Bittersweet Novels & Stories

My family sold one of their properties to put me through school abroad. Nathan Kingsley and I had been together three years. Two of those were long-distance. Through those two years of me alone overseas, he never broke contact — airport pickups, long phone calls, every anniversary remembered. I'd never once doubted him. I thought distance hadn't beaten us. The day I flew home, he was waiting at Arrivals with a bouquet of flowers. He smiled and said, "Finally." We set the engagement date. We picked out the dress. We booked the reception. The day the wedding march began and I stood at the top of the aisle looking at him, I thought — these three years were worth every minute. Then the doors behind me opened. My sister walked into the chapel, in a white dress, and slid her arm through his. She smiled at me. "Sorry, sis. Those airport pickups? I'm the one who sent him. For the last three years, he's been mine the whole time."

The day before the ceremony, my Alpha Heir mate Lysander brought home an Omega who still bore an old mark — and insisted she become his Luna. The beautiful, fragile-looking Omega leaned against his chest, her eyes red. "I can't. If you keep me, my mate will die without me." Lysander answered lightly, "Then I'll give up my Luna-to-be. We'll trade. I'll order him to break your mark at once." The Omega laughed softly. "That’s for the best. But are you sure you don't mind?" Lysander smiled back. "A dull puppet who spent her whole life waiting to be marked by me. How could she compare to you?" She glanced around the chamber and pouted. "I don't like any of this. It was all prepared for her." Lysander kissed her forehead. "I'll replace all of it. Something better. For you." Their love story became the talk of the realm. And no one cared that I was the "dull puppet" who had been traded away.

My husband—the mafia boss—loses his first love to suicide. Celeste Reyes couldn't accept that he was marrying me. Since then, Darius Sterling mourns her publicly every day, and we become the kind of couple that despises each other more than anyone else. However, when the Moretti family of Eastbourne sends assassins after me, Darius takes the bullet meant for me. The bullet is poisoned. As he lies weakly in my arms, he whispers, "I saved your life. My debt to your mother is repaid. In our next life, let's not meet again. "I don't want to hate you anymore. I just hope you'll always be the girl next door. Now, it's time for me to be with Celeste." And just like that, he dies in my arms. I cry my heart out, but Darius never looks at me again. Only then do I realize how foolish and childish our hatred has been all these years. Later, after I eliminate the Morettis, I take my own life for him. Yet, when I open my eyes again, I'm back at 20—the year of our engagement. I reject my father's plan for an arranged marriage and choose to go to New Verden to manage the family business. This time, I'll stay far away from Darius and give him and Celeste my blessings.

It was the third year of my secret relationship with Garrett, my Alpha brother's best friend. Marcus laughed and nudged Garrett playfully. "You've been with that little mate of yours for three years now. When are you going to introduce her to the pack?" I pressed myself against the doorframe, my heart racing. Had my brother figured out our secret? Garrett just laughed it off. "What mate? Just some crazy she-wolf who won't leave me alone." Marcus caught sight of me and grinned. "Sage, you see this? Never pick a mate like Garrett here." "Takes everything a female offers but won't even acknowledge the bond." Just then, more of Marcus's friends arrived, and they joined in the teasing. "Your brother's right, but Garrett's had his heart set on someone for years." "What was her name again? Oh right, Aria. She's returning to the pack soon." I'd heard that name before - Aria. But Garrett had never told me she was his true love.

My husband, Kieran, is the heir to the Thompson family. In the three years of our arranged marriage, he has never once touched me. I told myself he was just cold and guarded, that I could find a way into his heart, little by little. Then one day he came home drunk, pinned me to the bed for the first time, and called out his first love's name. "Camilla, all these years... I've thought of you every second of every day..." That was when I knew. All the passion and love he possessed was already spent on another woman. I pushed him away, burned every photo of us, and went to a high-end club in New York full of handsome male models. Nine months later, I walked into the airport with my newborn baby in my arms. Later, Kieran searched the world for me, his eyes bloodshot. He asked in a trembling voice why I never told him I was pregnant, why I wouldn't let him see our baby. I glanced at him and gave a light, breezy smile. "Who said the baby was yours?"

The day I came back to the Bennett family as the real heiress, Romina, the fake one, looked at me with red-rimmed eyes and said she wanted to give the engagement back to me. "Don't bother. I'm already seeing someone." I rested a hand on my barely noticeable belly and said, half joking, "If you feel that bad about it, how about you just cash me out instead?" The words had barely left my mouth before a few lines of text drifted across my vision. [lmaooo the villainess is still scheming for money at a time like this. can we please skip ahead to the part where the male lead puts her in her place.] [I came for the sweet romance between the lead and the fake heiress heroine, not some side character throwing a fit because she's got a baby bump to wave around] [spoiler from me! the villainess gets thrown out of the family, the lead ends up hating her, and she dies in childbirth. throwing confetti!] I clicked my tongue. How could I possibly cling to a strange man? Then footsteps came from behind me. Romina walked over, crying, and introduced me. "Orlando, this is my sister, Ophelia. The engagement was supposed to be hers." I turned around, and my whole body went rigid. It was the patron who'd kept me for five years, the father of the child I was carrying.

My fiancé proposes to my stepsister Thalia Yates in front of everyone at our engagement party. Furious, I pack my stuff and leave home. That's when Jude Pearson, heir to an international medical group, entered my life. He's a surgeon rumored to have zero interest in women. Yet he pursued me passionately for six months. Eventually, I accepted his proposal. For seven years after our wedding, he's been gentle and considerate, always putting my needs first. Then, I overhear his phone conversation with his mother, Helena Roberts. "Jude, it's been seven years, but you still have no kids. It's time for a divorce." "Since I couldn't marry Thalia, it doesn't matter who I married instead. I'll keep playing this role forever. As long as I'm around, she'll never be able to intrude upon Thalia's happiness." That's when the truth hits me—Jude has given up the family business to become a surgeon just to treat Thalia's heart condition. Our years of marriage are actually his way of protecting Thalia from afar. If that's the case, then I'll disappear from their world and let my absence be their happy ending.

At 18 years old, our families offer my best friend—Roxanne Reed—and me to two werewolves. I'm paired with the cold Alpha Lucian Nightshade, while she's matched with the violent warrior Aiden Steele. Despite the elders' opposition, Lucian grants me, a mere human, the position of Luna. Yet on the night of the ceremony, he abandons me at the altar to save Seraphina and form a mate bond with her instead. Aiden similarly delays his ceremony for Seraphina, warning Roxanne to rein in her defiance. We exchange knowing glances and smile. It's time to teach these savage werewolves a lesson. We make our decision on the spot to call off the engagements. With nothing but the jewelry we have, we establish ourselves in Pollyland. I become the film industry's most captivating new star with the most compelling backstory, while Roxanne becomes my formidable ace of an agent. Together, we thrive spectacularly in the world of fame and fortune. Two years later, outside my new movie's celebration party, dozens of Maybachs silently block all exits. I receive a text from an unknown number. "Game over." I tell Roxanne to take everyone and leave through the back door first. As I turn around, I collide with an ice-cold embrace. Lucian lowers his head, his golden eyes now bloodshot. His voice is hoarse and filled with madness as he says, "Eleanor, come back with me."

The day my family and the Fido family decided I should marry Callum Fido, I shocked everyone by rejecting the arrangement. Without hesitation, I instead chose Jaxon Fido, Callum’s uncle. Everyone was stunned. After all, everyone in Central City knew I, Moon Sawyer, had loved Callum more than I loved myself. When I was young and naive, I had declared I would marry no one but him. I followed him for ten years and lost who I was in the process. If he told me to go left, I would never dare turn right. If he told me to jump into the ocean, I would have done it without thinking. In my past life, I got to marry Callum, just like I always wanted. But on our wedding day, he shut the door in my face. He pressed the knife he had personally sharpened against my chest and said, “The one I love and want to marry has always been Ruby. The only way you’ll enter this house is as a dead body.” Ruby Sawyer was my sister. The Fido family had called him ungrateful and forced him to go through with the marriage. But after the wedding, he kept looking for women who looked like Ruby and flaunted his affection for them in front of everyone. He let every one of his mistresses insult me, belittle me, and walk all over me. When I was pregnant, I was pushed down the stairs, and both my baby and I died. With a second chance at life, I chose to stay away from him and let him be with Ruby. But I never expected that the day the Fido family agreed to my new engagement, Callum would completely lose his mind.

Damian and I have been together for five years. He's the heir to the Hartwell family, a family of old money, but he's incredibly devoted to me. He planned a perfect trip to Iceland to see the Northern Lights, intending to propose. He held me close and whispered, "They say couples who see the aurora together will be together forever. Nora, you and me -- never apart." As the brilliant lights danced across the sky, I truly believed our love would last an eternity. Then I saw him snap a photo and send it to Sophia with the message: "Wish you were here. Sending you some aurora magic." I froze. Sophie was Damian's childhood friend. The kind of woman who always draped herself all over him, and sent him provocative selfies in the middle of the night. The next second, Sophia called on video. "Damian! I'm so dizzy... When are you coming back to keep me company?" It was then I realized Damian had brought Sophia along on our proposal trip and was staying at the same hotel as us. I turned around and made a phone call without hesitation. "Mr. Parker, the three-year assignment to Germany you mentioned—I accept. Yes, the sooner the better." But why has this Billionaire been searching for me all over the world for three years after I left?