เรื่องสั้นแนวMistress Romance และนิยาย Regret

My fiancé, Skeet Fadley, stood with me at my dress fitting when his phone rang. "Skeet..." Her voice came through on speaker. That was all it took—I knew today's bridal photos weren't happening again. Skeet glanced at me, guilty. "Babe, something came up with Norah. I gotta go." Not a question. A notice. I stared at myself in the mirror, already in the gown, and gave a small nod. "Go." It's fine. My groom's about to change anyway.

After dating Asher Bennett for ten years, he finally proposes to me. He puts a blindfold on me, claiming that he wants to give me a surprise. But the moment I step into the room, I feel a bucket of cold water being splashed onto me. "When are you going to wake up from your fantasies, Claire Sutton? Why would I even marry you in the first place?" With trembling hands, I take off the blindfold, only to see Asher sitting on the couch while drinking some alcohol languidly. "See? I told you she'd come! Whoever's the loser of this bet, you'd better pay for the drinks!" Upon noticing my silence, Asher says mockingly, "Hey, Claire! You're not getting any younger, you know! So, you might as well just marry some random dude at this point to avoid growing old all by your lonesome!" The moment his words fall, his friends all laugh at me while looking at me in disdain. But when I follow Asher's instructions and marry another man, why is it that he regrets letting me go?

When I found out my wife was pregnant with her lover’s baby, I thought I’d lose my mind just like the first time I caught her cheating, smashing up the whole house like a lunatic. Instead, I looked at our antique vase and realized it was far too expensive to break over them. It just wasn't worth it. Later, walking past a bakery, I thought seeing her buying baby supplies with Joseph would ruin my appetite. Yet, to my surprise, the cake I bought tasted better than usual. Before going to bed, that familiar dark urge to swallow a handful of sleeping pills crept up on me again. I thought I was about to lose my mind and take the most drastic measures to get back at that despicable couple when my therapist sent a message, reminding me once more to go outside and get some fresh air. So, I headed south to soak in the sun and feel the ocean breeze. For twenty-seven whole days, I didn’t think about them once. That was until my wife, Sarah, called. “There are three days left in our divorce waiting period. Don’t forget to come back so we can finalize the paperwork. “Don’t worry, Daniel. This is just temporary. After I have the baby, we’ll remarry. You know you’re the only one I love.” Only after her reminder did I remember the divorce was even a thing. This time, though, I was exhausted. I didn’t want to play their games anymore. So, with the ocean breeze on my face, I said almost without thinking, “How about this time, we end it for good?”

Three years of marriage, and I'd become known in our social circle as the ultimate doormat. My husband staying out all night, his silent treatment, bringing his first love home to flaunt in my face—through it all, I'd smile and make him hangover soup, keeping the house spotless. Everyone thought I loved him to the point of madness. Even he believed it. Until the day of the divorce, when he begged me with tears in his eyes not to leave—and then watched "me" collapse rigid to the floor after a power outage, revealing a charging port on the back of my neck. He lost his mind. Meanwhile, the real me was lying on a beach in the Maldives, running my fingers through the hair of a gorgeous twenty-something with a six-pack, cheerfully pressing the "factory reset" button.

Jay Cooper, Giselle White's assistant-slash-sugar baby, accuses me of stealing his mother's personal effects from him. That night, my mom, who's severely ill, gets dangled from a helicopter. Impatience is written all over Giselle's eyes. "If you refuse to return the cross pendant to Jay, your mom will pay for your willful act!" I do my best to suppress the throbbing pain coming from my heart as I beg hoarsely to Giselle to let my mom go. But my seven-year-old daughter, Valerie Walker, jabs a button on the remote control with an icy expression. "This is what you get for going against Mr. Cooper time and again!" I can only watch as Mom falls from a high altitude, soon smashing into the ground heavily. Sorrow fills my heart as I plead in a humble tone, "Please, I'm begging you… Please take my mom to the hospital…" "That's enough, Dylan Walker! The one dangling from the helicopter is a dummy, not your actual mom! Why are you still putting on an act?"

Sylvia Frost and Victor Rothwell's wedding had been postponed 33 times. This time, it happened on the night before the ceremony. She was struck by a car and left with 19 broken bones. She was rushed to the ICU three separate times before her condition finally stabilized. Once she was strong enough to leave her bed, she braced herself against the wall and shuffled into the hallway. As she reached the corner, she overheard her fiancé speaking with a friend. "Last time it was drowning. This time you used a car. That gets you another two months. What are you going to do next?" Sylvia's blood turned to ice. Victor stood there in his white coat, his phone turning slowly in his hand. "No more delays." His voice remained flat.

Seven years after we were married, the Shaws recognized Zack Shaw, an illegitimate son, as heir, but there was one condition. And that woman had to be his widowed sister-in-law, Wendy Wood, so she could bear an heir for the Shaw family. Zack kept telling me he would not forget the humiliation Wendy had inflicted upon him, and once he tormented her enough, he would kick her out of the Shaws. Eventually, he started coming home later and later, giving less and less attention to me and our children. Six months later, he told the public about his marriage and kept it a secret from me. My daughter saw the photo and asked me curiously, "Why is Daddy hugging Ms. Wood?" My heart broke for her, and I held my sweet, naive girl. "Because he's found a new family. It's time for us to leave, Dora."

After Halle Anderson cheated on me and came back to me, I gave her three chances to cut ties with her lover. She grabbed the opportunity and spent those times with him. They had dinners together, did crafts, and she even spent whole nights with him. After that, she threw everything that was related to her lover away and held my hand again. “Believe me, I’ll never betray you again.” One day, I got into a car accident with an energetic young man. He angrily gave someone a call, and I heard my wife’s best friend’s voice coming through. “Halle, I’m telling you to not go. You’ve used up all three chances. Grant will definitely divorce you if you do so.” Immediately after, I heard Halle say fearlessly, “Grant’s an orphan. He’s been deprived of love his whole life, so he’s even more terrified of divorce than I am. “Just keep this a secret. I know where to draw the line. This is going to be the last time.” I lay in a pool of my blood and felt cold. It turned out that this confident young man standing before me was the lover Halle was protecting. Twenty minutes later, Halle, who had promised to come back to me for good, arrived at the hospital in a rush.

I applied for paid time off to visit my wife, Luna Reid, a scientist who was away on an overseas assignment. As I was bored on the plane, I scrolled through social media when I was bored on the plane. Then, I came across a post. [My ex-girlfriend, who’s married, invited me to go on an overseas trip. What should I bring on that trip?] The netizens made fun of him. [Naturally you have to bring condoms. If you accidentally get her pregnant, her current husband will become the father of your child.] Some other netizens chastised them. Initially, I was reading it for my own entertainment. At that moment, I came across a comment left by a private account. [I’m that married ex-girlfriend. I hope that everyone can be mindful of their words.] [We’re not doing this for any immoral reasons. We just want to make up for lost time.] [The coming two weeks are the only time we have left together. I just want time to pass a little slower. I just ask for it to be a little slower.] I stared at that profile picture intently. The woman in the profile picture was none other than Luna, who had been overseas for three years. She had a two-week break, and she initially planned to return to the country to be with me. However, a day before her break, she suddenly told me that her research was at a critical stage, so her time-off had been cancelled. I missed her terribly, so I secretly applied for time off at work to give her a surprise. I had not expected that surprise to turn sour on me. At the same time, I received a text message from Luna. [Baby, starting tomorrow, for two weeks, my work has a do-not-disturb policy, so please don’t contact me.]

I am Carlton Helfer, the most useless alchemy student in Crucible. Whenever I tried to craft pills, I somehow blew up the entire compound to pieces. So, my teacher, Caspian Hemlock, never allowed me to touch a cauldron, and my female peers always took the blame for me. Then, Zephyr Tierra arrived in town. He was a once-in-a-millennium prodigy at pill crafting. He swore he could raise our order to glory, and he loathed worthless trash like me above all else. So, he organized a pill-crafting tournament with my female peers, using me as a negative example every single day. On the day of the Arch-Alchemist’s election, he and my female peers drugged me with a crippling draught and cast me into the Miasma Woods. I died, but my soul stayed. I bound myself to a Zero to Hero System. The system spoke, “Carlton, you have fulfilled the prerequisite: A Wretched Death. The First Alchemist’s Legacy acquired.” When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day Zephyr Tierra arrived in town. This time, when I flicked my finger, Enneaphyllon, an herb extinct for ages, sprouted from my palm. Zephyr’s eyes went wide. “I-Impossible!” I sneered and said, “Don’t you know that a true arch-alchemist doesn’t need a cauldron?” Every herb and every tree in the whole of Crucible was my elixir.

In order to take care of my wife, Mildred Dale, who kept going into lunatic episodes thanks to the side effects of a car crash, I spent all of my assets and ten years of my life taking care of her. Whenever Mildred went into an episode, she'd hurl everything she could get her hands on at me. At the same time, she'd scratch every inch of my body with her nails. But when she sobered up, she'd hug me while wailing at the top of her lungs. All of my friends advised me to file for a divorce, yet I'd always remember the fact that Mildred had pushed me from the incoming car and hit her head, resulting in her current condition. But everything changed when Mildred beat me up to the point that I sustained grievous injuries. Heck, my soul was already floating near the ceiling at that time. That was when I saw Mildred arranging her childhood friend Hank Weaver's collar carefully. "Why are you crying? He's already dead. Shouldn't we celebrate this occasion instead? "But my heart breaks for you, Mildred. You've pretended to be a lunatic for ten whole years just to swindle every cent out of his account!" Mildred kissed Hank on the lips. Then, she uttered icily, "I've been enduring that cowardly fool for ten long years. Now, I no longer have to be with him." It turns out that Mildred and Hank had painstakingly staged the car accident just so they could put on such a perfect act. When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day Mildred is diagnosed with mental health issues.

I could see everyone’s loyalty score above their head. Anyone whose score fell below 60% would leave. The day Mom cheated, her loyalty score dropped from 71% to 20%. The day my brother ran away from home, his score fell to 13%. So, whenever I fell in love after that, I always knew when to walk away. Then I met Natalie Farr. Her loyalty score for me stayed at 100%. I thought I’d found true love. But she broke her promise on our son’s third birthday. When she came home that night, the score above her head had plummeted from 100% to 88%. I knew it was time to start planning my exit again.

At my best friend Grady's wedding, the bouquet landed right in my arms. Grady slid over, eyebrows bouncing. "Do you know how hard I worked to get Amanda as a bridesmaid? Dude, you've been into her for seven years. Go confess already." I froze, bouquet in hand. The thing Grady didn't know? Amanda Sheffield and I had been secretly dating for a year. I'd thought my years of pining had finally paid off. Then I told her we were done unless she bailed on the date her family set up. She just smiled, totally unbothered. "Ryder Reed, you've loved me for seven years. You really think you can walk away?" The memory cut out. Then Amanda came over, yanked the bouquet from my hands, and handed it to the guy beside her like it was nothing. She took one look at my face and lifted a brow, smug as hell. "See? You can't leave me."

My wife's first love fell seriously ill. To save him, she gave away the kidney donor that was meant for me. Afraid I would cause a scene at the hospital, she locked me inside our home. Day after day, she stayed by his bedside, cooking for him, caring for him, never leaving his side. All she left for me was a box of stale biscuits… and expired milk. A month later, she finally opened the door. "Have you thought it through?" I looked at her, pale and desperate. "If I don't get that transplant, I'll die." "Why are you talking about dying?" she snapped. "You've endured this for so long already. A little more pain won't kill you. Are you trying to scare me?" "But Vincent is different. He's never been able to handle pain. Can't you be more understanding?" "Understand…" I nodded stiffly. Then, I walked out, without looking back. Only for her to be stabbed multiple times… yet still refuse to let go of my hand!

Serena Sutton was my fiancee, but she wanted to marry my bodyguard, Evan Brooks. The man was a cheat. I didn't want her taken in, so I took her to see for herself what he really was. While the two of them were fighting, a car came through at speed and killed him. And Serena hated me for it with everything in her. In the third year of our marriage, she killed our son. I was in so much pain I was coughing up blood, and she put a knife in me. "Adrian, this is what you owe me for Evan." Only then did I learn that she had never forgotten him. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the second before I meant to expose him. This time, I'm staying out of it.

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."

After my financial reports were replaced with blank pages, the company was thrown into a legal and financial crisis. As the accountant, I was accused of falsifying records. I was charged, convicted, and sent to prison. Three years later, I was finally released. My CEO husband and our son came to pick me up in person. Just when I was touched by their loyalty, believing they had stood by me through it all, I overheard their conversation. "Dad, Winona wanted that villa in the suburbs, so you used company funds to buy it. But Mom was the one who got blamed for the falsified accounts. She spent three years behind bars, shunned by everyone. Even I got teased by my friends because of her." Hank took our son's hand, his tone grave. "We agreed never to bring this up again. Back then, Winona needed a place to live. I had no choice but to use the company's money, and your mom had to take the fall." That was the moment I realized—my years in prison, the public disgrace, the humiliation… had all been part of a plan. A plan crafted by the very man I trusted with my life.

After Celine Anderson let her newly-promoted assistant take credit for my billion-dollar project for the ninth time, I handed in my resignation letter. I also refused to show up in the same place as her. Whenever she was interviewed by talk shows as a public figure, I would switch off all the screens in the building. I also got the security guard to stop her from entering even if she brought me a cup of coffee in the middle of a tornado. To see me, she purposely rescheduled three virtual meetings with foreign companies. So, I immediately bought air tickets to leave the country. I blocked her everywhere and formatted the hard disk that contained all of our memories from the past decade. When I was twenty, I studied with her in the university library. When I was twenty-five, I ate the cheapest bread with her when she first started her company. When I was thirty, I finally knew how to let go of things that no longer serve me. On the ninth time I was accused of sleeping my way up, I came across a photo of her and her assistant kissing. Meanwhile, I was sitting at our dining table with food that had turned cold. It turned out that our decade-long relationship had been a joke. However, it was fine. It was not too late to come to my senses.

On the way to our wedding, my fiancé got a hysterical call from his ex-wife. "Gavin, he's having another episode. He keeps crying for his daddy." This was the third time it happened. Each time we were about to get married, her son would have another psychosomatic episode. Gavin Grant looked at me hesitantly. I knew what he was thinking, so I nodded. "I'll get out. Go ahead." He clasped my hand gratefully. "I'm sorry, Vivian. I'll make it up to you." Before I could even steady myself, he was already telling the driver to turn around. Still in my wedding dress, I stood by the side of the road and hailed a cab. Then, my phone buzzed with a message from Gavin—he'd given me $100 million. He hadn't forgotten to compensate me. He'd just forgotten what I'd told him. "Gavin, three strikes and you're out." I took the money. After all, a gold digger had to respect the money. But as gold diggers, we had another rule. Everyone was worth pursuing, Gavin included. But after three strikes, he simply wasn't worth the trouble anymore.

After a fire broke out at the company, I shoved the only rescue rope into the hands of my husband, Peyton Shepherd. However, he yanked the smoke mask off my face and turned to secure it on his secretary, Hannah Russell, instead. Peyton escaped using the rescue rope, and Hannah remained unharmed thanks to the mask. I collapsed from inhaling toxic smoke, and then a falling pillar crashed into my stomach. Blood pooled beneath me. Just as the firefighters lifted me onto a stretcher, Peyton grabbed me and pulled me back down. "Serena, it's just a minor injury. Why are you lying on the stretcher? Let Hannah go to the hospital first. Her condition is serious, and she needs a comprehensive medical exam!" The firefighters and paramedics stared in shock. They looked at my blood-soaked dress, then Hannah crying pitifully over her blistered hand. My colleagues tried to intervene. "But Mr. Shepherd, Serena's injuries are clearly more severe!" Peyton snarled through gritted teeth. "Enough! I'm Serena's husband. Don't you think I know her condition? If Hannah's treatment gets delayed because of this, none of you will escape the consequences!" I pressed my hand against my slightly swollen lower abdomen and nodded, agreeing to let Hannah take the ambulance first. I decided that from this moment forward, neither I nor my unborn child owed Peyton anything.