Plot Twists Romance Short Stories & Karma Novels

A medical report shows me my husband's true colors. I've been diagnosed with late-stage stomach cancer. Yet, my husband gives our life savings to someone else. I lunge at him to take my anger out on him, but he shoves me to the floor. "Lillian needs the money to open up a shop, you madwoman! So what if I've given her the money? "You have late-stage stomach cancer, so it's the end of the line for you! Why are you trying to compete with someone who has a long life ahead when you already have one foot in the grave? You can't expect Mom and I to lose everything because of you, right?" I sit dazedly on the floor. I've never found him more unfamiliar. After that, I sneak all my wedding gifts out, wanting to sell them for money. However, I'm told they're all fakes. My husband sneers. "I'm glad I had the foresight to switch them out for the real deal. You would've taken all the money if not for that!" Later, the hospital called to say there was an issue with their system. The names on the medical reports were wrongly indicated. I ask my husband, "Why are you competing with someone who has a long life ahead when you already have one foot in the grave?"

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.

When my boyfriend, Mark Jamison, gets in a car accident that leaves him paralyzed, I pawn the ring my mother left to me before she died to help him. With hands that have never been used to do any work or a single household chore in my life, I start lugging around delivery bags. In the middle of a rainstorm, I get assigned to deliver a food order worth 10,000 dollars, with a 100-dollar tip. Just as I happily celebrate my luck, I overhear the raucous laughter coming from inside the villa. "She actually believes you got paralyzed in a car accident? She now spends all day doing deliveries just to support you financially? She even sold off her dead mom's ring?" "She'd probably cry her heart out if she ever finds you're actually a wealthy scion worth tens of billions of dollars, who's just pretending to be poor!" Mark twirls the wineglass he's holding and says, "A lowly woman like her was born to wait on others. She brought it upon herself by always being better than Rosie back in school. Messing with her is the punishment she deserves." I continue to stand in the rain, tears rolling down my cheeks. This is how I find out Mark has spent the last two years faking his condition just to help his childhood sweetheart get back at me. His so-called paralyzed legs, deceased parents, and helpless tears are all just part of a meticulously executed lie. I haven't talked to my father, the richest man in town, for years. But now, I have finally decided to call him. "I lost, Dad. I'll accept the marriage alliance and marry the guy you picked for me."

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 was head over heels for Jonas Hayes, the cold and aloof scholarship student who saw me as nothing more than a walking wallet. He took my credit card but refused to let me get close. "Get lost. The sight of you and your filthy money makes me sick." Using my wealth, he showered Clara Dove, the stunning campus bella from a humble background, with luxury gifts and even threw her a lavish birthday party at the city’s most exclusive hotel. Everyone envied him, believing he was a self-made billionaire. But I didn’t care. I stayed hopelessly in love. After graduation, I poured my entire inheritance into building a life with him, convinced I could win his heart. During our honeymoon, he watched as I drowned, his voice ice-cold as he said, "Every time I think of how you used your money to control me, I wish you’d die sooner." When I woke up again, I was back in my college classroom—the day Jonas asked me to top up his card. This time, I wasn’t the desperate fool he remembered. I slapped him across the face with the card and sneered, "Even beggars know how to kneel and ask. What are you, a weed?"

While setting up the wedding bed, I discovered an unidentified liquid on the sheets. In my new marital home, someone else had already stayed here! My mind went completely blank, and I video-called my fiance. Surprisingly, the call was answered instantly. "The new bed is really soft. I tried it out for you," said Jeremy's assistant, Rachel. She smiled, flirtatious and smug. Perfect. I don't want this man anymore.

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.

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?"

On my twentieth birthday, my parents placed a stack of photos in front of me—eligible bachelors from elite families all over the country—and told me to pick one for an arranged marriage. I told my dad to leave it to fate and draw lots. In my past life, I had chosen without hesitation the man I’d long admired: Lucas Whitmore, the most eligible bachelor of Astor Hill's elites. But after we got married, I found out the truth. His first love—the girl he had always held dear, Claire Monroe—was devastated by our marriage. One night, heartbroken, she went out drinking and was assaulted by a group of thugs. Claire attempted suicide three times after that. And Lucas blamed it all on me. He handed over my family’s fortune to Claire, draining every last cent from the Meyers. In the end, Lucas even helped her cut the brake lines on our car. My parents and I died in that crash. Now that I’d been given a second chance at life, the name I drew was Liam Morgan—the reclusive heir from Orchard Valley, known for shunning the world and dedicating himself to Buddhism. But when I showed up arm-in-arm with Liam at our engagement party, Lucas lost his mind.

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?

My best friend called me sobbing at two in the morning, saying she owed three hundred thousand dollars in online loans and was begging me to save her life. I told her I'd help cover half. She grabbed my phone and transferred all three hundred thousand. "It's just money—why are you being so stingy? You make six figures. Helping me out shouldn't be a big deal." I swallowed it. A month later, she posted Maldives vacation photos on Instagram. When I asked when she planned to pay me back, she replied—right there in the comments, where every mutual friend could see— "God, stop nagging. Maybe spend that energy making more money instead, you cheapskate. So annoying." I screenshotted everything. Then I opened the civil complaint I'd already drafted. This kind of best friend? We could catch up in court.

The day my husband, Reece Malcolm, reached the pole for his polar expedition, his childhood sweetheart who was sent away reappeared in his bedroom. Everyone had kept it from me. Erica Lowell had been by his side day and night. Though Reece said he didn't want her there, he still allowed her to stay by his side for four years as his assistant. "You have to believe me, Lucy. There's nothing between Erica and me," he used to say. Always so sure. Always so convincing. But when he returned, it was with Erica in his arms—heavily pregnant. "She threatened to kill herself, Lucy. I didn't have a choice," he said. "The baby's coming. I need you to raise it. You know you're the only one I've ever loved." Four years. Four years of silence, of waiting alone in a house that never felt like home. Now, the lawyer is hired. The assets are tallied. The divorce papers are signed and sealed. I'm done.

Jenny posted a picture of me and her brother, who had an intellectual disability. The caption? "Finally, a happy ending!" The comments were all the same: "Is this your sister-in-law? She’s gorgeous!" I simply replied with a question mark, but Jenny ignored me and responded to someone else instead. "She's kinda my sister-in-law, yes!" It didn't take long for Steven to call me, his tone full of anger. "It was just a little edit, do you really have to blow things out of proportion?" Half an hour later, Jenny posted another photo of her sitting in Steven's luxury car, and even tagged me in it. "We may not be related by blood, but this big brother of mine has always been my rock!" Steven commented. "I'll always be here." I knew he was trying to get a rise on me on purpose to appease Jenny, but I didn't grace them with a reply this time. All I did was like the post and file for divorce.

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.

"How can there be a perfect choice in this world—one that betrays neither the Sandharan Order nor the one you love?" It's a romantic line, but it has nothing to do with Rosalie Stone. Her fiance, Bradley Wakefield, is a man revered like Sandhara himself, but it's not because of her that he leaves the Sandharan Order. She thinks he will never fall in love. But later, she learns that it's just her that he won't fall for. And so, she gives up on him. She gives herself seven days to forget about Bradley.

Zayn Ulrich and I have dated for seven years. However, when he's prosecuted and sent to prison, I leave him without hesitation. I turn to his best friend instead. Now, Zayn is out of prison. He rises from the ashes and uses every means possible to force me into marrying him. Everyone says he truly loves me, but no one knows the truth. Every night after our wedding, he brings different women into our bed, not even sparing my own sister. This is his punishment for my so-called betrayal. What he doesn't know is that I risked my life to clear his name—I willingly walked into a mafia hideout and traded one kidney and half my liver for the key evidence that saved him. Unfortunately, my time is running out.

I was secretly married to Conrad, our company's CEO, for three years. When a photo of us walking out of a house together in the morning was leaked, I called 911 right in front of all the employees. "Officer, the CEO of this company raped me!" I did this because in my previous life, he had sworn to me: "The company is at a critical funding stage. The investors value my image as a highly eligible bachelor. To get this multimillion-dollar lifeline, we just have to compromise a little and hide our relationship from the public." I was soft-hearted back then. I thought the pressure of managing the company was too much for him, so I agreed. But what I got in return was his young assistant, Ivy, spreading rumors that I was a vain, money-hungry woman who had seduced my boss for his fortune. Then she launched a massive online smear campaign, painting me as a shameless opportunist and turning the entire office against me. In the end, I was pushed to the breaking point. Targeted as a toxic gold digger, I was intentionally run over and killed by a crazed hater. Ironically, after my death, Conrad refused to press charges against the online mob. Then he easily slipped a wedding ring onto Ivy's finger. Now, opening my eyes again, I found myself back on the morning we were secretly photographed leaving the house together.

On my first day after being appointed President of the Castellano Group, I had just reached the main entrance of the company headquarters when a female employee stopped me. “Only senior management is allowed through this entrance. Janitorial staff must use the side entrance.” I frowned slightly. “I’m not janitorial staff.” Instead of backing down, she took the senior employee ID badge from her chest and waved it in front of me with a mocking smile. “Not janitorial staff?” “Then you’re an intern?” “Interns have to use the side entrance too! This has been a long-standing rule of our company!” “If you can’t even follow such a basic rule, pack your things and get out right now!” I glanced at the ID badge in her hand. Executive Assistant? Wasn’t she my fiancé, Damian Castellano’s, personal assistant? I immediately called Damian to confront him, only to hear his indulgent chuckle from the other end. “That little wildcat has quite the temper.” “Forget it. Using the side entrance won’t hurt you. Just let her have her way.” “Otherwise, how is she supposed to hold her head up at the company from now on?” With that, he hung up. The female assistant lifted her chin and sneered. “What are you pretending for? Hurry up and move!” “Senior executives will be coming through this entrance later. Don’t get their expensive shoes dirty!” I was so angry that I laughed. I pushed her aside, used my own authorization to unlock the main entrance, and walked inside without a hint of urgency. If the company’s old rules had already rotted to this point, then today, I would be the one to rewrite them.

The day the company was exposed for accounting fraud, my CEO husband did the unthinkable. To protect his favorite assistant, Ivy Kane, he called a press conference and publicly pinned all the blame on me, vowing to make sure I paid the price. Ivy put on a heartbroken expression and said, "Olivia, I warned you a long time ago not to misuse company funds, let alone falsify financial records. Why wouldn't you listen?" My coworkers stared at me in shock, expecting me to defend myself. Instead, I smiled, accepted every accusation, and voluntarily resigned. My husband thought I had finally learned my lesson. He lowered his voice and promised, "When this is all over, I'll make sure you get your job back. And when the time comes, I'll make our relationship public. Consider it my way of making it up to you.” What he didn't know was that, to protect the company's interests, the chairman instructed me on opening day to install monitoring software on every computer in the office. The moment those system logs were retrieved, their lies would fall apart on their own. And when that happened, what awaited them wouldn't just be massive financial penalties, it would be prison.

I'm Jax Ryder, heir to the most powerful investment group in Veridian City. I had just returned from studying abroad. My father, worried I might impulsively marry the wrong woman, arranged a marriage for me with Everly, the heiress to the up-and-coming Sinclair Group. It was strictly a business arrangement. But that didn't mean I intended to just go through the motions. At the very least, I had to personally bid on the mansion that would serve as our marital home. And so, I found myself at the annual Starlight Charity Gala. When the legendary prime real estate, the "Siren's Cove Estate," was presented as the final auction item, I raised my paddle. Just as the gavel was about to fall, an arrogant voice cut through the room. "What right does a nobody like you have to bid? Step aside." The grand hall fell silent, the only sound the frantic clicking of camera shutters from all corners. I turned my head. A man in a flashy, sequined suit stood there. He swirled the champagne in his glass, his posture reeking of arrogance. Before I could even speak, the auctioneer brought the gavel down. "Sold! Congratulations to Mr. Brian Vance on winning the 'Siren's Cove Estate'!" I frowned, a flicker of anger rising within me. "The bidding wasn't over." "That's against the rules." Brian sneered. He looked me up and down, his eyes filled with contempt. "The rules?" He curled his lip. "Listen up. I'm Everly Sinclair's favorite stepbrother. In Veridian City, what I say goes." I had to stop myself from laughing out loud. This was interesting. My fiancée's stepbrother. I pulled out my phone and dialed her number. "Everly, your dear brother just snatched the marital home I'd picked out. What are you going to do about it?"