed to be a retired undercover journalist. This was already the third time he had targeted my company. The first time, he reported my truck for illegal parking. Joanne then forced me to issue a public apology. The second time, he conducted an undercover investigation and accused me of violating packaging label regulations. Joanne issued a fine without hesitation and ordered my company to undergo a month-long rectification. Each time, Joanne has sided with him, using me as an example for others to learn from. This time, with water and electricity cut off in the disaster area, I rushed supplies there overnight only to be blocked at the entrance once again. Holding the certification of compliance, I pleaded, “The front lines can’t wait. If anything goes wrong, I’ll take the blame with my life!” However, Joanne coldly waved me off. “Kevin is a journalist. He would never take the disaster area lightly! Destroy the supplies immediately!” Two days later, the lab report confirmed that the food met all standards. However, the emergency rations had already been destroyed, and the “‘Poisoned Meals for Disaster Relief” scandal had spread like wildfire online. The company faced a widespread online boycott, and major clients terminated their contracts overnight. Joanne looked at the lab report. She felt guilty but still kept her arrogance. “I guess Kevin misjudged the situation, but he meant well.” I found it all hilarious and slipped off my wedding ring. “I’ve given you three chances. Let’s get a divorce.”

When our SAT scores came out, my four childhood friends came over to my house for drinks. Halfway through the night, someone suggested a game of truth or dare. When it was my turn, my stepsister, Selena, dared everyone to show which colleges they planned to apply to. The four of them opened their laptops. Each screen showed an application preview for the University of Alaska. Liam, the childhood friend I'd had a crush on for years, sent me a draft application with my information already filled in and pointed to my SAT score: 1580. "We said we'd be together forever. "You haven't applied early decision to an Ivy yet anyway. So how about it? Do you dare go to the same college as us?" So, in front of everyone, I added the University of Alaska to my application. Amid the whistling, Liam leaned down and kissed me deeply, his answer to my confession. The day my acceptance letter arrived, I took a bag of freshly baked muffins to Liam's house. But from inside, I could hear several of them talking about me with contempt. "Is Catherine really going?" "Of course. I watched her submit the application myself!" "Thanks to Selena, a few fake application pages were enough to get rid of that annoying tagalong." "Come on. If you ask me, Liam has it worst." "Relax, man. This little dating game will be over soon. School starts any day now." I froze, clutching the paper bag. Then the door opened. My four childhood friends came out, with Selena in the middle of them. The moment they saw me, their smiles vanished.

In the second year of our marriage, which Brett Mason had secured through relentless means, he brought home his latest conquest—a stunning blonde. As the door swung shut, he ran his fingers through her silky hair, flashing me a smug, triumphant grin. "Wanna join us? You might learn a thing or two about not being such a dead fish." I could still recall how he once adored my hair, claiming that just stroking it would melt away his deepest worries. It turned out any woman could serve that purpose. In that instant, a profound sense of release washed over me. I retrieved the divorce agreement I'd stashed away in a drawer and handed it to him. "Sign it, and I'll make room for her." My days were numbered, and I had no intention of wasting what little time remained entangled in his resentment.

At our company's tenth-anniversary party, my four childhood friends, who were also my business partners, slid a contract in front of me. "There's a serious PR crisis in Dayaka, and we need the whole team out there. "Pull this off, and we'll own this industry. "Cora, you've always been decisive. You're not going to back out just because there might be fighting, right?" Jared Blake wore his usual confident smile. Standing behind him was Faye Sterling, the illegitimate daughter the Sterling family had only recently brought home. I signed it right in front of them. As everyone cheered, Jared made me a promise. "Cora, once this is over and we're back, we'll get married." Later, I pushed open the conference room door. The projector was still hooked up to Jared's laptop, and on the screen was a group chat they'd forgotten to close. "Dayaka's settled?" "Done. One empty promise was all it took to get her to that hellhole. Now Faye can stay in Nova City and take over as senior partner, fair and square." "Jared's taking the biggest hit, though. He has to keep playing fiancé to that control freak." I stood in front of the screen, holding my files. Behind me, the door opened, and I heard the four of them laughing and talking as they crowded around their little princess. I turned around. The moment our eyes met, every smile in the room froze.

The day my girlfriend's accident happened, I found her wills. Two hundred and fourteen of them, actually. Each one was dated differently, but the beneficiary never changed. It wasn't me. It was her first love. My hands and feet went cold. I couldn't even bring myself to ask her about it. She was lying in a hospital bed, still unconscious. "Miss Zaslow has always had a thing for extreme sports, especially the more dangerous ones," her assistant explained. "So she'd gotten in the habit of leaving one of these behind every time, before she left." "Only the last one was ever notarized by a lawyer." I barely needed to think about it. "Still has nothing to do with me. Does it?" He didn't say anything else after that. The room went quiet, except for the steady beep of the machines. Six years together, and Vivian Zaslow had vanished on me for over a month at a time before, more than once. Every single time, I'd been sick with worry for her. And the whole time, she'd been quietly leaving everything that she owned to another man. If that was how it was, why should I keep worrying about her at all?

At our tenth engagement party, my girlfriend crushed my heart again, leaving my proposal ring dangling in the air. She had been chasing the ghost of her first love, and I was done being her fallback guy. When I finally opened my heart to someone new, she realized what she'd lost. Ten years together, ten engagement parties, and still, she wouldn't take my ring. Every time we reached the moment to exchange vows, she'd stare at the door, waiting for that man to swoop in and rescue her. She swore she'd only marry me if he crashed the party, claiming it would prove she'd truly chosen me. This time, I couldn't hold back. "If he never shows, are you just gonna keep stringing me along forever?" She shot back, "He still loves me. He'll show up to stop this. Besides, we've been together a decade. Does a ring even matter at this point?"

Five years ago, my family went bankrupt. When I had nowhere left to turn, it was my rival, Grant Ford, who threw me a lifeline. He paid off all our debts on one condition: I had to marry him. I assumed the marriage was revenge he'd been planning for years. Instead, for five years, he treated me like I was precious. He never even raised his voice at me. When my anxiety grew worse, he slept beside my bed for months and held my hand through every panic attack. Little by little, I let my guard down. For him, I even dulled my edge. Then, out of nowhere, an intern joined the company. She wore the clothes I used to love. She even copied the way I pitched ideas when I was younger. And she stole the project I'd spent eight months of late nights landing, all while I was pregnant. But Grant only smiled at her indulgently. "Let her try. It's good for young people to have some drive." When he turned to me, his voice was cool. "You've gotten too cautious lately. Let her take the lead on the project." I looked down at the milk stain on my sleeve from feeding our baby, Jamie. That was when I understood. He loved the defiant woman I'd been, not the wife he'd worn down. No wonder he was so eager to find a stand-in for the younger, sharper woman I'd been. But a replacement only gets her turn once the original leaves the stage. If he was so impatient, I'd give him what he wanted.

In the fifth year of our bland marriage, I receive a message that my husband has booked a hotel room with a woman. Within the next second, seductive pictures of me show up in the work group chat. In the pictures, I seduced my husband but failed. My colleagues in the group chat mock me by saying, "She gave Mr. Reed an ultimatum and forced him to marry her. He was forced to break up with the woman he loves." "Mr. Reed put up with her for five years. It only makes sense that he could no longer resist and decide to reunite with his lover." My sick father dies out of shock, yet my husband does not show up to his funeral. That night, I inform Belinda that I wish to divorce her son. "Back then, you told me that I'm Caleb's blessing in life. You said that he'd have endless success if we were to marry. "As long as I married Caleb for five years, you promised to pay for my father's medical fees. Now that the time is up, you should let me go too."