Melodramatic Romance Short Stories & Scumbag Revenge Novels

My boyfriend of six years, Liam Sherman, proposes to his long-time crush, Vivi Johansen, on my birthday. With that, the passionate love between us is a thing of the past. I come to my senses and distance myself from him, choosing to put our relationship behind us. As such, I decided to go along with the arranged marriage my family has planned.

My childhood sweetheart, Basil Nolan, died the night before I was going to confess my feelings to him. Every bone in his body was shattered, leaving him mutilated beyond recognition. It was all because he had stumbled upon the golden boy, Calvin Holloway, of the Zenirford elite, intimately wrapped up with his mistress, ruining the mood and killing the buzz. Later, I became that heir's new kept woman. I drank until my stomach bled for him, risked my life in street races for him, and knelt on the pavement in the freezing dead of winter to lick his boots clean. Finally, I managed to warm his cold heart. "I can give you anything in the world, except my heart," he told me. I smiled, wondering if that included his life.

I'd spent an entire year preparing for my son Tristan Pascall's spot at a top international school. By the final admissions review, I had every single document ready. All that was missing was the original copy of Richard Pascall and my marriage certificate. Once we handed that in, it would be official. But when we got to the admissions office, Richard turned on me, accusing me of arranging this without telling him. Before I could clap back, the admin frowned and said, "Ma'am, according to the system, Mr. Pascall's spouse isn't you." My whole body went cold. And then Iris Poole—who had been standing behind Richard this whole time—stepped up and slid her marriage certificate across the counter. The staff checked it, nodded, and said, "Mr. Pascall, Ms. Poole, your registration date is June, four years ago. Everything looks fine. You may proceed." June, four years ago. That was the exact month Richard held my hand in front of all our friends and family at our engagement party and promised I was his one true love. He had lied to me about that for the past seven years.

When Tanya Spencer was eighteen, she was sexually assaulted by a stranger who was drunk. She went straight to the police. Despite the fear and enormous pressure she faced, she refused to back down and made sure the powerful, well-connected man who had assaulted her ended up behind bars. But the trauma he left behind ran deep. For years afterward, even having a man come too close would make her tremble uncontrollably. Sometimes the nausea was so overwhelming that she would throw up. Tanya thought this was simply what the rest of her life would look like. She felt ruined. Tainted. Like she'd never be able to love someone or live a normal life again. Then Preston Hayes came along. He was the head of one of the most powerful families in Harbor City, a man who could have had almost anyone he wanted. Yet for some reason, he chose to pursue her, an ordinary woman carrying scars she believed no man could ever accept.

A blizzard had buried the mountain, turning every road into a death trap. Locals called it Deadman's Pass—seventy-two icy switchbacks with zero room for error. As the only person who had ever made it through without a scratch, I'd just gotten a million-dollar rescue call from beyond the final curve. Ten years ago, I went there once. My seventeen-year-old daughter, Maya, was skydiving with her classmates when a violent air current forced an emergency landing. The rescue came too late. She died there. Later, I learned my husband, Jayden Boone, had ignored Maya's safety. He poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into the rescue effort and redirected every team to save his ex's daughter instead. The girl had only sprained her ankle on a hiking trip. The day Maya died, I walked away from my career as a professor and stayed here, living as a broke driver. I risked my life running Deadman's Pass again and again until I knew every turn by heart. In the ten years since, no one else had died on that road. Today, a friend shoved a million-dollar rescue job in front of me and told me to leave right away. I looked at the face in the photo—the one I could never forget. Then I smiled and tossed my keys onto the table. "I can't take this job."

At our engagement party, my fiancé’s so-called girl best friend showed up wearing a wedding dress identical to mine and stood next to him as they greeted guests. Everyone assumed she was the bride. I wasn’t angry. Instead, I calmly picked up the microphone that had fallen to the floor and tapped it twice. The next second, the LED wall lit up. The surround-sound system came alive. And every socialite in the city heard the unmistakable moans my fiancé and his “best friend” had made together on a mountain road the night before.

At her lavish engagement party, Charlotte Ashford learns that her fiancé Connor has been cheating for three years with Sophia, the sister she loved most. When their betrayal unearths old lies, stolen memories, and the truth behind her parents' final moments, Charlotte cuts them out, rebuilds her life, and leaves Connor to face the regret he thought she would never make him feel.

After I get detained in the police station, my husband, Gavin Pratt, specifically comes over to bail me out. But I grip a policeman's arm without letting go. "I'm the one who did it! Hurry up and arrest me!" In my previous life, I was surrounded by the family members of a car crash victim. A bar owner and a saleswoman who sold cosmetics were there as well. They claimed that I had gone into a drunken frenzy and stole perfume from the store. On top of that, I even ran a red light and hit someone with my car. I kept explaining the truth to everyone, yet no one believed me. Instead, they all had me surrounded and beat me up till I died. When I wake up again, I've returned to the day I'm detained inside the police station.

My husband, James Zeller, and I have established a common-law marriage. We did not have a formal wedding ceremony, nor do we have a marriage license. We also live separately, our lives barely intertwining, because he has a special profession. Therefore, despite being married to him for seven years, we've never met each other's friends and relatives. As his wife, I'm proud of being married to him despite how it pains me. I'm willing to give up the opportunity to study at the National Academy of Sciences to take care of things at home while he works. One day, my son, Jasper Chalder, comes home from elementary school crying. He sobs about not being a bastard child and requests to see James. Greatly distressed, I decide to take him to visit the military base over the new year for a family reunion. However, I don't expect this trip to turn my life completely upside down.

The day my husband, Ramsey Collins, completed his classified deployment, I brought our daughter to the local elementary school for registration. The administrator looked up from her screen, visibly confused. "Ma'am, your daughter's father is already registered in our database as a parent, but for a different boy. Did you mistype his details?" My forehead creased. "That's impossible. Let me check." I unlocked my phone. An update popped up from my husband, who had forgotten to hide his private posts from me. [Seven years in secret. Now I can finally tell the world that you are my wife.] The attached photo showed my best friend, Evelyn Reed, resting her head on his shoulder, smiling gently as she held her young son. In their hands were marriage certificates. Identical to the one sitting in my purse. My mind went completely blank. My thumb scrolled down the screen on autopilot. The comment section was packed with congratulations. Mutual friends. My own coworkers. At the bottom, there was a message from his mother, Juliet Collins. [She hid her marriage for seven long years. You need to make it up to them both from now on.] [Make sure you hide this from Clara. If she finds out her own marriage certificate is a fake, it will destroy her.] My husband replied with a quick nod emoji. [I will.] My hands began to tremble. For seven years, I looked after his mother. I raised our child. Meanwhile, he was playing family with someone else. Everyone knew. Every single person helped him keep the lie alive. My chest tightened until I couldn't breathe. A tiny tug pulled at my sleeve. My daughter pointed toward the door, her eyes wide and cautious. "Mommy, the rain is getting heavy. Are we still waiting for Daddy?" I opened the umbrella and took her hand. "No, sweetie. We're not waiting. We'll never wait for Ramsey Collins again.”