Nouvelles Scumbag Romance & Romans Defy Fate

Three months after I died, Jack Carter became one of the youngest colonels in the United States Marine Corps. At the promotion ceremony, every person in the room stood up and applauded him. He had a war record, he had money, he had a house that looked out over the woods, and he had the kind of future everyone envied. But only I, already dead, knew that the one person he had truly wanted his whole life was never coming back. The year he turned eighteen, he rebuilt a beat-up old Ford and put the spare key in my hand. He said, "After prom, come find me. I will take you to California." I said yes. But that night I walked down the steps on another man's arm and told him, in front of everyone, that I had never loved him. He did not know that my family had forced that lie out of me. They used Jack's freedom and his future to threaten me. If I dared to leave with him, a forged felony statement would put him in prison and disqualify him from ever enlisting. So I chose to deceive him, and I watched him leave hating me. Later, in the service, he was bullied and framed, and he nearly lost everything. He believed a total stranger had saved him. He did not know that the person who tracked down the witnesses, paid the lawyers, and handed the evidence to the military was me, from the beginning. Later still, he went from a small-time punk out of the harbor district to a decorated officer. Meanwhile my family went bankrupt. I lost the house, the trust, the health coverage, and in the end I died alone in an apartment with a leaking roof. On the day I died, he was standing under the lights receiving a medal. On the screen, everyone was applauding him. On my side of the screen, I was holding the car key from the year I turned eighteen, the one we never used, and I stopped breathing. It took three months for my letters to reach him. Only then did he know. The cruelest words I ever said were said to protect his future. Every kindness in his life that he thought came from a stranger came f

I had always been what you would call a slow person. Case in point: When I saw the stern-looking female CEO appearing in the financial news who looked just like my wife, it took me ages to finally realize it was truly her. Immediately after, a stream of comments highlighted in different colors overlaid my vision. [Oh my God! Julian Vance, the shameless supporting male lead, has finally shown up to stir the pot! Imagine dragging a child into this just to scam Ms. Eunice Latour, how disgusting!] [Didn’t he already make away with two million as compensation? Why is he back again? He must be sick in the head if he thinks that he can use his child as a pawn to get ahead in life!] [I can’t wait to see Mr. Carter put him in his place! Let the real male and female protagonists shine!] It took me half a minute before I finally wrapped my head around what they were saying. It seemed I had been in the world of a novel, one where I was cast as an evil supporting male lead whose main goal was to make the male and female protagonists look good. My wife was Eunice Latour, the female protagonist in question. One day, she went out to buy food for the baby, only to never return.

Vivian Grant had changed. Everyone in Riverton’s elite social circle was talking about it. The notoriously spoiled heiress of the Grant family had gone from a shameless heartbreaker to a hopeless romantic. She used to drive her Porsche straight onto campus, shove a bouquet of roses into some handsome guy’s arms, and walk away without a second glance. Now, ignoring the cheers and teasing around her, she walked up to the campus heartthrob, politely held out her hand, and introduced herself. “Hi, Nathan Hayes. I’m Vivian Grant.” Once, on her twentieth birthday, she had made a wish. “This year, I’m going to sleep with every good-looking man in Riverton.” But now, she and Nathan had been together for four years without ever breaking up. Even their graduation photos looked like wedding pictures. She had once torn up their engagement agreement in public and stormed off, her heels striking the floor with every furious step. Now, the company she and Nathan had founded together was about to go public. Vivian was already planning to propose to him the night of the IPO. She had even bought the ring. A platinum band with their initials engraved on the inside. On the day the company went public, Vivian cooked dinner herself. She was terrible in the kitchen. Hot oil splattered across her hand, making her hiss in pain, but she still carried the dishes to the table with a smile. Her fingers brushed over the ring as she murmured softly, the satisfaction of finally setting everything right filling her voice. “Nathan, I’m going to make up for every regret you’ve ever had.” “From now on, there’ll be nothing left for us but happiness.” No one knew the truth. Vivian had been reborn.