Melodramatic Romance Short Stories & Mistress Countdown Novels

I have an ability in which I can see the countdown to someone's emotional departure. The day Dad's countdown hits zero, he leaves behind divorce papers and abandons Mom and me. The day my best friend's countdown hits zero, she finally dumps her jerk of a boyfriend. I'm always terrified of seeing a countdown appear above Levi Hammond's head. But thankfully, seven years into our marriage, his head is still clear. I am thankful every day that I married a good man. However, when he picks me up from work last month, I look up and see bright red text burning into my vision. [702 days, 14 hours, 22 minutes.] That's less than two years from now. My heart clenches, and I frantically search for answers in my head. Have I done something wrong? Has he changed his mind? Things don't fall into place until our anniversary, when we run into his intern, Belinda Manning, outside his office building during a torrential downpour. She's soaked to the skin, but she still has a bright smile on her face. Levi hands her a pack of tissues to dry off, his face unreadable. However, in that instant, the countdown suddenly jumps. [327 days, 4 hours, 47 minutes.] The number of days has dropped by more than 300. The sound of rain is deafening in my ears. But I know now that I have found the reason for it.

On New Year's Eve, I went to court for the last time. The judge asked if I still wanted to file for custody of my daughter. I shook my head and said, "I'm here to withdraw my case. I'm going to stop fighting for custody anymore. I agree with the divorce." Vivian and I had been married for nine years, and the divorce had dragged through six hearings. I spent six New Year's Eve in court. There had been no joy, only hysterical accusations. I was tired. My daughter was tired, too. So, I finally stopped holding on. I had already booked my flight home for the year.

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 after remarrying her childhood sweetheart, Greg Gilliam, Kathleen Whelan attends a casual alumni get-together. There, she overhears a secret about her husband. Rita Elway, once the prettiest woman on campus, has clearly had too much to drink. When someone asks about the wildest thing she's ever done, she swirls her glass. Her eyes are glassy, and there's a taunting edge to her voice. "Being Greg's other woman, obviously! And his wife is so stupid, she actually thinks we broke things off. I had his baby, I live in his mansion, drive one of his prized supercars, spend his money, and even have his family's staff waiting on me!" The room goes dead silent. Every eye turns to Kathleen. After all, she's Greg's wife, and everyone is waiting for her to lose it. But Kathleen doesn't cry or make a scene. When a server comes by to refill her glass, she simply says, "Thank you," as calmly as ever.

While I'm folding my girlfriend Lucinda Fowler's clothes, she suddenly says, "You're actually pretty pathetic. In fact, you're even more embarrassing than a simp." My hands pause. Just as I'm about to argue back, she cuts me off. "Sure, you love me. Moreover, you're diligent, dependable, and take great care of me. But sometimes you just can't compare to Owen. Anyone could do what you do. In short, you're nowhere near Owen's level." It suddenly occurs to me that a month ago, her ex-boyfriend, Owen Boyd, invited her to a concert. However, I decline on her behalf. Even to this day, she still holds it against me. I throw her clothes on the floor and turn to walk away. As it happens, my supervisor, Eve Hoffman, is asking me to go with her to the overseas branch. I turn it down for Lucinda's sake. But the moment I really walk away and clear the path for Owen, why does Lucinda cry and plead for me to return?

"There's still half a year left before the contract is up. I'm getting ready to file for a divorce from Steven." As Celine Harlow speaks, she looks at the video which has been replayed on her iPad over a hundred times. In the video, her husband, Steven Kirk, keeps staring at his childhood sweetheart, Quinn Lambert, lovingly. "Oh, Quinn! I still can't forget about you at all! Will you please return to my side?" After that, he takes the initiative to capture Quinn's lips in a kiss. Meanwhile, Celine's son, Zane Kirk, whom she has risked her life giving birth to, keeps screaming at the top of his lungs, "Daddy, I want Quinn as my mommy!" Celine's resolve to leave her marriage behind is steeled even more. On the other end of the line, Steven's mother, Evelyn Kennedy, falls silent for a moment. She then advises Celine to think through her decision carefully. "You have to think this through. If you get divorced, not only will you have to give up on your current job, but you also won't be able to obtain any assets because of the contract." Celine doesn't hesitate at all. "I know. Since our marriage certificate is fake, I'll definitely get divorced without asking for a single cent. Don't worry." But Evelyn tries to get Celine to stay. "If you insist on getting a divorce, you won't get the custody over Zane. Are you sure you have the heart to never see him again?"

After Heath Renwick abandons me and our daughter for Celeste Worthing's dog for the seventh time, we finally learn our lesson. He parades around with Celeste and the dog, trending online, landing magazine features, and I don't say a word. He even tears up our daughter Maisie's favorite sketchbook to line the dog's bed, and she doesn't cry or make a fuss. Then the dog chases Maisie down a flight of stairs. She hits her head and ends up in the ER with a concussion, and only then does Heath bother to show up. "Raven! Why didn't you tell me? I'm Maisie's father too!" I spend the whole night sitting outside the emergency room. I look at him, my voice perfectly calm. "It's nothing serious, just a mild concussion. She'll be out in a couple of days. We know you're busy, so Maisie will understand." Heath freezes. "A concussion is serious, and you're telling me it's nothing? What kind of a mother are you?" He wants to blow up, but the whispers around him stop him short. "Mr. Renwick really is better suited for Ms. Worthing. If she hadn't gone abroad back then, a small-town woman like Raven would never have had a chance." "Exactly. She can't even keep her own child safe." Heath frowns. "There's nothing going on with Celeste. She's like a sister to me!" I nod. "I believe you. "Maisie fell down the stairs because Prince chased her. I know that dog means everything to Celeste, so I didn't bring it up. I didn't want to put you in a difficult position." A flicker of shame crosses Heath's face. "I'll find the best doctor for Maisie. Prince is everything to Celeste, you know that. She has mental health issues." "Mr. Renwick, I understand. Maisie doesn't need to call you Dad anymore." He panics. "If you're upset, just say so! Stop putting on this act and dragging the kid into it!" I nod. "Okay. I got it." I'm not planning to make a scene. I already have plane tickets to Eraly. In five days, we'll have nothing to do with each other anymore.

Before our graduation trip, three of my childhood friends and my boyfriend all come to me, one after another, asking to borrow money. Drake Owens claims he needs it for his startup, Evans Harding says his mother has been hospitalized, and Finley Booker mentions an overdue credit card bill. Finally, my boyfriend, Boaz Marshall, takes the money I had spent three years saving for my heart surgery. With reddened eyes, he says, "I only need it for two weeks, Ari. I swear on my life that I won't let it interfere with your surgery at all." Then came the day my heart condition flared up again. The doctor slams my test results onto the table and says in a grave voice, "You can't put this off any longer, Ms. Dawson. You need to pay the hospital fees and get admitted immediately." But after lending out 260 thousand dollars, I'm only left with 327 bucks in my bank account. I call each of them, but they all claim the funds haven't come through yet and ask me to wait a little longer. I pass by a travel agency on my way home. Through the glass, I see Boaz, Drake, Evans, and Finley gathered around my best friend, Cindy Myers, planning a trip to the Northern Pole. Five plane tickets are spread out on the table. "Who would have thought that this would be the trick that worked after all? We just had to drain her of all her cash, and she wouldn't be able to pester us to tag along anymore." "Arianna has a bad heart. She'll only be nothing but a burden. It's better just to leave her at home." "Exactly. This trip is for Cindy's birthday. There's no reason to let one person ruin the mood for everyone else." After a brief burst of laughter, someone asks, sounding a bit hesitant, "But that was money for her heart surgery. What if she has an attack in the next few days?" Boaz hands a brochure for a mountain resort to Cindy, completely unconcerned. "She's lived with that condition for years. It's not like something's going to coincidentally happen right now when we're away. We'll just pay her back once we return from the trip." Boaz happens to look up just then, facing the window. The moment he sees me, however, the smile on his face freezes.

When my wife's first love was injured in a car accident and urgently needed a kidney transplant, she gave me an ultimatum. If I refused to donate my kidney, she said she would take our daughter and die alongside him the very next day. Crying, she begged. "Can you stop being so selfish? It's only one kidney. "It's not like you'll die! Are you really going to force me and your daughter to our deaths?" With a bitter smile, I agreed. What she didn't know was that our daughter had already died in the very same car accident that injured her beloved first love. And I was suffering from end-stage kidney failure. Once I went through with the surgery, I wouldn't be far behind from death either. Since she was willing to sacrifice everything for the man she loved, then I would give her exactly what she wanted. I would make her the person responsible for both my death and our daughter's so she would have to live with that regret for the rest of her life.

Lucien Arden took the throne. He crowned Rosalind Hartwell empress. And Evelyn Hartwell—the principal wife who had fought at his side all the way from embattled prince to emperor—was given only the rank of Imperial Consort. The day the decree came down, Silverleaf Palace was completely silent. Every servant kept their head lowered and hardly dared to breathe, afraid that Evelyn would weep, or throw things, or come apart the way any consort does when the emperor's favor leaves her. Evelyn simply accepted the decree, calmly. “I thank His Majesty for his generosity.” There was no movement in her voice and nothing in her face. Even her beautiful eyes held not the slightest trace of grief. She turned, went back into the inner rooms, and picked up her book where she had left it. As though the decree that had just stripped her of her place as his principal wife had nothing whatever to do with her.

When she was finally certain that Luke Jefferson would never fall in love with her, Raine Stone asked for a divorce and left with Zach Jefferson, their son. After the divorce, the usually aloof Luke abruptly started trying to win her heart back. He was no longer as cold as before, and he started to beg for her forgiveness by blocking Raine’s path. During his breaks, he spent time with Zach and prepared all sorts of surprise gifts. He even protected them and shielded them when a robber tried to stab them, leading to him spending some time close to death’s door. As Zach begged for them to reunite, Raine finally felt her determination crumble and agreed to get remarried with Luke. But right after getting remarried, she and Zach were on their way back home when they got into an accident. They went through more than ten hours of treatment, and Raine came out of it with a kidney gone, while Zach lost his vision. On the second day of the accident, when Raine and her son were taken past the doctor’s office, she heard a shocking secret.

[No matter how carefully you plan, fate can erase everything with a single stroke.] The moment I confirmed that Delilah Carter was cheating on me, that post appeared on my phone. I opened it calmly and scrolled to the comments beneath a thread titled "Unfaithful". Then I added a few lines of my own. [How unbelievable can it be?] [A coworker snapped a casual vacation photo and posted it online. Out of thousands of people in the background, my fiancee and my best friend just happened to end up in the same frame.] [Our wedding is in three days, yet here I am, rushing across the country in the middle of the night to catch them together.] After posting the comment, I locked my phone. The wallpaper display happened to be our wedding portrait. Leaning against the white wall of the hotel corridor, I closed my bloodshot eyes in exhaustion. Only after the intense, frenzied noises inside finally stopped did I raise my hand—still wearing my wedding ring—and knock on the door. "Who is it?" Delilah opened the door wearing a silk camisole. I pushed past her and walked inside. Marcel Graham froze when he saw me, unsure how to react. "Cedric Davenport..." Before he could say anything else, the beautiful Delilah threw herself in front of him. "It was me! I seduced Marcel! Whatever you want to do, take it out on me! Leave him alone!" They clung to each other like tragic lovers facing the end of the world, desperate to hold on to one another. I stood silently in the darkness, my expression vacant, as I breathed in the lingering musky scent in the room. I didn't argue or make a scene. I simply committed the moment to memory. I told myself not to look back or forgive. Then I opened the invitation to Europe that had been sitting untouched in my inbox for months. On the final day before it expired, I accepted. From that moment on, the two things I treasured most—love and friendship—became nothing more than illusions.

During a family dinner with Liam, I brought up the idea of getting married sooner and starting a family. He immediately assumed I was after his family's wealth and only wanted to marry him for his money. In front of everyone, he slapped me more than a dozen times. Then he turned around and pursued his jealous childhood sweetheart. I grabbed his hand and begged him not to leave, but in a fit of rage, he shoved me down the stairs. That shove ended up breaking both my legs and fracturing my skull. I spent a month in the ICU before I finally regained consciousness. This time, I didn’t make a scene. Instead, I called my mother overseas. "Mom, about the inheritance you mentioned last time… I’ll take it."

On the way home after learning I was pregnant, my husband, Christopher Monroe, the director of a research institute, suddenly breaks the silence. "There's something I need to tell you." What he says next leaves me stunned. "My widowed sister-in-law is pregnant with my child, too." The smile on my face freezes. I stare at him as he pulls a prenatal examination report from his pocket. It isn't mine. His voice is so calm that it sends a chill down my spine. "That day, you had a high fever and fell asleep in the back seat. We screwed like rabbits in the driver's seat, right where you're sitting now." In an instant, it feels as though I'm plunged into an icy abyss. I open my mouth, but no words come out, as though something is lodged in my throat. Christopher glances down at my slightly rounded belly before delivering his next blow, each word cutting deeper than a knife. "I only intend to have one child. Everything I can offer, from financial support to connections and opportunities, will go to Serena's child. If you choose to have this baby, you'll be raising it without any help from me. "Now that I've told you the truth, whether you keep the baby is entirely up to you."

The day his first love got divorced, my husband drank himself senseless. I stayed up past midnight taking care of him, only to discover that his phone’s photo album was filled with pictures of her. The next morning, after he sobered up, he said to me, “Let’s redo our wedding.” I knew this was his way of provoking his first love into coming back. I smiled and agreed, but not before I slipped a divorce settlement agreement into the wedding contract he signed.

I'm the least affectionate kept woman in Bellmont's high society. I don't compete for attention, check up on my man, or go out of my way to please him. Brian Hemsworth takes me to see the Northern Lights, and I spend the entire flight asleep on his private jet. He spends eight figures on a vintage Harry Winston diamond, only for me to wear it for ten minutes before deciding it's too heavy and tossing it into my safe. His friends say he'd be better off getting a dog. But Brian seems to love how little I care. One frown, and he spends the whole night wondering what he's done wrong. One smile, and he buys me another house. He thinks I've lost interest in everything but him. Little does he know that there are only twenty days left on our three-year contract. Once the final eight-figure payment hits my account, I'm retiring for good. But just as I'm counting down the days, a bubbly college girl, Fiona Parker, comes into his life. She's impressed by the smallest things. A bouquet brings her to tears, and getting to ride shotgun in his car makes her feel like the luckiest girl alive. Next to her, I look like an ungrateful brat. She turns down all the jewelry Brian carefully picks out for her, tears in her eyes and cheeks flushed as she says, "I don't want anything. I just want you to be happy." Apparently, a few cheap tears are all it takes to fill the emotional void in Brian's life. He gives her the trip he promised me, then complains that I'm too cold and distant. I don't argue. I just cross another day off my countdown. Twenty days later, the money arrives right on schedule. I cancel my phone number and move out of his villa overnight, taking everything that's mine. Word soon gets around that Bellmont's famously aloof, untouchable heir is nursing a broken heart. Now he's turning the whole city upside down, desperately searching for the coldhearted woman who never gave him the time of day.

Five years after our son was born, I finally faced the truth: my wife didn't love me—or our boy. Determined to end this miserable marriage, I made plans to leave and take our son with me. But fate had other ideas. A car accident cost me a kidney and took our son's eye. At my lowest point, my usually distant wife fell to her knees right in the hospital corridor, begging for forgiveness. She swore she would spend the rest of her life taking care of us. We decided to give her one last chance—a 100-day trial. If she made it, we'd stay together. But on the ninety-ninth day, my son and I overheard her talking to the attending physician. "Emma," the doctor said, "did you really arrange that accident to secure organs for Daniel Carter's son? You did that to take a kidney from your husband and an eye from your son—was it worth it?" Emma Evans's voice was eerily calm. "It was worth it. As long as Daniel is happy, I'd do anything." "And what if your husband and son find out?" She fell silent for a moment, then instinctively touched the wedding ring on her hand. "Then they'll never know. They just want a family; I'll do everything I can to make up for it." So the "changed woman" we thought we knew was just an act—a carefully built lie. The happiness my son and I had begun to believe in was nothing more than a story she'd crafted to protect the person she really loved. Every kindness, every effort—it had all been quietly weighed and paid for in advance.

I, Darcy Cowell, have been secretly married to my husband, Frank Winston, for seven years. He is the president of a company and has just hired a new assistant. The new assistant, Johanna Scott, is well-behaved and has a voluptuous figure. Scandalous rumors about her and Frank quickly spread throughout the company. Feeling uneasy, I seek Frank out for answers, only to overhear him telling his good friend over the phone. "I'm not interested in her. My wife, Darcy, will always be my only love." I am filled with warmth and relief at those words. A fire suddenly breaks out at the company banquet, and I get crushed under a falling cabinet. Yet, as my life hangs in the balance, Frank turns to run toward Johanna. When I next regain consciousness, I find that I have survived but lost my unborn child forever. This time, I truly lose all faith in Frank. Our child is gone, and I want him gone from my life as well.

My girlfriend, Natalie Whitcombe, was the heiress to a wealthy family. Yet, she still took my salary and insisted that we save every penny together so we could eventually run away and start a new life. She bought me only discounted items close to their expiration dates, picked up clothes her neighbors no longer wanted for me to wear, and bought me the cheapest version of everything. Meanwhile, I turned down a high-paying out-of-town job assignment just to stay by her side. I even secretly worked part-time at a restaurant after my regular shifts, hoping to earn a little extra just to save more money. Unfortunately, I eventually ran into Natalie at that very restaurant. The woman who was always telling me we needed to save money had just spent tens of millions to reserve the entire restaurant for her childhood sweetheart, Ewan Somerset, to celebrate his birthday. Then, she even announced that Ewan was her fiancé in front of everyone. Ewan smiled. "If I'm your fiance, what does that make Sylvan Joffre? I heard he's been working himself to the bone at all sorts of part-time jobs every day, saving money so he can elope with you." "I'm just fooling around with him," Natalie said nonchalantly while withdrawing every last cent from my salary account. "It's not my fault that he was stupid enough to take it seriously. This is everything he saved over five years. Consider this a tip and split it among everyone." I received a hundred dollars from my own savings before the cheering crowd pushed me aside. Then, my phone pinged with a text notification from Natalie. "Babe, I'm standing in line to buy discounted goods right now. I'm sorry you've had to struggle alongside me. Once we've saved a million, we'll run away together." However, I would never believe her lies ever again. So, I texted my supervisor, "I'll accept the assignment. I don't care if I never come back."

My husband, Lawrence Schwartz, and I were both liars. He lied to me, saying he would forget his first love, yet his phone is filled with photos of her. I lied to him, saying I would never leave, while secretly planning a future without him. A month ago, I tricked Lawrence into signing the divorce papers. Today was the final day to complete the entire divorce process.. Three hours left. I packed all my luggage and bought a plane ticket for the next day. Two hours left. I cut up every photo of us together, leaving only myself in the album. Last hour. I thought about leaving a message, then decided against it. Today marked the tenth year I had loved him and the first day I left him.