Cerita Pendek Melodramatic Romance & Novel Mistress Regret

“Joseph, I’m begging you for the last time. On account of how young Rachel is, can we please extend the agreement?” Mrs. Gibson pleaded. Joseph said firmly, “Mrs. Gibson, we previously agreed that I’d divorce Chloe once the six years is up.” “Alright then,” Mrs. Gibson sighed regretfully. “I respect your decision. It’s been tough on you these few years…” “Thank you. Please keep my plans to go abroad a secret for now.”

Late one night, my wife called me, her voice carrying a hint of apology. "Drew, I'm sorry. I cheated." Everyone in our lives knew she loved me more than anything. So how could she possibly cheat? After realizing it was April Fool's Day, I replied with a smile, "I cheated too." She didn't sound surprised at all. Instead, she seemed relieved. "That's good. At least I don't feel as guilty now. "The divorce papers are in the second drawer of the study. Just sign them." I was about to tell her she was putting on a pretty convincing act when the call suddenly ended. Smiling, I opened the drawer and froze. The divorce agreement was real, with her unmistakable signature at the bottom of the final page. My eyes stung as I reached for my phone, about to ask whether this was really some kind of joke, when a message arrived from one of my wife's graduate students. [Mr. Jensen, so it turns out you cheated too. In that case, just step aside already. Then Ms. Jones and I can finally celebrate our first anniversary out in the open!]

I was doing the laundry when another pair of lace panties slipped out of my husband's pants pocket. Before I could say a word, he raised an eyebrow and handed me a plastic vase. "Go on. Smash it." He acted as though it were perfectly natural. It was the same routine every time I caught him cheating over the past seven years. I looked around, and only then did I realize what he'd done. He'd replaced every breakable thing in our home with something made of plastic or stainless steel. He was used to my hysterical outbursts by now. He thought our marriage was just like all that plastic. No matter how hard I tried, I could never break it. But this time, I calmly put the vase back where it belonged. "Let's get a divorce."

Ever since I catch Wren Sinclair cheating on me, every day when she comes home, I'll pin her down by the entryway, pull off her skirt, and spray high-concentration alcohol all over her private area to disinfect it. Knowing she's in the wrong, Wren always cooperates with me, her eyes red as she gently tells me to stop. But today, she comes home nearly two hours late. When I smell men's cologne on her, I lose it again, grabbing her collar. "You were only half an hour late last time, and you slept with a man. Now you're two hours late. Tell me! How many men was it this time? Four?" Wren apologizes to me for the 29th time, but when I push her away again, she finally snaps. She raises the back of her hand, still bruised from the IV, and screams, "Enough! You don't even care that I'm practically dying from this fever. How much longer are you going to keep this up? "Yes, I got drunk and slept with another man once. Do you think you're holier than me? No wonder you were dragged into an alley when you were 16, stripped naked, and abused! Theo, a paranoid, crazy man like you, deserves everything you get!" The spray bottle falls from my hand and shatters at my feet. The smell of alcohol hits me, and I can't get a word out. She looks so fed up with me, and suddenly, I feel tired. It's fine. I'm done with this relationship anyway.

Sasha Barlow receives a call from Aidan Gallagher when she leaves the hospital after getting an abortion. He says, "Get ready. Mr. Conley is coming tonight, so bring five bottles of whiskey and three bottles of red wine." Sasha subconsciously clenches her hand around her phone. "Can I skip tonight?" Aidan pauses. "I know you're angry about yesterday, Sasha. Natalie hit you yesterday, but I reprimanded you instead of helping. "You need to remember that she's my girlfriend, though. She comes from a good family, and her parents have always treated her like a princess. She's bound to be a little willful and spoiled. You're older than her, so cut her some slack."

In our seven years of marriage, Lindsay Zane had always used the same method to punish me for being jealous. First, she would embarrass me in public. Then she would leave me alone in the middle of nowhere. This time, it was because I refused to give up the wristwatch that my father had left me. "Liam just returned to the country with nothing. Why can't you lend him your watch for a few days? Don't be so stingy." She drove off, leaving me alone in the first snowfall of the year, at a temperature of 14°F. I froze there for four hours, not able to feel my limbs. I made 20 calls and sent 50 desperate texts for help, but all of them went unanswered. I was typing my 51st message, my fingers so frozen that they were stiff. I was ready to give up. [I'll lend you the watch. Can you come and pick me up...] Right then, Liam updated his social media feed. In the photo, Lindsay was by a cozy fireplace, fastening the watch that belonged to my father onto his wrist. The caption read: [I merely joked about being cold, but she canceled all her plans just to sit by the fire with me. She even gave me the watch I've been longing for.] A mutual friend teased in the comments: [Looks like her heart is still with you.] Lindsay replied: [His happiness is what matters most.] The very woman who had abandoned me on a snowy night, leaving me to fend for myself and face whatever fate awaited, was in a warm room with another man whom she could not bear to see catch even the slightest cold. I watched the snowflakes drifting onto my fingertips as they slowly melted away. I deleted the plea for help I had drafted and called the police and my lawyer. The sound of falling snow was the countdown to my heart going cold.

My husband, Lawrence Ashford, loved me—or so I thought. For ten years, he chose a childfree marriage to protect my health. However, he confessed that he had another family outside our marriage on his birthday. He even told me that he had a child with his mistress. We had been married for ten years. Yet, six of them were filled with deception and lies. I broke free from the shackles of my failed marriage and chose to start anew. On my journey, I found true love once more, only for my ex-husband to say he regretted everything.

In my seventh year of dating Elliot Sheppard, he pulls every string to save the exiled daughter of his imprisoned mentor—Margot Fairgrave—and gives her a wedding that makes headlines. "Professor Fairgrave was my guiding light and a man of integrity, who'd never yield to corruption. I owe it to him to protect his daughter," he declares. The Sheppard family, with their billion-dollar empire and strict family rules, will never accept a daughter-in-law like Margot. So, to secure her place, he demands that our son call her "Mom" and tells the world that I am just the nanny. He promises. "Just wait. Once I collect enough evidence to prove that Professor Fairgrave was framed, I'll return everything to the way it was." For three years, I waited and watched their picture-perfect family of three. My son no longer knows me as his mother, yet I remain their lowly nanny. Since I can't possibly wait forever, I've decided to stop waiting.

After an argument with my wife, Joan Newman, I momentarily stepped out of the car to pick up a package. When I returned, our son, Jimmy Newman, was gone. From that moment, I searched for him like a madman. Each waking hour was consumed by guilt. My mother-in-law blamed me. My mother cried herself to sleep. Joan jabbed a finger at my head and screamed, “Why are you still alive? If you don’t find our son, I’m divorcing you!” From that day forward, for four long years, I gave up my career and my life. I traveled across the country almost a hundred times searching for my son, only to be met with disappointment every single time. My body became covered in scars from self-harm. I fell into severe depression. By the hundredth trip, I could no longer summon the will to face another defeat. I swallowed an entire bottle of sleeping pills. As death closed in, I heard Joan talking to her childhood friend, Randy Kilk. “Joan, you’ve tormented him long enough. When are you going to tell Steven that the boy was never missing? I can’t wait to see the look on his face.” Joan laughed and casually said, “There’s no hurry. He forced me to abort our child, so now, he is suffering the consequences. When he finally understands his sins, I may consider telling him.” So, the inhuman torment I had endured for four years had been nothing more than her punishment. As a final tear rolled down my cheek, my soul left my body. Joan, you got exactly what you wanted.

Every time my foster sister, Lindsay Hartley, and I disagreed, Carl Curran and my brother Mark Hartley would settle it with a vote. When Carl and I were choosing our future home, I wanted somewhere in the southern district, close to our parents. Lindsay wanted the busier northern district instead. Neither of us would budge, so we put it to a vote. Carl was the first to raise his hand. "You're being so narrow-minded. You don't understand anything about actually living your life. Go with Lindsay's pick." Mark patted my head. "Don't be so selfish. The north side is close to Lindsay's office, so she can come stay with us whenever she wants." Three to one. I was forced to give in again. Then came the renovations. I wanted the big south-facing room as the master bedroom, but Lindsay wanted to turn it into a walk-in closet instead. Carl stepped in. "Let's just vote on it, so you can't say we're playing favorites again." No surprise: Lindsay won again, unanimously. And the room left for me, the actual bride, was smaller than half the size of that closet. Looking back over the hundred-some votes we'd had. Carl had sided with me: zero times. Mark had sided with me: zero times. Watching the three of them huddled together, deep in discussion over how to decorate the closet, it suddenly hit me. The so-called votes were never anything but a convenient excuse for them to openly favor Lindsay. If that was the case, then I was done playing a game on a scale that would never tip in my favor.

Marty Greene, a newly hired assistant, publicly humiliates me by calling me a worthless nobody who hangs around Audrey Melton. As my girlfriend and an award-winning actress who loves me more than life itself, Audrey promises to stand up for me. She devises a seven-day plan to build Marty up before bringing him crashing down. On the first day, she replaces me with Marty as her personal assistant, claiming she wants him to understand how hard I work. On the third day, she gives him a luxury car and a mansion, supposedly to make him lose himself in vanity. On the fifth day, she bakes him a birthday cake on a live reality show. She insists it's a crucial part of her plan and begs me to be patient. Then on the seventh day, my mother, Deborah Faulkner, suddenly falls gravely ill. As she lies dying, her final wish is to see Audrey one last time. Audrey readily agrees. But I wait at the hospital all night, and she never shows up. Instead, all I see is a post from Marty on X. "Audrey is simply too kind for her own good. She almost falls for a scam after just one phone call. Luckily, I'm smart enough to see through it and stop her from falling for it." Mom dies without ever getting to see Audrey again. It's not until the following day that Audrey finally calls. "Babe, just hang in there a little longer. I'm going to expose Marty's vanity and ruin his reputation at today's awards ceremony. Then, we'll go public with our relationship and have the wedding of the century to make Mrs. Landry happy." Audrey has no idea that Mom is already dead, and that I'm done waiting for her.

Three days before my wedding, I found out that Shane Dawson had changed the venue from Grandma Mae’s home in the South to Castillo de Sol, the Spanish castle that Tania Collins, his childhood sweetheart, adored. I confronted him, only to overhear him complaining to his friend, "Thank God Tania has taste. Otherwise, I’d be laughed at for life." His friend reminded him, "Didn’t you promise her you’d hold the ceremony at her grandmother’s house? Aren’t you afraid she’ll get angry and refuse to marry you?" Shane just laughed, sharp and dismissive. "The Quinns are on the verge of bankruptcy. Marrying me is her only way out. She can’t afford to gamble. I’ve already asked the planner to call her. She’s probably scrambling to change her flight right now." Anger and humiliation burned in my chest. I bit down on my lip and, in the end, turned away. Three days later, the castle wedding went on as scheduled, but I didn’t reschedule my flight. I didn’t show up. Instead, I stood in Grandma Mae’s old courtyard and exchanged rings with another man. To this day, Shane doesn’t understand. I never married him for some so-called escape route. I married him for a love that lasted ten years. However, once the dream was over, it was time for me to choose a different path.

The night the hurricane made landfall, the emergency alert had barely stopped sounding when my sister-in-law, Brielle Rourke, called again. I listened to her helpless sobbing, then calmly handed the phone to my husband, Caleb Rourke, who was busy boarding up the balcony doors. Whatever she said, he kept agreeing to it. He pulled on a rain jacket and gave me that practiced, guilty look. "Her window's broken, Lena. She's all alone over there. I'll patch it up and I'll be back before the worst of it hits, I promise." Once again, it wasn't a discussion. It was an announcement. Five years of marriage, and every storm had gone exactly the same way. The moment the thunder started, her call came right on schedule. I used to fight about it, but he always said, "My brother died young. Brielle's raising his son by herself. We help when we can." "You're a grown woman, and a strong one. You can look after yourself and our son, right?" The wind split the glass, and the shards opened my calf to the bone. I reached for the baby sweater I'd never finished knitting. Tonight, Caleb, I don't think your son or I need you anymore.

At my best friend's wedding, the bridal bouquet falls right into my arms. She leans in close, winking suggestively. "I worked hard to get Matt as the best man. You've been crushing on him for seven years. Quick, take the bouquet and confess your love to him!" I hold the bouquet, completely dazed. She doesn't know that Matt Moore and I have been in a secret relationship for a year now. My dream is finally coming true, and the yearning days are over. Until the day I use breaking up to force him to reject the blind date his family sets up. He smiles nonchalantly, completely unconcerned. "Sienna Yale, you've been in love with me for seven years. Can you really bear to part with me?" I snap back to reality. That's when Matt walks straight over and snatches the bouquet away. Then, he casually gives it to his college senior beside him. He looks at my frozen expression and raises an eyebrow, full of confidence and contempt. "Sienna, I knew it. You can't bear to part with me."

My CEO girlfriend, Stella Nielson, wants to groom me into the most loyal and perfect boyfriend for her. So, she freezes my bank accounts, and I'm forced to report all of my expenses to her. I comply because I love her. I ruin my health for the sake of her career development, and now, I have to rely on expensive medications to even stay alive. My doctor says that my condition has severely deteriorated, and I require immediate treatment. But when I can't even scrape together 15,000 dollars for the surgery and call Stella asking for a loan from her, she mocks me instead. "Seriously? A grown man like you, asking me for money? Have you no shame, Noah Mendoza? I'm having cash flow problems at the company right now. I don't have any money to lend to you." She tells me not to be unreasonable, but she goes ahead and celebrates her childhood sweetheart, Damon Hayes' birthday on social media in an ostentatious manner. She even purchases a 50-million-dollar villa for him and books a lavish cruise party for the entire night. This time, I don't beg her for the money anymore. Instead, I decide to just disappear from her life.

Connor Lockwood abandons me at the hospital's entrance even though I'm bleeding in the middle of my pregnancy. He insists on sending his client, a divorcée, home. The blood flows down my legs, but he hurries off without another look back. He should've been at the hospital and by my side, but instead, I see him in his client's social media update. It's captioned, "Thank goodness for my wonderful lawyer. Do you know who gets to have hangover soup when they're drunk? Me!" I spend the rest of the night wide awake. The following morning, I calmly dial a number. "Dad, I've made up my mind. I'll return home in three days to take over the company."

The day we move into our new home, Nora Ford says the first toast at our housewarming party has to be to my parents. When I come home with an armful of groceries, I find my mom scrubbing pots in the kitchen. She's wearing a gray apron, her sleeves soaked through. The backs of her hands are scalded from hot water. On the living room couch, Nora's male assistant, Caleb Jackson, sits with his parents. He's wearing my slippers and holding my cat in his arms, ordering toward the kitchen, "Mrs. Shepherd, the soup's a little bland and could use some more salt!" Dad crouches on the balcony, fixing the wooden rocking horse he's spent two weeks building by hand. A crack blooms across the horse's head, while a black shoeprint is stamped on its back. "Caleb's parents came all this way," Nora says. "We can't exactly make our guests lift a finger." Caleb quickly stands up, looking wronged. "John, don't blame Ms. Ford. I only asked your mom to give us a hand." Mom hurries over and waves dismissively. "It's fine. I'm used to doing this at home anyway." Caleb's mother chuckles. "Your mom works pretty quickly. If we ever need a housekeeper, I can put in a word for her." Dad's fingers tremble. He's been crouching so long that his back hurts too badly to stand up. Just then, the TV suddenly lights up. A line of text appears across the screen. "Welcome, Mr. Caleb Jackson, to Ms. Nora Ford's new home." The next second, a move-in registration form from the property manager pops up on my phone. "Resident(s): Nora Ford, Caleb Jackson" "Visitor: John Shepherd" "Housekeeper: Maggie Cooper" Maggie Cooper is Mom's maiden name. I pick up the bottle of red wine from the dining table and pour it into Nora's beloved fish tank. "Screw this place."

After the Sullivan Group went bankrupt, I abandoned everything and followed Jessica to Tylen City. It took her five years, but she eventually inherited her father's legacy and climbed back into the top three on the Forbes rankings. Yet, she never once brought up any word about marriage. That lasted until the night before the Day of the Dead. I woke up in the middle of the night and saw her lighting candles while facing the direction of Cinea. "Dad, Mom, forgive me. I couldn't visit you this year because of work, but please continue to protect Chris and bless us with happiness for the rest of our lives." When I heard this, warmth filled my heart. My health was on the frail end of the scale. In the past, she always returned on her own since she didn't want me to be exhausted over this. This year, I decided to make the trip on her behalf after seeing the longing hidden in her eyes. However, what I never expected was to see the name of her former fiancé beside her name on the gravestone. Moreover, his title was engraved as her husband. As I looked further down, I saw another name beneath theirs. It was a name that belonged to their three-year-old son. At that moment, I felt as if I'd been struck by lightning. Only then did I realize that it wasn't Christopher she was referring to when she said, "Chris." Instead, it was Christian.

I woke up in the middle of the night to find my wife crying and begging me to let her see that young man one last time. "I’ll come right back after seeing him one last time. Please, I’m begging you." In our seven years of marriage, this was only the second time she’d spoken to me in such a pleading, ingratiating tone. The last time was when I caught the kid running out of her office, his clothes in disarray. Afraid I’d make a scene, she grabbed my hand and pleaded, "Honey, I promise I’ll cut him off. Please don’t divorce me. I’ll die without you." So, I gave her another chance. Just as she promised, she devoted herself to our family, becoming the perfect wife everyone admired. Until today. I turned on the bedside lamp, looked into her eyes, and told her seriously, "Go. Don’t leave yourself with any regrets." I had no regrets left. I hoped the same for you.

My husband's true love developed acute kidney failure, and I was the only matching donor. To save her life, he forced me to terminate my pregnancy at six months. Despite his gentle tone, he said the most heart-wrenching words, "Can't you be a little kinder? You're just losing a child, but she's losing her life." I resisted with every fiber of my being, but he threatened his own life to force my hand. On the operating table, both my child and I died. Meanwhile, his true love's transplant was a success, and she lived. Although the outcome was exactly what he wanted, he spiraled into madness upon hearing news of my death.