Scumbag Marriage Short Stories & Novels

Before registering our marriage, Yale Grant and I stopped at the mall to try on the jewelry set for our wedding. Just as I reached for one of the pieces, he suddenly stopped me. "Willa has fairer skin than you, so the jewelry will stand out more on her. Let her try it on instead." Without waiting for my answer, he began putting the jewelry on my best friend, Willa Lawson. He carefully wiped down each piece, warmed it in his hands, and fastened it around her, looking so practiced and attentive that anyone would have thought he'd done it a thousand times before. A couple passing by smiled at them. "A boyfriend that thoughtful is hard to find, sweetheart. You'd better hold on to him!" Willa glanced shyly at Yale, her cheeks turning pink. He made no attempt to correct their misunderstanding. Instead, he quietly handed his card to the sales associate. "I'll take everything." Not once did he ask for my opinion. This was already the tenth time that day he'd had Willa take my place. When we got into the car, he'd insisted that Willa sit in the passenger seat because she was slimmer and wouldn't obstruct his view. He'd put her in charge of all the wedding preparations because she was more attentive to detail. He'd even let her choose my wedding dress, claiming she had better taste. Somehow, Yale always managed to find something wrong with me, another reason I should step aside for the supposedly perfect Willa. If he thought she was so much better than me, she could have this relationship that had gone nowhere, too. The clerks' office was our next stop. When Yale reached for my hand, I pulled away. "No, thanks. Willa is better than me in everything. Why don't you have her take my place and marry you?"

The night we fought for the port, I took a ricin-laced bullet for my husband, Don Nick Valenti. As I lay dying, Dr. Bruno Esposito, the Valenti family's doctor, brought out the last dose of antiserum. He said a shot right away would save me. But Nick injected the lifesaving serum into Mia Conti instead. Mia suddenly developed stomach cramps, so Nick ordered Bruno to give her the antiserum slowly through an IV. He ignored the fact that I could barely breathe and my skin was turning blue. Isabella Valenti, Nick's mother and the former Donna, clutched her crucifix. “Your wife is the one who was poisoned, Nick! Why are you saving Mia?” Nick pressed a cotton ball to Mia's arm to stop the bleeding. “Mia's been sheltered her whole life. She's never had so much as a scratch. Julia's survived more gunshot wounds than I can count. She'll pull through this one too.” Isabella's face went cold and hard. “Julia has pulled you out of gunfire at least ten times. Her father and brother both died helping you seize power! And you won't even give her the antiserum that could save her life?” Nick's voice was cold. “Mother, I never forced them to do any of it! When Julia married me, she made her vows before God. She loves me. She chose all of this.” He came over to my bed and touched my face. “Julia, I know you're stronger than this. I'll have Bruno do everything he can. You're my wife and the Donna of the Valenti family.” He looked as tender as he had the night before, when he had held me in his arms. I looked at the empty syringe in his hand, and suddenly, none of it felt worth it anymore. “Nick Valenti! You had better pray I don't survive. “Because if I do, you'll answer to God for everything you've done!”

My blood-bonded vampire mate left me while I was pregnant to be with his "first love" in the human world. When danger struck, he abandoned our son to protect her human child, who was not in any danger. While our son was struggling with lethal UV burns and calling for his father through a high fever, he was celebrating under citywide fireworks with that human boy, who only had a common cold. He even took the life-saving serum I had prepared for our son, just to use it for the boy’s "pre-transformation conditioning." He coldly stated, "Vampires are resilient; he’ll endure it. Human children are too fragile." After four years of raising our son alone, I finally decided to leave. I officially cut our blood ties and moved away with our son. Only then did he find out that his "first love" had been lying to him all along. After learning the truth, the arrogant vampire prince wept and begged for us to come back.

Chester Ford brings home a female university student for the 10th time during our 10th wedding anniversary banquet. He walks into the banquet hall with the young lady in his arms. "Don't you see that your outfit is clashing with hers, Yuna Sutherland? Take off your dress. Right here and now." He slowly loosens his tie while I take a step back in panic. He then proceeds to tug my pearl necklace from my neck. "What are you waiting for? Stop acting like you're innocent. Your father tossed your younger sister to Ford Group to be a kept woman back then. He also practically delivered you straight onto my bed, all for 30 million dollars. I'll never forget how he looked when he was begging on his knees." Everyone eagerly watches the drama unfold with champagne glasses in hand. I stare at the wedding ring on his ring finger, which is close to becoming tarnished. For the 10th time, I request a divorce. Chester sneers. "How original of you, Yuna. Yet, you eventually kneel and plead for forgiveness every time. If you leave the Ford family, who's going to pay to keep your sister alive in the ICU?"

After my husband cheated on me for the 99th time, I finally completed my collection of 99 Hermes bags. That was just his way of compensating for his guilt. I was a high school advisory teacher, working from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day. After going home, I took care of his parents, who were both paralyzed and bedridden. To outsiders, I was a perfect wife. He figured he could keep me in the dark for the rest of his life. Little did he know, the mistresses he chased for a thrill were all arranged by me.

"You're my sister. I don't care if I'm drugged—this ain't it. You ain't my cure." Carlo Quaranta's eyes were shot red, chest heaving, but that rage? Way hotter than any craving. "Even if you make me marry you, I'll never love you." Vera Este didn't doubt it. Not for a second. He meant every damn word. Last time, she was the so-called "cure"... and it dragged her straight into marriage. She stared at his face—still young. Felt like it belonged to someone from a whole other life.

The night I found out I was pregnant, my six-year-old pointed at a child influencer on his tablet and said, perfectly calm, "She's my little sister." I didn't know whether to laugh, so I flicked him on the forehead. The girl posted from Harborcrest, halfway across the country from us. Caleb had never so much as met her. "She's got millions of followers. Don't make things up. "You want a sister that badly? Should Mommy have one for you?" I watched him, nervous and hopeful at once, afraid I'd miss whatever crossed his face. Instead he pulled up one of her older posts, no expression on him at all. "The purse in this picture, that was from me. Dad says she's the only sister I'm getting, so I have to take care of her." My stomach dropped, and the smile set on my face. "Mom. Dad and I are tired of pretending." He put a hand on my belly and looked up at me with flat black eyes, nothing behind them. "I promised Dad I'd protect her. So you can't have another annoying baby. "You'll do what I say. Right?"

I came home from a night shift and caught my husband in bed with his secretary. After the screaming and the chaos, I ran out like a woman losing her mind. Derek chased after me. We ended up at the river, fighting. Somehow we both fell in. He nearly drowned trying to save me—the doctors said the oxygen deprivation had caused severe brain damage. When he woke up, he could barely function. No memory. No independence. He followed me around like a lost child. "Wifey, don't leave me. I'm scared." Looking at that helpless, broken man, I gritted my teeth and held this family together. The secretary vanished without a trace. Six years passed. Derek slowly seemed to recover. He was gentle with me, attentive, loving. I even got pregnant with our second child. Then came the family dinner. Derek knocked back two glasses of whiskey and suddenly slammed his hand on the table, his face twisted with frustration. "My oldest boy is already in first grade, and I haven't made it to a single parent-teacher conference!" I thought his brain was glitching again. MY sister-in-law Vanessa rushed to cover his mouth, but he shoved her away and let out a cold laugh. "You really thought the water scrambled my brains?" "Chloe gave me a son. I haven't forgotten about him for a single day!"

I am Nicholas Greene's assistant and also his secret girlfriend of ten years. At the age of 29, I bring up marriage with him. He responds coldly, "I can give you love, but I can’t give you marriage. If you are desperate to get married, I can introduce you to another man to deal with your parents." I accept calmly. A few months later, he stops me at the door. His eyes are bloodshot as he questions, "Didn’t I tell you to just pretend? How did you end up actually getting a marriage certificate with him?"

My name is Elena Valesi Moretti. I'm a Brooklyn mob bride, a pawn in everyone's game. My father Enzo traded me for an alliance. My sister Isabella played the saint while secretly selling our baby sister Sofia to the Bianchi family behind closed doors. And my husband, Dante Moretti—the man with winter in his eyes who whispered “Try to run, I’ll break your legs” on our wedding day—he married me because when I was fifteen years old, I once pointed a gun at him inside a burning building. The only rule in this marriage was simple: stay out of his way. I spent three years breaking it. I sat in on council meetings and memorized every traitor's secret. I stood and watched a man's finger be severed to teach my own brother the price of betrayal. I turned myself into a blade. Then I uncovered the truth—Dante knew everything from the start. He knew my father had planted a mole inside his inner circle. He knew my sister was a trafficker's broker. He knew the woman he married was meant to be disposable from the very beginning. But there's one thing he never accounted for. He didn't marry a lamb. He married a wolf who learned how to draw blood. Now someone is trying to sell my little sister, and I have six weeks to stop it. I'm going to beat this man at every game he ever taught me.

During the Thanksgiving holiday, my mother-in-law Mary came to visit us from Ohio. I took her to my husband Liam's new spa in Manhattan, Apropos. We enjoyed a basic facial treatment together, which I had purchased for $9.90 on an e-commerce platform. Right after the treatment, the beautician slapped a high-priced package down in front of us. She glanced at us contemptuously and said: "Do you really think you can enjoy our premium services with a $9.90 coupon?Stop kidding. You two look like you’re here to freeload. A single facial here costs thousands of dollars. This isn’t some free trial for cheapskates like you." I suppressed my anger and said coldly: “We have already paid for the basic treatment. How can you call this taking advantage for free?. Go get your manager.” A flashy woman walked over. Her arms were crossed. She looked down her nose at us. “I’m the Boss lady of this place.You and this old hag are just trying to get something for free, aren’t you? Let me be clear. You're buying this five-thousand-dollar hydration treatment today. Or you're not walking out that door.” A five-thousand-dollar hydration treatment? So this was it. This was why Liam suddenly got into the beauty industry. He didn't open a spa. He opened a scam shop to bankroll his mistress. I was about to call Liam, but she beat me to it, dialing a number. “Darling, you need to get down to the spa, right now. I've got a couple of hicks from the sticks making a scene, trying to get free services!”

Seven years into our marriage, Sawyer Sterling suddenly became the best dad in the world. He showed up at Piper's school every day to pick her up on time, remembered that she would not eat cilantro, and read her favorite fairy tales to her before bed. Piper had waited seven years for this day. She wore the hair clip Sawyer had given her and told everyone she met, "Daddy finally loves me, too. Not just Tatum." However, watching Piper smile, I could not bring myself to feel happy. For the past seven years, Sawyer had treated his first love's son like a prince. He attended Tatum's parent-teacher conferences, celebrated Tatum's birthdays, and never objected when the boy called him Daddy. When Tatum snatched Piper's toys, Sawyer made her apologize. When Piper was running a high fever, he rushed off to celebrate Tatum's birthday with him instead. He had even slapped her across the face for pushing Tatum. Then, one day, he took Piper by the hand and brought her to the hospital. "Be a good girl. It's just a quick checkup. It'll be over soon." That was when I learned that Juliet Valenti's son had leukemia. Sawyer crouched in front of Piper, trying to coax her into it. "If you save Tatum, I'll spend every day with you from now on." Piper burst into tears and curled up in my arms. "Mommy, I don't want Daddy to spend time with me anymore. Can I please skip the shots?" I held Piper close as the last of my hope finally faded. His sudden change of heart had never been about Piper at all. He had only been trying to save Juliet's son.

"Gemma, we agreed on ten years. That time is up now. I'd like to leave with Kira." "You know he never liked her," she added quietly. In the quiet of the coffee house, Josie Carr spoke with a bitter expression. She had lived with Graham Holloway for ten years—ten long years, and still, she hadn't managed to thaw his heart. It wasn't love that brought them a child—it was a night of drunken confusion. He'd pushed her onto the bed, dazed and careless, and Kira came from that. Afterward, he gave her a villa and agreed to let her keep the baby. His only condition was simple: the child must never call him father. Publicly, Graham remained a single man. "I will never marry you. Don't hold out hope. "I'll pay child support, but don't expect me to acknowledge her. That child doesn't exist to me."

Sean Chase had once lost everything after being scammed by his ex-girlfriend. Even after he rebuilt his life, the trauma stayed with him. On the very first day we started dating, he told me he wanted us to split every expense fifty-fifty. "It's the only way I can believe you're with me for me, not my money." I was with him because I loved him, so I agreed. And for the next five years, that was exactly how our relationship functioned. We split the bill for Valentine's Day dinners. We split the cost of a $2.50 pack of birth control pills. We even split our $900 monthly rent. Then, one week before our wedding, my dad got into a car accident and was hospitalized. Almost at the same time, two bills came in. The hospital wanted $17,000 for my dad's surgery, and Sean wanted $1,700 for my half of the wedding dress. I checked my bank account and saw I had less than $14,000. With no way to cover everything, I asked Sean if he could front me the money. Half an hour passed before he finally replied. "Can't keep up the act any longer now that we're about to get married?" Then another message appeared. "Liana Zane, this is worse than what my ex did. At least she was upfront about wanting my money." I tried to explain, but before I could get a message out, he sent another. "How convenient. We're about to get married, and your dad just happens to get into a car accident. Maybe we're bad luck for each other." Maybe he was right. So I returned the wedding dress and walked out of his life.

For ten years, I was the messenger between Gabriel Moretti and my sister, Vivian. Every time he and Vivian fought, he trashed the whole studio. As the kid sister who tagged along, I was the one running around the neighborhood at midnight for bandages and hangover pills. They couldn't stand each other's stubbornness. And yet, whenever the mood struck, they kissed like they never wanted to stop. Then, no matter what he did to stop her, my sister got on a plane to California for grad school. Gabriel caught me outside the airport security checkpoint. His eyes were red as he gripped my chin. "She thinks she's the only one who gets to walk away from me? Vera, I know you've been in love with me for years. We're going to City Hall." It was how he got back at my sister. For me, it was a pit I couldn't climb out of. In three years of marriage, he never once held my hand in public. But late every night, he pressed me down into the bed in the master suite and wouldn't let me go. I thought he'd finally accepted me as his wife. Then, last night, my sister posted a boarding pass on Instagram. Gabriel told me to move out of my own home that same night. "Gabriel, I'm your wife." He looked at me like I'd said something ridiculous and gave a thin smile. "You know better than anyone why we got married. Greed doesn't suit you, Vera." I didn't say a word. I just took the unopened box and, right in front of him, dropped it in the trash by the door. "You're right." I smiled at him. "I'm done being greedy." What Gabriel didn't know was that just this morning, I'd signed up for an exchange program in Switzerland. By next week, that little tagalong who did nothing but carry messages would be gone from this city.

For seven years of my marriage to Damian Moretti, my daughter and I were so poor that every night we collected empty bottles from the alley behind a bar. Every time Ella traded the bottles in for change, she would ask me, "Mommy, do we have enough saved to go to the aquarium with Daddy yet?" Damian always said we had no money. Then, on the day I finally saved enough for three tickets, I arrived at the aquarium only to find him at the entrance holding his ex-girlfriend's hand, with her son in his arms. A staff member stopped us. "Sorry, Mr. Moretti has reserved the entire aquarium for a private event tonight." A bodyguard in black stepped up beside Damian and bowed his head. "Don, the car is ready." The truth was that my supposedly penniless husband, the man who claimed he could not afford his own daughter's ticket, had reclaimed the Moretti Family long ago and become New York's new Don. It was not that he had no money. He simply refused to spend any of it on us. Later I took my daughter and left New York, and the Vitale Family found me. I inherited the family's ports, took control of the Atlantic Shipping Alliance, and became a Donna before whom countless mafia families bowed. Damian, eyes red, begged me to come home. I only pushed the divorce papers across to him. "Damian, I am already home. And you were never my family."

I am the lawfully wedded wife of Don Jones—the Donna of the Jones Family—and the founding CEO of his medical empire. I stood by Vincent's side as we built it up from a two-room surgical clinic into the crown jewel of European private healthcare. Then, in my eighth month of pregnancy, dying on the operating table, Vincent pulled every surgeon out of my maternity ward for the sake of his mistress. He killed our child with his own hands. He stripped me of the right to ever be a mother. He thought I was a homeless orphan with nowhere to go. He had no idea I was the sole blood heir of the Belmonte Family. After the divorce, I came home to command a global medical empire. He knelt and begged. I watched, cold-eyed, as he fell into hell.

Out of nowhere, I heard the slap of bodies coming from the bathroom, along with a woman's breathy moans and my husband's low groans. But my husband, Robert Hayes, was the only person in there! Frowning, I pushed the bathroom door open. Robert's hands were frozen in midair, clenched into fists, and every muscle in his body was tense. He swallowed hard. I was about to go in when lines of text suddenly started scrolling across my vision like comments on a livestream. [He's doing it with Emma Bennett's best friend, Selena Reed, right under Emma's nose. He's wild!] [No wonder Robert was willing to drop over a million dollars on an invisibility potion.] [Doing it with Emma watching must be even hotter! Today's just a test run. Tomorrow's pool party is Robert's real show.] [Just thinking about it is a thrill!] A sudden sound came from the bathroom, and two wet footprints appeared on a dry patch of the floor. Robert turned toward the sound. His deep-blue eyes narrowed, and his voice sharpened. "Get out!" I backed out. I was so furious that I immediately went online and ordered a whole box of bear traps.

During the bridal pickup ritual, my maid of honor, Heather Monroe, locks me and Nicola Sanderson, my fiancé's best friend, in the same room. According to local tradition, the blindfolded groom must carry the woman he believes to be his bride to the bridal car. Afraid that my fiancé, Julian Bennett, might mistake me for someone else, I purposely wear the couple bracelet we've shared throughout our seven years together. But when Julian feels the bracelet on my wrist, he pauses for only a second before letting go. Then, he walks straight over to Nicola and sweeps her into his arms. Our family and friends burst into laughter. "Childhood sweethearts really do have the best chemistry!" "Julian, why don't you just switch brides today?" I chase Julian to the door and remind him that he's carrying the wrong person. But he only pulls Nicola closer. "I'm just following the rules. You should've spoken up earlier if you didn't want this to happen." The bridal car can only seat one bride. Julian helps Nicola into the car and hands her the bridal bouquet. Then, he tells me to take a taxi to the hotel on my own. Nicola's boyfriend, Larry Connell, can't bear to watch any longer. Without a word, he opens the door of another car for me. It's not until the wedding ceremony begins that Julian finally remembers me. He sends me a message, saying, "Stop messing around and come to the hotel now. We need to get married." I look up at Larry, who has been abandoned just like me, then turn off my phone. "Julian and Nicola want to marry the wrong people? Fine, then let's do the same, Larry."

The day after I lose my babies, my husband, Colin Fraser, tries to make it up to me with money, like he always does. "What's it going to be this time?" he asks. "Jewelry, company shares, or that plot of land in Easton?" I simply shake my head and slide the document from my nightstand toward him. As casually as he's signed countless checks before, Colin signs it without even looking. When he glances up and sees how calm I am, he lets out a soft laugh. "I thought you'd ask me to stay and keep you company," he says, shaking his head. "After all these years, you're still so materialistic. Money is all you care about." My hand freezes for a moment as I reach for the signed document. Just then, my son, Simon Fraser, breaks the silence with his innocent voice. "Dad, you're only realizing that now? You gave Mom money when she had me. Now that my little siblings are gone, you're giving her money again. Ava is much better. She says love can't be bought with money." Ava's right. Love isn't something you can buy with money. And that is why this document isn't another business contract. It's a divorce agreement.