Plot Twists Romance Short Stories & Mistress Novels

My girlfriend, Laura Dawson, once asked me a question. "If you ever made it big, would you leave me behind?" I told her no. For six years after that, I stood beside her through every low point in her life. Then the tables turned, and she was the one who made it big. At the Best Actress awards ceremony, she stood there with tears in her eyes, ready to announce the man she'd loved for years. The spotlight swept right past me and landed on the young man I'd sponsored. He stood beside Laura, his eyes red. "Will, thank you for taking care of Laura all these years. But gratitude isn't love. You can't use it to hold her hostage." Laura turned her own gaze on me, cold with warning. "I've had ten thousand dollars transferred to your card. As far as I'm concerned, we're even now." Six years of my youth, poured into her, reduced to one unremarkable number on a bank statement. I watched the internet fill up with people calling me a homewrecker. I made one phone call. "Pull every film Laura Dawson has ever made. All of them." Laura, I regret it now. Now that you've made it big, the first thing I'm going to do is leave you behind.

On my wife Christine Stott's birthday, I held a property certificate, hoping to surprise her. I waited until midnight, but she never showed up. Instead, I got a confession. Christine: [I'm pregnant, but the baby isn't yours. I'm sorry...] I stared at those words, reading them over and over. I worked hard for three years to buy this property. I worked overtime until I was vomiting blood, I drank myself into the hospital at business dinners, and I came home every night so exhausted that I would collapse straight into bed. And her? She wiped away all my efforts just by saying the baby was not mine. I called her. She answered quickly. "I'm sorry for what I did to you. I'll give you whatever you want." I took a deep breath and asked, "Anything I want?" "Yes." "Then let's get a divorce. You leave with nothing."

During my baby's sip-and-see, I spotted my wife kissing her crush in the nursery, even though she had once said that both the baby and I were her greatest blessings. I squashed down my anger and took several photos. During the celebration, the photographer asked me to move closer so we could take a family portrait, but I declined. "The baby isn't mine. I'm an outsider, so I won't be in the picture." While everyone stared at me in confusion, I displayed the photos of their affair on the big screen.

Three years ago, I casually created an Instagram alt account and followed my husband. On that account, we talked about everything. The weather. Our day. Work. Whatever was bothering us. We could talk for hours. But on my main account, and even in real life, we barely exchanged ten sentences in an entire year. I always thought it was just our little secret. A private game between husband and wife that neither of us needed to acknowledge out loud. And honestly, I enjoyed it. Then, just before our third wedding anniversary, a new message popped up on my second account. ‘I’m divorcing Joanna Simpson.’ ‘Jess, I want to be with you.’ That was the moment I finally realized the truth. My husband had never known that the woman behind that account... was me.

My girlfriend, Piper Wolfe, and her childhood best friend, Cole Carter, could physically feel each other's pain and sensations—or so she claimed. We were in the middle of a heavy make-out session when she suddenly shoved my shoulders, almost throwing me off the bed, and pulled out her phone to dial Cole. "Cole! It’s ten at night, why are you chugging ice-cold beer? If you don’t care about your stomach, at least think about mine!" Cole’s voice muffled through the speaker. "You don’t get to judge me! Tell your boyfriend to go easy on the kissing. My lips are burning! If you keep this up, I’m just gonna find someone else to kiss!" Piper’s chest heaved. Her voice spiked with panic. "Don't you dare!" By the time she hung up, they had made a pact: as long as she kept her hands off me, Cole promised not to hook up with random girls. She turned back to me, her eyes wide and pleading. "Finn, please. I can't stand the feeling of another girl touching and kissing me by proxy. You understand, right?" I loved Piper way too much. My stomach sank, but I gave in. As long as our love was real, a platonic relationship wouldn’t hurt me. Until I caught them together. Piper had Cole pinned against the wall, their lips locked in a deep, rough kiss that left his lips swollen. "I don't care how many boyfriends you date," Cole murmured against Piper’s skin, breathless, "You're only touching me." Piper laughed, running her fingers through his hair. "Relax. You're the only one who actually turns me on." Cole smirked, wiping his lips. "Still, out of all the guys you've dated, this current one takes the crown for idiot of the year. You told him we shared physical sensations and he actually bought it?" "Hey, don't ruin a good thing." Piper giggled. "You better make sure I don't lose him. He's way too convenient." A sharp, violent ringing filled my ears while my mind went blank. I was paralyzed by the horrific realization that my entire relationship was just a joke to them. What neither of them realized, though, was that I was the kind of guy every girl secretly craved, and starting today, I was done being played.

Five years ago, I catch my husband, Henry Lancaster, cheating on me. He's a college professor, and the other woman is his teaching assistant, Vera Ashmore. Henry begs me not to go public, saying it'll ruin her reputation. I agree, but only if she drops out of school, leaves the city, never comes back, and signs a binding agreement. Everyone around me calls me vain, saying I care more about money than feelings. And yet Henry is willing to turn on his entire family just to protect her name. Five years later, I travel to that same city on a business trip to attend a lecture and end up finding a little boy wandering by himself. I take him to the police station so he can get in touch with his family. The officer dials the number the boy recites from memory, and a familiar voice comes through the line, "Hey, it's okay, don't be scared. Daddy's coming to get you right now." Less than half an hour later, Henry, who's supposed to be teaching classes a thousand miles away, rushes through the station doors. I'm sitting on a bench when our eyes lock, and he freezes on the spot. I smile and rise to my feet. "Henry, I had no idea you had a secret son behind my back this whole time. Looks like that spotless professor image of yours isn't going to last much longer."

While working overtime late into the night, I suddenly received a video from my wife. "Honey, there's a homeless man outside our door. I'm so scared!" In the video, a disheveled man was sitting outside my house. He occasionally muttered strange, unintelligible words. I immediately got permission to leave work and drove home, but on the way back, I got into a car accident. Only after I died did I learn the truth. It was a prank that had gone viral online. The footage of the homeless man had been generated using AI. What I never expected was that my wife's male best friend had taught her how to pull it off. They had even tampered with my car's brakes in advance. Worse still, the two of them had tampered with my car's brakes beforehand. After my death, they even went live and tearfully blamed the AI prank for killing me. Countless viewers sympathized with my wife, allowing the two of them to make a fortune from the livestream. Seeing how deep my resentment ran, the Grim Reaper gave me a chance to start over. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day my wife sent me that video.

My half-brother, Jim Sullivan, pushed me down a snowy mountain, leaving me with a fractured spine. My mom, Doris Moore, and my wife, Julia Stone, rushed me to the hospital in a panic. Later, they learned that I might be permanently paralyzed. To put my mind at ease, Julia held up a ring and swore that she would take care of me for the rest of my life. Mom also cut ties with Jim, saying she would make him pay for what he had done. They told me Jim fell off a cliff while trying to escape, and they never found his body. I believed them. That was until three years into my marriage, a friend sent me a video. In the footage, Jim, who was supposed to be dead, was holding a child in his left arm and had his right arm around Julia. "Julia, thank goodness you helped me fake my death. Otherwise, I'd be in prison right now!" Jim said. "Has Mom said when we can get the inheritance Joshua's dad left him? "I really can't stand living in hiding like this anymore!" "Jim, I know these past few years haven't been easy for you," Julia said. "If it weren't for that inheritance, I wouldn't have married that cripple. "As soon as we get that money, the three of us can be together again!" It turned out that what I thought was my salvation was just another terrible betrayal. The two women who mattered most to me had never truly cared about me. If that was the case, I wouldn't show them any mercy.

After three years in a long-distance relationship, I went straight to the courthouse as soon as my flight landed, ready to marry Willow Payne. Instead, she showed up holding a newborn baby. Without a trace of guilt, she placed the baby in my arms. "This is Rachel, my daughter with Preston. You can raise her from now on." My mind went blank. Standing beside her, my childhood friend, Preston Webb, burst out laughing. "Willow and I got drunk one night, and one thing led to another. We ended up sleeping together. Your time working out of town is finally over, and now you get to come home and be a dad. Hell of a surprise, right?" I stared at them. "Do you seriously think this is funny?" Preston only grinned wider. "Willow and I made a bet about whether you'd cry when you found out she had my baby. I said you wouldn't. So I won. Willow promised to travel the world with me until I get bored and feel like coming back." Willow gave him an amused look, then turned to me like she was doing me a favor. "My daughter is your daughter, too. Take good care of her. When I get back, I'll marry you." She took Preston's hand and walked away with him. I looked down at the baby in my arms. Her skin and the whites of her eyes were so yellow that even I knew something was wrong. I called after them, but neither one looked back. Three years later, Willow showed up at my workplace. "Michael, I'm here to keep my promise. Let's get married. "But Preston and I have a daughter together. We thought it would be better for her if her parents were legally married, so Preston and I got married. "I can't legally marry you anymore, but I can still give you the wedding." She pulled out a wedding band and reached for my hand, trying to slip it onto my finger. I knocked her hand away and stepped back. "I already have a wedding ring. My wife gave it to me."

At the bachelor party, someone suggests playing a game of "Of Course". Whatever we're asked, that's the answer we have to give. Rowena Jennings' childhood friend, Lucas Foster, takes the first shot at me. "You're always snooping through your girlfriend's phone, aren't you?" Before I can react, Rowena cuts in, "Of course. Why else would he keep checking on me until the wee hours of the morning?" Everyone cracks up, and her best friend turns to me next. "Do you always have to make a big deal out of nothing?" "Of course," Rowena answers for me. "How else would he make himself look unreasonable and get himself some attention?" The laughter grows louder. Her cousin, Amelia Jennings, joins in, "You get all teary-eyed over a little criticism, don't you?" "Of course. How else would he guilt me into feeling sorry for him?" Rowena replies. My palm is slick with sweat as I tighten my grip on my glass. When my turn comes, I look Rowena in the eye. "You're… pretty good at pretending to be in love, aren't you?" "Of course." She doesn't even blink. "How else would I trick you into marrying me?" The room goes quiet for a second before everyone erupts into laughter. My nails dig into my palm as I turn to Lucas. "Do you have feelings for her?" "Of course. Did you think I was into you instead?" he said. Everyone's laughing, and no one seems to think there's anything wrong with this. I force myself to hold it together as I head to the restroom. On my way back, I overhear them talking. "Forget about him. He'll put up with anything as long as he gets to marry Rowena." I turn to leave, tossing the wedding invitations into the trash. Since none of them can wish me well, there's no reason to go through with this marriage.

In our third year of marriage, my wife's kept boy toy decided he wanted to break up with her. He left her nothing but a long, dramatic message and blocked her on every platform before she could respond. [You can't give me what I actually want. I don't want to keep dragging this out with you.] I watched my wife's romantic drama play out with a cold, distant expression. After three years of them breaking up and getting back together more times than I could count, I figured this was nothing new. I expected Elena Sheridan to rush straight to coax him back like always. But this time, she was ice cold about it. "He was just a plaything I kept around for amusement. Now he thinks he can threaten me with a breakup? I’ve clearly indulged him too much." But a month later, the news broke online. He'd jumped from a building. The woman who had always been cold and unfeeling completely fell apart.

Damian Cross was my father's most promising lieutenant. To earn the right to marry me, he swore he would take over the Golden Triangle. Before he left, he kissed my forehead. "Wait for me. The whole Golden Triangle will be your wedding gift." I waited for him for three years. Three years later, he returned covered in scars, with a fragile-looking girl following behind him. By then, he had become the "Mad Dog," a man whose name struck fear into everyone in the underworld. He went down on one knee in front of my father. "She took a bullet for me. I owe her my life, and I owe her my name." My father put the black-and-gold whip in my hand. Everyone in the room was waiting for me to make him bleed. But I only pulled off the ring he had given me and tossed it back to him. "Congratulations." Then I turned around and called Adrian Blackwood, his worst enemy. "Your proposal. I accept." On my wedding day, Damian blew up the chapel. His eyes bloodred, he pinned me against the wall and demanded: "Who gave you permission to marry someone else?"

After losing his entire retirement savings to a scam, my father-in-law, Kyle Knight, tried to kill himself by overdosing on pills. I frantically called my husband, Joshua Knight, a psychology expert, hoping he could talk his father out of it. "Dad lost his entire retirement fund to a scam. He left a suicide note, and he's trying to kill himself. Come home!" Instead, Joshua snapped at me for making such a big deal out of it. "Your dad's made plenty of bad decisions before. Maybe this'll finally teach him a lesson. Don't bother me with stupid stuff like this again. I'm trying to watch a movie with Vanessa." For a second, I thought he hadn't heard me clearly. I was about to tell him that the man dying was his own father. Then Vanessa Morgan's voice came through the phone. The horror movie scared her. Joshua immediately turned to comfort her. Later, he casually told me to put together a PowerPoint on how my dad got scammed so he could use the case in one of his anti-scam livestreams. I swallowed everything I was about to say and obediently said, "Okay." After all, the person who scammed Kyle out of his retirement savings and drove him to suicide was Vanessa's mother.

At the space agency's awards ceremony, my husband gave the honor that should have been mine to his first love, who had just returned from overseas. He accused me of plagiarism and rescinded my promotion in front of everyone. Everyone thought I would argue and make a scene, but I simply smiled and personally placed my work badge around his first love's neck. "A new position calls for a celebration, doesn't it? Why not make it a wedding? I'd be happy to officiate." They didn't know that I was the only one capable of drawing the rocket's design blueprints. Even the resources keeping the project alive had been secured because of my reputation and connections. This time, I wanted to see whether she really was the brilliant overseas-trained expert they claimed she was—or merely a pretty face with nothing to back it up.

I used to be a renowned reporter at the height of my career, but I gave it up to become a stay-at-home dad so I could support my wife, Sarah, in her rising career as a news anchor. Things went downhill fast after our daughter was born. Sarah constantly forgot to pick up formula and neglected our baby, and I kept finding evidence of her ongoing affair with her colleague, Mark. When I went back to the station to apply for my old job, Mark went out of his way to humiliate me. Even when our daughter ended up in the emergency room, Mark did everything he could to make things difficult for us. That was the last straw, and I decided to strike back. During a live broadcast, I exposed their affair to the public with irrefutable evidence. I tendered my resignation to the news director on the spot and immediately took a job at a rival network to start fresh. My new show focused on helping people who had gone through similar betrayals, and my career took off once again. Out of nowhere, Sarah's mother reached out to tell me that Sarah was critically ill. I went to the hospital to visit her, where a tearful Sarah expressed regret for everything she had done. I thought that chapter of my life was finally closed for good, but not long after, I heard a piece of news that turned everything upside down…

At a major press conference, my husband, Julian Winslow, is about to publicly introduce me as the love of his life when his young assistant suddenly walks onto the stage carrying a girl. "Go on, sweetheart. Daddy's calling for you." The room erupts. Reporters start firing questions about Julian's relationship with his assistant, but instead of correcting them, Julian simply takes the little girl into his arms and fastens the company's multimillion-dollar new necklace around her neck. "Yes," he says. "We have a daughter." As I stand silently in the crowd, the reporters turn their attention to me. "Ms. Aldridge, you've been with Mr. Winslow and the company for years. Surely you have something to say on such a special occasion?" I smile. Then I take the designs I spent an entire year perfecting and toss them straight into the assistant's hands. "You can have the designs too. Consider them my gift to your happy little family."

A typhoon warning had been issued. I drove out to pick up my mother, who lived by the coast. My car broke down halfway there. I called my boyfriend fifty-eight times, and every single one was declined. The rain kept getting heavier. No rescue services were available, and the water was rising. My hands were shaking so badly that all I could do was get Mom to a nearby bus shelter. That was when I scrolled past a Facebook post from my boyfriend's assistant, Megan. "Derek is such a sweetheart. Spent two hours searching, and the little stray finally has a home." In the photo, Derek was at Megan's place, giving a stray cat a bath. I looked at my mother, soaked to the bone, and a wave of hurt washed over me. By the time evening fell, my boyfriend finally called back, but the wind was so strong that the signal kept cutting in and out. I was about to ask him to come get us when his voice crackled through the receiver, broken up by static. "Don't let your mom... the seafood... mess up the car." Before I could say a word, he hung up. The rescue team arrived. As we climbed in, Mom was still shivering, fretting over the seafood that had spoiled during the delay. I picked up the bag and tossed it into the trash. If it's spoiled, there's no point keeping it. Same goes for people.

During my wedding, someone suggests that we play the game "one dollar and 50 cents". The host will call out an amount that the players will have to match by forming groups. I draw the 50-cent straw, and so does my best friend, Rebecca Cross, who is also the group favorite. My fiance, Ian Chilton, his childhood friend, Richard Price, his older sister, Anne Chilton, and my stepsister, Chelsea Whitmore, all draw one-dollar straws. For the first round, we need to make up a total of 1.50 dollars. I make a beeline toward Ian, but he gazes distractedly at Rebecca. It isn't until he is assured that she won't be eliminated that he finally loosens his painfully tight grip on my hand. Before I can truly feel my disappointment, the second round begins. This time, we need to make up a total of five dollars. Everyone instinctively surges toward Rebecca. I don't pester Ian this time, and he naturally fails to notice that I've been left out. It isn't until the host reminds them that they're 50 cents short that they reluctantly let me into their group. For the third round, we need to make up 2.50 dollars. It's clear that the six of us can conveniently form two groups of said amount, yet they debate heatedly over who gets to be in the group with Rebecca. As time is running out, Richard and Chelsea finally walk reluctantly toward me, having lost in a game of rock-paper-scissors. In the final round, we need to make up 4.50 dollars. As soon as the whistle is blown, they crowd together merrily. Ian even considerately wraps his arm around Rebecca's shoulders out of fear that she'll be jostled. Meanwhile, I'm knocked to the floor by the crowd, my palms digging deeply into splinters sticking out of the wooden floor paneling. From start to finish, nobody spares me a glance. In that instant, everything feels pointless to me. When we played hide-and-seek as children, they only realized I hadn't been "found" after nightfall. When we visited the amusement park as adults, they would always forget to buy my ticket. All things considered, it simply isn't polite to keep trying to fit into a small group that doesn't have room for me.

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?

With a knife in hand, Olivia Gerber catches Caleb Jebb in bed with another woman for the ninth time, only to discover that the woman is none other than her younger sister, Shannon Gerber. The usually aloof Caleb suddenly grabs the knife and drives it deep into his own abdomen. "Don't hurt Shannon." Caleb stares at Olivia with bloodshot eyes, his voice unexpectedly shaking. "You can get back at me however you want. I'll accept it. Are you happy now?" Olivia freezes on the spot, her fingertips numb from the warmth of his blood. The next moment, Gerald Gerber, her father, hurries over and slaps her across the face. He launches into a furious tirade. "Olivia, have you lost your mind? All Shannon did was come between you and your husband. What's the big deal? Did you really have to come here and embarrass her?" Vivian Ingham, her mother, points at her and tells her off. "You've been married to Caleb for five years, yet you still haven't given him a child. So many women have tried to take your place as his wife. "Your sister's willing to help you out. Don't you know how lucky you are? And instead of thanking her, you choose to get back at her?" At that moment, Olivia finds the whole situation completely absurd. Caleb has spent years fighting with her, yet he is willing to compromise for Shannon. Gerald and Vivian have known all along that Shannon is a homewrecker, yet they keep enabling her behavior. Ever since Olivia and Shannon were kids, their parents have always favored Shannon. No matter what she does, they always forgive her. And Olivia? All she ever gets is endless criticism. If that's how it is, Olivia is done with her rotten marriage and family.