Don't Throw It Out Novels & Stories

On the day I'm due for my labor, Chad Nelson's first love, Lucy Baker, who's diagnosed with depression, barges into the maternity ward. Without warning, she plunges the knife she's holding into my belly. By the time Chad and the medical team arrive at the ward, I'm already lying in a pool of my own blood on the bed. The machine recording my vitals keeps screeching loudly the whole time. But Chad crouches down next to Lucy, who has gotten shoved to the floor by a nurse earlier. It seems that her elbow has suffered from light abrasions. "Dr. Nelson, your spouse is in critical condition. She needs to undergo a surgery immediately!" Chad raises his head to glance at me. His tone is cool and professional. "None of Caitlin's vital organs are hurt by the stab, so she can still endure the pain for now. Lucy, on the other and, has a coagulation disorder. Even though she has only suffered from abrasions, there's a chance that her blood flow can't be staunched at all. This makes her situation more critical than Caitlin's. "Anyway, give the two bags of blood in the blood bank to Lucy." When I get pushed away, I use all of my strength to grip Chad's white coat tightly. He just frowns at me in return. "Lucy didn't do this on purpose. Her depression has gotten triggered, that's all. Since you're a woman of medicine, you should be more empathetic toward the patient." After that, Chad digs out a letter of forgiveness from his pocket that he has already printed out in advance.

My husband, Geoffrey Terell, takes his childhood friend, Valerie Nash, and his best female friend, Jennifer Gorman, to a business gathering. But he suddenly texts me at 2:00 am, saying that he's suffering from a stomachache and that he wants me to pick him up at the clubhouse. Driven mad by anxiety, I quickly head toward the clubhouse with some chicken soup. But all I see is Geoffrey with his arms around both women and his eyes closed. He even starts kissing them under the guise of feeding them alcohol with his mouth. Valerie also has an arm around his shoulders as she shoots me a provocative look. "Wow, you're quick to come under Geoffrey's orders! You really are an obedient one! It so happens that Geoffrey isn't done with his dare yet. "How about you get down on your knees and serve us alcohol? Then I'll consider this round Geoffrey's win." I expect Geoffrey to turn that idea down. But he merely leans against the couch with his arm around Valerie's waist before pointing at the alcohol bottles on the table, as though he's ordering a maid around. "You hear that? Hurry up and pour us alcohol! Valerie and Jennifer are my queens tonight. I must obey them no matter what. "Also, you're not allowed to leave if you don't finish pouring the bottles." I've invested tens of billions of dollars just to make Geoffrey the most prominent CEO in Hallford. At the end of the day, he chooses to play the role of a lapdog for other women, huh? Since he likes demeaning himself that much, he can forget about keeping his position as the CEO.

On the night the family manor was set on fire, my husband Don Luciano Cacciola whisked Loretta Peri away. "Be a good girl and wait for me here, Tati. I'll send my men over to pick you up soon." As soon as he left, the explosions buried around the villa were set off instantly. That's when I sent Luciano one last text. "Luciano, we're even now." Rumors had it that Luciano had gone mad after that incident. As he gripped the burned ring, he purged the entire mafia family on his own. After that, he kneeled before my grave for three long days. When Luciano found out that there was a possibility of my surviving the explosion, he decided to give away half of his family fortune just so he could track me down. Three years later, Luciano stares at the woman, who's toying with a pistol, with red-rimmed eyes at the family's negotiation table. "Tati… Is that you?" I pull the trigger in response, causing a bullet to ricochet past Luciano's ear. "You got the wrong person, Mr. Cacciola. I'm here to take your life." As I watch Luciano kneel by my feet and press a kiss onto the tip of my high heel, I can't help but laugh. This time, it's my turn to choose.

My wolf has a rare gift—she can detect lies and reveal the truth about what anyone tries to deceive. My Alpha—Theron Shadewound—loves me dearly. For as long as I've known him, he's never once lied to me. However, a month before our mating ceremony, my wolf catches a whisper of truth from his heart. He had thought, "I'm holding the mating ceremony with Mirelle next week, and Arynn must never find out." I freeze when I realize something. He'll be using the ballroom I spent two months meticulously setting up to host a mating ceremony next week with his childhood sweetheart, Mirelle Hollowmaw. As it turns out, my mating ceremony, scheduled a month later, is nothing but a joke. Quietly, I pack my belongings and book a ticket to leave the Nightcrest pack. On the day Theron and Mirelle pledge themselves to each other, I walk away without looking back.

I'm finally pregnant after five years of marriage. I initially want Morgan Holt to accompany me to the hospital so I can surprise him, but he stoically tells me that he hates hospitals. I can understand and accommodate that. Then, he surprises me—he accompanies his new junior to the hospital for a medical checkup. At that moment, I know our relationship is over. When I bid him farewell, I say, "She's your true love's younger sister, right? I can understand why you've transferred your love to her. I wish you two well." His eyes redden. "I can't live without you."

At an interview, my husband, Julian White, reveals that he has already allocated his assets properly. The host in charge of interviewing him makes a joking remark that he must have left large amounts of money to his son and wife. With a gentle smile on his face, Julian denies it softly. "I only left them enough money to sustain their lives. The rest of the assets are reserved for my adoptive daughter, Rosy, only. "This is a promise between me and her mom. I had promised her that I'd make sure her daughter would lead a lavish and worry-free life at her grave." When I hear Julian's statement, I pause in my actions of preparing a meal for the children. Then, I look up at the television in disbelief. Meanwhile, Julian is prattling on and on about his deceased first love, Vivian Bennett. Some time later, the host speaks up again. "Does your wife know about this?" Julian is left feeling taken aback for a moment. But his smile doesn't change at all. "She won't disagree with my decision. Over the years, she's been nothing but great to Rosy. Heck, she's even better than most caretakers out there." I take off my apron and walk out of the kitchen. Then, I scoop up my son, Jude White, who's in the middle of picking up toys for Rosy, into my arms and return to my room. It's been six long years, and I've finally had enough with this family. Since Julian doesn't intend to give me and Jude anything, then he can find himself another "caretaker".

My brother-in-law passed away in an accident. Out of pity for his widow, my husband decided to be the breadwinner for both families. After that, my husband and son both gave all their love to my widowed sister-in-law. On her birthday, my husband and son reserved a restaurant in town for her party. I was plucking corn in the field when I started bleeding, a sign that I was miscarrying. I called my husband, begging him to come home and take me to the hospital. However, he scolded me angrily, calling me a liar. “What the hell are you talking about? I haven’t touched you in months! How could you be pregnant?” My son grabbed the phone impatiently as well. “Mom, the teacher said lying is wrong! Aunt Laura’s blowing out the candles now, bye!” We had been married for seven years, yet they had completely forgotten that today was my birthday too. Despairing, I dialed another number. “Mother, I changed my mind. I’m going back to inherit the clinic.”

The day before the spacecraft launch, I am anonymously reported for concealing a mental illness and lose my qualification to board. After being confined in a psychiatric hospital for three years, my husband, Simon Bergman, who is now a decorated figure in the aerospace field, personally brings me home. "I had no choice but to send you there. I even applied to be demoted just to bring you back. Let's just live our lives well from now on," Simon says. Burdened by guilt for affecting his career, I spend the rest of my life carefully taking care of him and busying myself in the kitchen as a dutiful wife. But before I die, my daughter finds the letter accusing me of having a mental condition—it is written in my husband's own hand. She also discovers decades of correspondence between him and a deceased war buddy's widow named Charmaine Marlowe. In those letters, he writes that to fulfill his buddy's dying wish to take care of Charmaine, he fabricates a false mental illness record and inserts it into my astronaut application. As a result, I was sent to the psychiatric hospital, and my position was taken by her. The glass shatters, and the sharp fragments pierce me, like they are stabbing into my heart. I was supposed to be the one to go to space. But my husband sacrificed my chance so that another woman could have it! I die in despair. When I open my eyes again, I am back on the day of the astronaut selection for the manned spacecraft launch. This time, when Simon offers to help submit my application, I refuse to let him.

I give up on my position as a higher-up in a listed company just so I can accompany my wife, Jennifer Hurley, to a rural area to carry out a cultural tourism project. I even help her secure subsidies from the government and transform that project into a state-recognized exemplary project. But the first thing Jennifer does right after becoming the main person in charge of the project is force me to quit. "I want to tender an application for this project to be recognized nationally. Unfortunately, as the main person in charge, my spouse isn't allowed to take on any roles in the business aspect. "Either you quit your job or get divorced. You should make your choice." I don't hesitate to quit my job on the spot. But after that, Jennifer has her assistant, Maurice Gould, take over my position immediately. Her reasoning is, "Young people know more about coming up with creative ways to promote cultural projects. Our project needs new blood." At the afterparty, Jennifer raises her wine glass and gives a grand speech on the project's success. It turns out that I'm the only one who gets kicked out after everything I've done.

During Black Friday, the intelligent system I develop helps the company run highly targeted ads and brings in 30 million dollars in revenue. But when I apply for the project bonus, the director rejects it. "The system is just an auxiliary tool. The performance belongs to the sales department." I hold back my frustration and pull up the system logs. "88% of the orders come from the system's targeted pushes. According to company policy, I should receive a 0.5% commission." The director glances at me, twirling his pen. "If the sales commission doesn't go to the sales department, should it go to you? And your lousy system exceeds the API limit and racks up extra fees. You still owe us a hundred thousand dollars. We'll deduct that from your salary." Three days before Christmas sales are set to begin, the system completely shuts down because of API restrictions. Late at night, the director calls me. I stare at my computer screen. "Since the system is just an auxiliary tool, why don't you start with manual targeting?"