Cerita Pendek & Novel Unattainable Love

At the Crestwood Academy gala, a voice cut through the noise. We stood before a wall of portraits, our past selves staring back at us. "To our time at the academy. Three words." Victoria, the academy's fallen golden girl, raised her glass. She'd been silent for years. "Strength. Passion." She paused. Her gaze, hot as an ember, locked onto the one wolf every eye was already on—my mate. "And... Caspen." A hush fell over the room. They were the academy's most tragic couple. Caspen, the reckless Alpha. Victoria, the radiant pureblood. Their love had been a wildfire, wild and consuming. But they had broken apart on the night of the Blood Moon, just before graduation. Every wolf here had witnessed their legend. Including me. I glanced at Caspen. His power was a physical weight in the air. That untamed wolf had sheathed his claws. He was my mate now. The Alpha of Alphas. Powerful. Composed. But his heart was not mine.

My best friend Caleb and I mated with the most beautiful and strongest female Alpha twins of the Creek Pack. Everyone said we were the luckiest guys in the territory. But the pack didn't know that Victor, their stepbrother, was the one the female Alpha twins truly loved. My best friend Caleb and I planned to sever the mate bond, but the night before we were due to leave, Caleb was poisoned with wolfsbane. I called his mate Selene, but she sneered, "Ryan, my sister says your and Caleb's little tricks are getting really old. Are you going to tell me tomorrow that Caleb accidentally fell off the cliff?"

My blood-bonded mate, Prince Dorian, despised me. I was just a mortal to him. A girl with filthy blood. His eternity was already promised to a pureblood—Cordelia. When she died in an accident, he blamed me. Hated me for ten years. But when rival vampires attacked our castle, he saved me. Bleeding out in my arms, he used his last breath to push my shaking hands away. "Odette... if only the Bond had never tied us together." At his wake, they kicked me out. So I climbed to the top of their family’s skyscraper—a place they arrogantly called "Heaven's Needle"—and jumped. When I opened my eyes again, I was back. Back to the night the ancient Blood Bond chose me as his mate. This time, I'm setting him free. And myself along with him.

The day Lorenzo got kidnapped by a rival family, I found out I was three months pregnant. I took the million dollars his father offered, and I ran. The next time we met, I looked him in the eye and told him I'd been a mole for the rival family the whole time. He was chained up in a cellar, staring at me through the iron bars utterly despairing. He said he'd kill me himself, and then grind my bones to dust. Seven years later, when I saw him again, there was a beautiful woman on his arm. They were getting married. And I was so far down I had to beg him for a loan. He pulled out a thick stack of bills. Lit it on fire right in front of me. He said he'd rather burn it than give it to some whore feeding another man. He didn't know I was begging because my son was dying. His son too.

It was at our engagement banquet that I finally learned the truth. I wasn't the true heiress of a noble human family. I wasn't the "fated bride" destined to bear a half-blood child for the vampires. I was just the wrong baby someone had brought home from the hospital. A fake. I'd thought that Alexander, the boy who'd risked his life to drag me out of a burning house, the boy I'd grown up beside, would love me the same as always. Instead, in front of everyone, he let go of my hand and looked down at me with cold eyes. "Without that bloodline, do you really think you deserve to stand beside me?" Then he reached out and slid the engagement ring off my finger himself. He turned, and led the true heiress up to the high platform. Everyone laughed at me. The fake heiress, delusional enough to think she could marry the vampire heir. I was thrown out of the only home I'd ever known. The only kindness left to me was Alexander's, a scrap of charity that let me stay at his side as the lowest thing a vampire could keep. A blood slave. And then, later, I died in an explosion. Saving him. Alexander knelt in the blood and lost his mind, screaming at everyone around him to save me. But there was something he didn't know. I hadn't died. Later still, at a vampire banquet, he saw me again at last. I walked past him on another man's arm, smiling. And this time, it was his turn to lose his mind begging me to look back at him.

At our high school reunion, my ex announced he was getting married. In the middle of the congratulations, someone piped up. “Hey, where’s Wren tonight? She didn’t show?” The whole room cracked up. “Wren? Probably still earning her keep in some rich guy’s bed.” “She dumped James for money, and now look at him. He’s the wealthiest guy in New York. Bet she’s kicking herself.” Someone snickered. “I heard the guy’s some fat old man. God, how does she even stomach it.” I broke up with James Thorne the year he loved me the most, and walked straight into the arms of another man, a man with money. Now he had a new girlfriend, he’d taken over Thorne Capital, and he was one of New York’s most talked-about young executives. He’d organized this reunion because he couldn’t wait to show off how good his life had turned out. “Enough. Drop it.” In the middle of the laughter, James spoke up. “I have a better life now. Whether Wren is dead or alive has nothing to do with me anymore.” “What if she really were dead?” The room went silent.

The cocktail hour had just ended when I picked up a video call in the bridal suite. It was Ethan, three years from now. By then, time‑travel tech had matured enough to let him contact me three years into the past. After enough specific details, I finally believed it. The man on the screen really was Ethan, three years older. I rubbed my aching ankle and pouted at him through the screen. "Ethan, smiling at all these guests is exhausting. But the second I remember I actually married you today, I'm happy all over again." "We're still happy three years from now, right?" He was leaning back against a headboard, and he didn't answer. His face was flat and unreadable. Then I heard it: a woman's voice from his end, low and breathy, asking to be kissed. I froze for a second, then covered my mouth and laughed. "Is that future me? In broad daylight? Get a room." Ethan turned the camera into the bed. My maid of honor was lying there, naked, sprawled across his chest. Her body was covered in hickeys. He looked straight at me as I started to break, and his voice didn't shift at all. "As soon as the reception ended, I told you I had a client meeting. I went to her room instead." "Jo, now you know what's coming. The guests haven't gone home yet. If you want a divorce tonight, you can have one. Up to you."

My name is Clara Kelly. I was born in Brooklyn, into an Irish-American cop’s family. My father spent his whole career walking a beat out of the 84th Precinct. My mother volunteered at the parish. I was the first girl on our block to get into Columbia Law. The year I graduated, I was volunteering at a charity gala. I picked up the wrong glass of wine and ended up dumping it down the front of a man’s Brioni suit. That man was Adrian Francesco Moretti. Fourth-generation Don of the Moretti Family of New York, and one of the five families of Cosa Nostra. He chased me for four years. I said no six times. The seventh time, he stood outside my law firm in the rain until three-fifteen in the morning. I married him. Two decades in, he’d handed me the keys to the entire Moretti Family. In our world they called me “the Irish Donna,” a woman with no Italian blood who somehow held the seat. Childless by choice, the two of us. Famously in love. Until that Wednesday afternoon, when my college roommate of twenty years, my best friend Vivian Sinclair, walked into my living room with a five-year-old boy. She said the boy was Adrian’s son. She said that five years ago, she’d taken a used condom out of the wastebasket in my upstairs master bedroom, kept it frozen for three years, and done IVF. She said she was the real mother of the Moretti heir. She was the real Donna Moretti. “Be smart. Pack your bags and walk out. You might even get to keep your life.” “You’re barren. The Moretti Family doesn’t need you.” I looked at the woman I’d called my best friend for half my adult life. I didn’t say a word. She thought she was holding the winning card. What she didn’t know was that she’d just stepped onto a board Adrian and I had been laying for twenty years. I needed exactly one sentence to shatter every piece of the Donna fantasy she’d spent five years building.

After billionaire Jonathan Whitman lost his fortune, his wife Selene had no choice but to work as a maid in a mansion to make ends meet. She scrubbed toilets. She cleaned pools. She hauled out garbage—right up until she lost the baby she was carrying. And then she discovered her husband's affair with Vivienne, her employer. She was sleeping with Selene's husband, carrying her husband's baby, wearing million-dollar rubies, sleeping in silk, dining on imported delicacies. The moment she walked in on them, Selene snapped and pushed Vivienne. But Jonathan, to protect her, had Selene arrested and held in detention. He thought she'd come out of it humbled. Quiet. Tamer. What he didn't know was that the moment she walked free, she filed for divorce. She walked out of the basement studio they'd shared without a backward glance. What he also didn't know: he had a genetic infertility condition. And the only woman on earth whose body could give him a child—was Selene.

On the day I went to the city hall with my girlfriend to get married, her first love, Martin Lennox, suddenly appeared. “Teddy’s getting old, and his kidneys are failing. The vet said he only has a few days left. You should pay him a visit.” Teddy was the dog they got together. I knew about it, so I said kindly, “After Olivia and I get married, I’ll send both of you to the vet.” However, Martin suddenly started crying. “Olivia, you know dogs can’t speak, but he kept crying when he looked at your photo. He really wants to see you.” Olivia also started crying. She flung my hand away and apologized before she left with Martin. She disappeared for three days. On the fourth day, she returned home and apologized to me. Then, she dragged me to the city hall. Unexpectedly, Martin showed up with Teddy’s dead body. “Olivia, is your marriage really that important that you left Teddy alone at the vet? He’s dead now, and you didn’t manage to accompany him before he crossed the rainbow bridge!” Olivia cried as she looked at me. “I’ll come back to you after I bury Teddy, alright? Wait for me.” I gestured. “Just go, we can have our wedding ceremony first before we get our marriage certificate.” On the day of our wedding, Olivia was waiting happily for me at home in her wedding dress. However, she did not know that I was not planning on turning up.

I once toyed with a college boy. When he fell in love with me, I ended things. Years later, after he made something of himself, he married me in front of everyone who thought I was lucky to have him. My family had fallen from grace, and to the outside world, I had won the jackpot. What they never saw was what happened behind closed doors. Every night, he brought a different woman home. I never cried. I never made a scene. That only seemed to enrage him more. So he went further. He got his first love, Natalie, pregnant on purpose. When I still stayed calm, he pinned me against the wall and demanded, "Stella, do you even love me?" Later, Natalie and I went into labor on the same night. I dropped to my knees and finally admitted I loved him, begging him to take me to the hospital. He held me tight, almost giddy with satisfaction. "I knew it," he said. "You liar." Then he shoved me aside, picked Natalie up, and walked away without looking back. "I'll take you to the hospital later. The pain of childbirth can be your punishment."

After Princess Winona Green abandons me at the border's military camp for five years, she finally remembers my existence and decides to bring me home. When a dozen or so carriages that are laden with wedding gifts arrive at the military camp, Winona's expression is filled with unbridled smugness. "I did tell you that once I gave birth to Shane's child, I'd marry you, Gideon. See? I didn't lie to you at all. Today, I've personally come to the border just to pick you up." Then, Winona approaches me haughtily. "Shane might be a musician, but I've already sired the oldest child with him. It's only reasonable for him to be made an equal consort, just like you, the son of an official." I merely frown without saying anything. All I do is look at Winona. She lets out a sigh before walking toward me again. "I know that you've been hopelessly waiting for me for the past five years, Gideon. That's why I traveled all the way to this barren wasteland just to prove my sincerity to you. In half a month, we shall get married." The sight of Winona immersed in her own fantasy of fake devotion makes me chuckle coldly. "Seize them!" How dare Winona make me, the general of the border, fight with a mere musician over her affections! Does she really think that my blade is just a decoration?

Ever since I find out that my CEO husband, Rowan Goodwin, is incapable of letting his first love, Megan Dolton—who's divorced and has a child of her own—go, I begin teaching our son, Ryan Goodwin, to address Rowan as "Mr. Goodwin" all the time. When Ryan is burning up with a fever, Megan chooses to summon Rowan away from us in the middle of the night. As I caress Ryan's scalding forehead, I instruct him to tell Rowan, "Goodbye, Mr. Goodwin." When Rowan has agreed to attend the teacher-parent conference with Ryan, Megan calls him with tears streaking down her cheeks, claiming that her own son, Nelson Herrera, doesn't have a father to accompany him. So, Rowan doesn't hesitate to ditch us once again. Without bothering to raise my head, I pass my phone to Ryan so that he can take leave for "Mr. Goodwin" in the parents' group chat. Every time, Ryan always hesitates for a long time before carrying out my orders. Later on, Rowan finally realizes that he has owed us far too much. So, he takes the initiative to suggest that we take a family portrait together. When we reach the photography studio, Megan calls Rowan once again. Her sobs can be heard drifting from the loudspeaker. "Rowan, can you please come over and pick Nelson up from school? The children at the kindergarten keep making fun of him for not having a father…" Pity crosses Rowan's expression immediately. He's about to crouch down and explain to Ryan when the latter just waves airily at him without me having to nudge him. "It's fine, Mr. Goodwin. You should accompany the other child. Mommy and I are the only ones needed for the family portrait."

I'm the type who has the urge to overshare my life with him. It can be anything, be it the flowers blooming by the side of the road, the unpleasant coffee I end up having, or the sunset I've seen when I'm on my way home from work. Heck, when I think of Edwin Howell all of a sudden, I can't resist texting him at all. His replies are always short and perfunctory, though I suppose they count as a form of response from him. Hence, over the past six months, I've relied on these cold-sounding yet present replies to give me enough strength to deal with the engagement party, go wedding gown shopping, and choose the wedding venue all by myself. Somehow, I've managed to hang in there till the week before the wedding. But five days before the wedding, I discover an AI program that's installed within Edwin's computer. It can categorize every single sentence that I've sent to Edwin and extract the keywords. Then, it'll draft the most perfunctory responses that will never go wrong. If I miss Edwin, the AI will reply, "Mm-hmm." If I feel aggrieved, the AI will reply, "Got it." When I try to vent my frustrations to Edwin, the AI will reply, "Don't make such a big deal out of it." It turns out that Edwin isn't the one who has been responding to my need to overshare. The thing is, he has been texting another woman nonstop in another private chat. They talk about anything and everything under the sun, from exchanging simple good mornings and good nights to asking, "What are you having for lunch today?" and "Do you wanna go to the beach someday?" Finally, I realize that Edwin isn't the silent type who keeps his love in. If anything, he's the flashy type who will proclaim his love anywhere, anytime. It's just that… his love has never been mine to have. As for me, I've finally made up my mind to stop spending my life waiting for a response that will never come.

On my first wedding night, my wife, Stella Turner the top actress, abandons me and sleeps with her ex-boyfriend instead. When she comes home, she reeks of alcohol and keeps calling Adam Green's name while holding me. The next day, Adam publishes a post on social media, saying, "Sometimes, some love is destined to be left unspoken and buried in the sands of time. I wish you all the happiness in the world." His fans leave angry comments below the post, criticizing me for being the third wheel. My manager, Josh Mendez, is almost going mad with anxiety. I scroll on my phone languidly and casually say, "Why so anxious? Post their intimate photos from last night online and say that I, the legally wedded husband, caught them in the act. Remember to blur the photo, but make sure people can still make out Stella's tattoo on her collarbone."

The fifth anniversary of my marriage to my wife, Roxanne Clark, coincides with the National Day. We agree to spend the holiday together at the Ermane Sea. But on the morning of our departure, Roxanne hurriedly packs her luggage and informs me, "Something came up at work. I have to go on a business trip." I believe her. But later that night, I see a post from her first love, Conrad Jensen. In the photo, the two of them are standing close together with their fingers intertwined. Their matching couple bracelets are impossible to miss. I smile bitterly. In the end, she did go to the Ermane Sea, but not with the person she promised. I do not call to confront her. Instead, I calmly gave the post a "Like". One minute later, Roxanne calls me frantically and explains, "This is all a misunderstanding. We just happened to run into each other during the business trip. I'll definitely make it up to you on the next National Day." I chuckle dismissively and say, "It's fine. Have a great time." Roxanne looks extremely shocked as she asks, "Why aren't you jealous this time?"

After the engagement dinner, my grandmother was hauled down to the family's dungeons. The order was given by Serena, who handled the finances for my husband-to-be, Vincent, the heir to the Moretti family. Vincent himself led her down, refusing to hear a word of explanation. "The late Don's wife's diamond cross is missing. Your grandmother was the only guest not part of the family. If she didn't take it, who did?" Serena stood at the top of the stairs, her arrogant gaze sweeping over my face. It was laughable. Based on nothing but Serena's word, they could lock an old woman away. "She stays down there for every day the cross is missing. But that's one thing, our wedding is another. We're still on for next month." I glanced down at the diamond ring on my finger, engraved with the family crest. Exhaustion washed over me. This whole marriage felt meaningless.

On the eve of our wedding, my fiancé, Steven Cooper, suddenly appeared before me with his arms around his first love, Molly Hart. “I love you, and I love Molly too. I’ll still give you the wedding you’ve always wanted, but Molly is the one I’m going to marry.” A sharp pain struck my heart. Just as tears were about to fall, I heard Molly’s thoughts. “What a joke. He keeps offering things that don’t even matter. If he loves me so much, why doesn’t he give me money or buy me a house? “If the system weren’t forcing me to collect affection points from scumbag men, I wouldn’t bother standing here acting out this villainess role with him. “And seriously, with a demand this outrageous, she’s not actually going to agree to it just because she’s head over heels for him, is she? “Even if this is only a pre-wedding test, once she gives in, he'll keep trampling over her boundaries. In the end, she'll be destroyed emotionally and physically, and both she and her baby will lose their lives.” My eyes widened in shock, and the tears instantly disappeared. Maybe I was a little lovestruck, but I definitely didn’t want to die.

The day I found out I was pregnant, my fiancé, Shawn Gibson, told me he was going to marry the woman who was his first love, Suzie Sanders. Then, he asked me to marry his comatose older brother to help him get a wife. He said, "Suzie's family is forcing her into marriage. She's at the end of her rope. I'll marry her first, then figure out how to handle both families. We can still be together." I was shaking with anger and was about to throw the pregnancy test into his face. Suddenly, a young voice rang out in my head. "Mom, hurry and say yes! You mistook him for someone else that night! My real dad is his brother! And that coma? He's faking it! My dad is the richest man in the country! He's clearing out the traitors in the family and is about to make his grand return. "Marry him! This fortune is literally being given to us for free! We have to take it!" The richest man in the country? Then I was definitely marrying him.

My dad's company has gone bankrupt. Because of that, the debt collectors keep turning up on our doorstep for money. They claim that they will break one of Dad's legs if he doesn't cough up the payment in three days. I sink down to my knees and beg my ultra-rich boyfriend, Julian Luther, to lend me 500 thousand dollars for the time being just to resolve Dad's crisis. This is my first time asking for money from Julian. Julian's brows are drawn together in a frown, but in the end, he still agrees to my request. He tells me that the finance department will transfer me the money in the afternoon. My attention is glued to my phone the whole day. I keep refreshing my bank account's balance on my banking app. Just like that, I wait from morning till nightfall. But that's when Julian suddenly goes out of contact. He doesn't pick up any of my calls nor respond to any of my text messages. Anxiety floods my senses the whole time. I keep telling myself that maybe Julian has something urgent to deal with. But my need to save Dad's leg triumphs over everything else. Left without a choice, I can only take the jewelry my deceased mom has left for me to the auction house to get them auctioned away. Unexpectedly, I bump into Julian and his childhood friend, Rachel Bailey, at the auction house. Julian is quick to dump a huge sum of money just to bid for a painting Rachel wants. Ironically, the final bidding price of that painting is 500 thousand dollars. It turns out that he has never forgotten about my plight. It's just that my plight is nothing compared to his crush's love for a painting.