Cerita Pendek Plot Twists Romance & Novel Karma

When I was in a car accident, my fiancee, Celeste Quinn, was celebrating her first love's birthday. I was barely alive when I called her. All I got was her impatient voice. "Ryan Sheridan, what kind of stunt is this now? Are you ever going to stop? "Good. Die, then. Stop bothering me." I didn't die though. I decided to give her and her first love what they wanted. I stopped bothering her. Later, when she finally remembered me, she begged me to come back. I handed her a marriage certificate instead. "Sorry. I'm already married."

I had already bought the house we were supposed to build our future in, and over the years, I had carefully set aside a substantial wedding fund. I could not wait to spend the rest of my life with my girlfriend, Jeannie Cooperd. Jeannie had always seemed delicate and timid. Even a simple remark would leave her eyes red with tears. For two years, I spoiled her shamelessly, giving in to her every whim. Every plan I made, every dollar I saved, and every dream I held revolved around our wedding and the life we would share together. Then, I received the kidney compatibility report. The moment I saw the results, my heart turned icy. The woman who normally shrank from pain was now gripping my shoulders with surprising strength, determined to push me toward the operating room. "You're healthy! What's the big deal about living with one kidney?" she cried. "Elliot is dying!" Elliot. The name alone was enough. He was the first love she had never truly let go of, the one she had kept hidden in the deepest corner of her heart. Just yesterday, he was diagnosed with complete kidney failure. To pay for his treatment and cover the debts he had accumulated, Jeannie secretly canceled our wedding, drained every cent from the wedding fund and savings we had built together, and poured it all into Elliot's medical bills and endless financial problems. That was not enough. With sweet words and carefully crafted lies, she coaxed me into coming to the hospital and persuaded me to undergo compatibility testing.

Just because I accidentally broke my adopted sister’s bracelet, my brother threw me into the black market to “learn my lesson.” By the time I was rescued, I had been tortured so brutally that I was barely recognizable. It was Elijah York who risked his own life to pull me out of that hellhole. When we finally escaped, his blood had soaked my clothes, yet he held me tightly against his chest and whispered that he would never regret it. For three years after that, I drifted between moments of clarity and bouts of pure madness. I despised myself, constantly feeling dirty and broken, but Elijah always treated me like a princess. Until this day, my mind was, for once, clear. Caressing the tiny new life I had just discovered growing inside my womb, I was overflowing with joy as I hurried to surprise him. However, right outside his office door, I overheard a conversation between him and my brother. “Did you actually catch feelings after playing a part for so long? Don’t forget that in three months, it will be the optimal window for Chloe’s bone marrow transplant.” Elijah let out a low, amused scoff, his tone indifferent. “I’ve been drugging Nora for three years. Everyone thinks she’s completely lost her mind by now. Legally, she is my wife, and I hold full guardianship over her. That’s the only way the bone marrow extraction process remains completely legal and compliant.” I froze right where I stood, the blood freezing in my veins.

My wife was eight months pregnant when she indulged her first love for the ninety-eighth time and let him run our child down with his car. My lawyer wife had promised me she'd bring him to justice, but in court, she suddenly changed her statement. "Mr. Quinn has a serious history of mental illness. His family will discipline him verbally, but he shouldn't be held criminally responsible." After the hearing, she shielded Caleb Quinn as he sobbed in public, then leaned close to my ear and said softly, "I promised you I'd only indulge him one hundred times. Let's just use up one chance. I can't watch him go to prison, can I?" I looked at my wife's flat stomach and felt calmer than I'd ever felt before. Then I nodded. She'd relied on that bet for six years, certain she could do anything. She'd forgotten there was only one chance left.

My girlfriend, Selena Jenkins, and I are committed to a strict 50-50 relationship. We are three years into our relationship, and we split everything down to a single bottle of water. Then, out of nowhere, I get a call from a kidnapper. "We have your girlfriend. Have 150 thousand dollars ready, or she dies!" I calmly launch our app, SplitMate. According to the algorithm, this unexpected incident falls under "shared risk", meaning she is responsible for 50% of the cost. However, after factoring in the personal insurance policy I took out on her behalf, she only needs to pay 35,550 dollars. I send the calculation results to the kidnapper. "This is her share. Please contact her family for the payment. I'm only responsible for my own portion." The line goes silent. A few minutes later, I receive a livestream link. The livestream shows Selena tied to a chair, smiling at her phone. The live chat in front of her is blowing up. "Holy shit! This guy's a monster. This is the craziest livestream I've seen all year!" Later on, she follows the 50-50 rule to a T, but I'm no longer on board with it.

I am the last priestess of the Wintermoor tribe, blessed with the power to make wishes on behalf of others. But every time a wish is granted, I become physically younger. The year I get engaged to Ethan Hayes, I am 28. Three years into our engagement, he's left at death's door after a plane crash. That's the first time I make a wish for him. He survives, yet I become 23. Five years into our engagement, Ethan loses everything and attempts to jump from a building. I make another wish for him. He's wealthy again, and I become 18. Seven years into our engagement, Ethan brings home a terminally ill woman. He then drops to his knees, begging me to save her. I shake my head. "I can't. If I do it one more time, I'll turn three. By then, I won't be your fiancee anymore, and I won't even remember you." But Ethan sneers. "You saved me twice, and you were fine. One time for her, and you'll drop dead? Mirabel, spare me the excuses for your heartlessness." Later, Ethan stands at the edge of the sacred mountain cliff and threatens me with his own life. In the end, I save the woman. The next day, she's completely healed. Ethan holds her close, his gaze soft with affection. Then, he looks up at me and says, "I'll marry you once she's stable enough." I look down at my hands, now no bigger than a child's, and turn to leave. There's no need. In three days, I'll turn into a baby.

The It Girl, Kelly Hilton, claims she's an airhead beauty. When a D-list nobody like me joins her on a variety show, she takes my mother's keepsake pendant without saying a word. Then, she breaks it into pieces. Yet, Kelly shows no remorse, saying, "Oh, I'm just such an airhead. It's normal for me to break things by accident. Your mom is already dead, so just let it go, okay? Everyone has to move on!" I laugh in disbelief. "You think causing trouble is cute and having no manners is being genuine? 'Airhead beauty'? You're just an idiot. Don't try to make yourself sound better than you are." Kelly's eyes redden. "How could you scold me? I quit! I'll have my brothers deal with you!" The crew is stunned. "Is she crazy? Doesn't she know how protective the Litt family brothers are of their sister?" "They are obsessed with Kelly. They'd do anything for her!" I can't help but laugh. I've entered the entertainment industry in the first place because my brothers are too clingy. I may be a nobody, but I haven't lost my memory. How come I don't know that my brothers have a sister named Kelly?

Just after I finish a meeting, the parents' group chat for my daughter's kindergarten suddenly buzzes with activity. Someone shares a viral post. The poster writes, "A daughter is always her daddy's sweetheart. She's already using her allowance to buy her dad a birthday present! I wonder who my gentle, wealthy little princess will marry someday." The one who shares the post adds excitedly in the comments, "She's the one and only successor to the Webb family in Jemton! She's a true heiress!" The parents in the group chat eagerly offer their sycophantic compliments. They can hardly wait to offer their own sons as potential suitors for the little girl. But I'm puzzled. Other than my wife, Lucy Webb, I don't think there is any other family with the surname Webb in Jemton. Then, I open the photo attached to the post and instantly freeze. The sweet little girl smiling as she holds the gift is unmistakably my daughter, Emilia Webb, whom I personally drive to and from kindergarten every single day.

After dinner with my college roommates at a restaurant in the Old Harbor district, the rain came down hard without warning. We huddled under the awning, pulling our coats tight, calling our boyfriends one by one.My friend Maya nudged my shoulder with a grin. "Your guy chased you so hard the entire school knew about it. He'll definitely be the first one here." "Right? Four years of college. Hot coffee delivered to your door on rainy days, your bike path shoveled clean in the snow, and whenever you didn't feel like getting up for class, he'd organize the professor's lecture notes and send them straight to your inbox." "That year you had your senior exhibition and came down with a high fever, he stayed with you in the studio for three days. Made you soup, fixed your models, stayed up so late his eyes were bloodshot. Evelyn, I honestly thought you'd found yourself a fairy-tale prince." They chattered on about my love life. Before long, their boyfriends all showed up with umbrellas. When they glanced my way, their expressions faltered. "How come Noah isn't here yet? Isn't your apartment just across the river?" I smiled and held up my phone. "He said something came up at the office." Maya asked her boyfriend to drop me off first. I sat in the back seat, spotted a familiar figure standing outside the pet grooming salon on the corner. He was cradling a silver-gray longhaired cat in his arms. The cat was wrapped in a soft little wool blanket. He was shielding even its ear tips, terrified of letting a single drop of rain touch it. It was Noah. The cat in his arms belonged to his childhood neighbor, Selena. This wasn't the first time Noah had left me stranded in the rain for that cat.Another message from Noah. "Babe, the rain's too heavy. Wait until it lets up and then call a car home. Don't be stubborn. You won't get wet that way." What he didn't know was that from the day Selena moved to this city last year, I had already been soaked through.

My fiancé’s childhood sweetheart Vivian knew about my deadly asthma. She secretly mixed strong liquor into my drink. Fire poured down my throat. Then, my airway clamped shut. Panic hit me. My hands shook as I dug out my emergency inhaler. But the spray hitting my lungs wasn't medicine. It was strong mint spray. She had swapped it. The second I inhaled, my airways slammed shut. Lack of oxygen drained my strength. I collapsed onto the floor, pathetic and weak. "Aria, this is mint spray I specially prepared for you. It can give you an effective energy boost." Vivian said, rushing over with a look of innocent concern. She crossed her arms, her possessive eyes locked onto my fiancé—Silas Thorne, the CEO of Thorne Group. "Silas, is Aria practicing for a play? I've been a top private doctor for years. I've never seen anyone react to mint spray that strongly." I bit my inner cheek hard. The taste of blood filled my mouth. Cold sweat stung my eyes. I gripped Silas’s pant leg tight. "Please... Silas... ambulance... I can't breathe..." Real panic flashed in his deep eyes for a second. He leaned forward instinctively. But the mocking voices from the executives around us stopped him cold. "Come on, stop pretending! Nobody dies from a bit of beverage and mint spray." "Yeah, she's just throwing a tantrum. Vivian was appointed as the Chief Medical Officer of Thorne Group today, and Aria is clearly jealous." Silas’s jaw tightened. He forced down the worry in his eyes. He ruthlessly pulled his leg away from my twitching fingers, taking a cold step back. "Vivian is a doctor. With her here, you won't die." I stopped begging. I used my last breath to text my father，the President of the Federation.

I’m Chloe. Daughter of the richest man in the world. I spend money like water. To stop me from blowing his fortune, my dad put me on a strict allowance. But right before my engagement party, he made an exception. Handed me a black card. Told me to pick out my own wedding jewelry. I went straight to Manhattan. To the most exclusive, biggest rough diamond trading center in the US. Because real top-tier jewels? You don’t just buy them. You bid for them in blood. I spotted a flawless rough pink diamond. It had this faint, perfect glow. Just as I picked it up, smack! A hand slapped mine hard. It stung. I dropped the stone. "Don't touch what you can't afford. You break it, can you pay for it?" “Five hundred thousand. Wrap it up. Now.” I frowned and looked over. A woman in a designer evening gown was rubbing her hand with disgust, as if she’d touched something filthy. Before I could even speak, a staff member snatched the stone right from me. "Right away, Miss Mia! I'll wrap it up for you!" I actually laughed from sheer disbelief. “Excuse me? That's daylight robbery.” Mia folded her arms and looked me up and down with a sneer. “Robbery?” “I’m Liam Astor’s childhood sweetheart. He's the heir to Wall Street's biggest empire. Around here, whatever I want, I get.” “So who the hell do you think you are, calling that robbery?” Liam. At the familiar name, I raised an eyebrow. Wasn’t he the fiancé my father had forced on me? I pulled out my phone and dialed. "Liam. Your little childhood friend is trying to steal my wedding jewelry in public. Are you going to handle this?"

When I turned eighteen, I awakened my wolf. That was also when a strange System appeared in my mind. It told me that if I won over Matthew Reed and survived his betrayal-and-groveling arc, I would receive $32 billion. That was the only reason I agreed to keep our marriage secret. But the night Matthew won Best Actor, he posted a photo on Instagram of himself feeding Hellfire Wings to his childhood sweetheart, Layla Bennett. The caption read: [After all this time, this is still the flavor I crave most.] Immediately afterward, he exposed our secret marriage and posted evidence that I had paid him to mark me against his will. The trending page crashed on the spot. My hands shook as I reached for him through our mind-link, but Matthew didn't sound sorry at all. "Layla's been diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer. This is her last wish. "She can't be labeled a homewrecker. You've had me for three years. Can't you show a little compassion for a dying woman?" The entire internet called me a homewrecker who was destroying their true love. Some of his fans even made black-and-white memorial photos of me and plastered them across my front door. They demanded that I, the "vicious mate," break our bond and step aside for his true love. I sat there in silence, tears running down my face, when the System suddenly roared inside my head: [Hostile betrayal by target detected. Host bears no responsibility. Groveling Protocol disabled.] [Mind-link backlash blocked. Switching to: Maximum Savage Comeback Mode!] The moment the System fell silent, my head snapped up, every trace of tears gone. I went live to the entire internet, grabbed a megaphone, and planted myself right outside Layla's VIP hospital room. "Terminal stomach cancer, and she's still stuffing her face with Hellfire Wings? Is she trying to die even faster?"

To help my student, Stanley Johnson, win the chemistry competition, my fiancee, Yelena Quincy, replaces my experimental materials with a hazardous substance. She leaves me a note. "Hank, you've already won plenty of awards and honors. Stanley's mother only has a few days left, and this is his last chance to fulfill her dying wish. Just let him have this one. "Besides, you're Stanley's advisor. Helping your own student win the championship makes you look good, too. "Once he wins, I'll say yes to your marriage proposal right away, okay?" But she doesn't know that I no longer have a chance to marry her. The hazardous substance causes a massive explosion, and I burn to death along with the three thousand students and faculty in the building! She faces relentless demands for justice from the families of all three thousand victims.

As soon as I became a chief surgeon, I immediately had my corneas removed. In my previous life, on my first day in the operating room, my boyfriend's childhood friend secretly used my access badge to perform a critical procedure on a wealthy patient. She botched the surgery through sheer negligence, causing the patient to bleed out and die on the table. However, the medical staff testified that I was the one who performed the failed operation and then fled the hospital. When the medical board confronted me, I desperately explained that I had never performed that surgery in the first place. However, she threw herself into my boyfriend's arms and said with great grievance, "Serena, I know you don't like me, but you can't frame me like that!" Lucas took out the operating room's surveillance footage. The video showed that I was the one holding the scalpel, causing the fatal hemorrhage, and leaving in a panic. "Instead of repenting, you're trying to push the blame onto someone else." After seeing this, the victim's grieving family confronted me and savagely beat me to death. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day before my boyfriend's childhood friend stole my access badge.

I was in the parking garage of my Beverly Hills high-rise. And I backed my car into my neighbor's Ferrari. On purpose. I got out, a half-empty bottle of tequila in my hand, right in front of her. "Are you blind? Do you know how much this car costs? Can you even afford to fix it?" She was furious, her face turning red as she whipped out her phone to call 911. I just smirked. "You should probably call them. Get the LAPD down here to arrest me. I'll wait." The first time around, I was the fall guy for my fiancé, Grant, and his sister, Blair. They got high at some Hollywood party, went joyriding, and killed an innocent valet. But the car was my Porsche. And they swore I was the one driving. I rotted in a California state prison for ten years. The shock killed my mom. A heart attack. When I got out, they weren't done. They forged offshore debts to drain my trust fund and drove me to suicide. I woke up 24 hours before it all happened again.

Five years ago, at our engagement party, I broke my fiancee's assistant Richard Greer's nose with a punch because I saw his hand slip under my fiancee Pearl Moran's skirt, groping her right out in the open. Yet when security arrived, Pearl stepped in front of Richard and frowned at me. "Alex, he was just messing around. Did you really have to hit him that hard?" To get back at me for Richard, she pulled strings to throw me in prison. My first day behind bars, I ended up in a cell Richard prepped for me. My ribs were broken in a beating. I was fed spoiled leftovers and forced to sleep on the cold concrete floor. The moment I got out, I boarded a flight to Eldermere without looking back. Five years later, I return to Sovrane with my wife, Catherine Carter, to take over her family's Bellmont division. She gets held up with an arms order and tells her local crew to pick me up. I never expect to run into Pearl, whom I haven't seen in five years, the moment I step out of the airport. A black sedan pulls up in front of me, and the window rolls down. She looks at me like nothing ever happened. "You've been gone long enough. Time to drop the grudge. Richard's driver just retired. Since you're back, you can take over."

It's our fifth year together, and I accompany my fiance, Theo Montague, to see the aurora he has always yearned to see. Fortune favors us that night as vivid green lights stretch across the snow-covered plain. He wraps his arms around me from behind and suddenly murmurs, "It's beautiful. Too bad we're still one step short of perfect." I freeze for a moment and ask him what we're missing. He doesn't answer, and I don't press him, either. After all, I've heard this phrase far too many times. When I go to great lengths to get him the out-of-print book he has his sights on for ages, he sighs. "We're still one step short of perfect." When we move into our beautifully furnished house and finally have a place of our own in Northshire, he laments, "We're still a step short." Even when he becomes a professor, our wedding's set, and everyone envies us for having it all, he still tells me, "This is wonderful, but it's still one step short of perfect." I've heard it so often that I assume he's simply harder to please than most people. The "one step short" he always speaks of seems nothing more than the small imperfection a perfectionist can never let go of. Everything changes when his most prized former student returns from abroad. For the first time ever, the man who rarely posts on social media shares a photo of himself picking her up at the airport. The woman standing next to him looks eerily like me, sharing at least 70% of my features. The caption reads, "My life's complete now that I've reunited with an old friend." That's when it hits me—the one thing he's missing is a person. I'm merely someone he settles for because I happen to look 70% like her. Since I'm only 70% similar to the woman he truly wants, how can I possibly give him the perfect life he longs for?

I gave up the chance to take over my family's business and spent ten whole years acting as a sports agent for my swimmer boyfriend, Nate. I stayed by his side from his early days to his rise to fame. He promised he would propose to me the day he won the world championship gold. The night of his victory dinner, I eagerly put on a wedding dress. I even invited all our close friends and family to the venue so they could witness the moment together. But as he stood under the spotlight, he looked right past me and his gaze landed on his younger teammate, Lexi, who was smiling brightly and clapping for him nearby. A reporter pushed through the crowd with a microphone and asked on the spot if he and Lexi were dating. Nate just smiled at the cameras and didn't deny a thing. Hearing the crowd around us cheering and swooning over them, I ripped off my veil, turned around, and walked out. I sent a text to my father asking him to send a car to take me home. I suddenly remembered that before he left, Nate had hugged me tightly. He said he wasn't in top form and was afraid of losing. He begged me not to go to the competition because he didn't want me to see him fail. In the end, he kept me away just so he could bring someone else. Whoever wants a man like this can have him. I am done.

Three months had passed since my husband vanished while hiking in the fjords. Then I spotted him in a VIP room at a Manhattan strip club, one arm wrapped around my adopted sister's waist, looking like he didn't have a care in the world. "Thank God you came up with this idea. I'd almost forgotten what it felt like to be free of that control freak." His friends raised their glasses and cheered, asking how much longer he planned to play dead. Alex swirled his drink as he considered the question. "Next week. Once the guilt and panic drive her crazy, I'll show up and give her a nice surprise." I stood in the shadows, watching him enjoy his newfound freedom. Then I called a friend who worked at the courthouse.

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