Gothic Table Runner Novels & Stories

My mom treated me like the dirt beneath her shoes but worshiped my cousin like a queen. Since I could walk, I had scrubbed clothes and cooked meals, but I would still be yelled at or smacked if I messed up. On the contrary, my cousin twirled in princess dresses and played the piano. She was cherished by my aunt and uncle like she was the center of their world. Then came the day everything changed. At my cousin's birthday party, my mom got drunk and spilled the secret—she switched me and my cousin at birth. It turned out that I wasn't her daughter; I was my aunt's daughter. I was over the moon. Finally, I thought I'd found my real family, people who might actually care about me. But when I told my aunt, she just smirked. "You think I didn't know? I don't want you. You'll never be my daughter." Her words hit me like a bucket of ice water. I couldn't understand. Why didn't anyone want me? But that day, I made a vow—I'd never beg for anyone's love again. Years later, when I got into Mayward University—the best educational institution in the country—I threw two DNA test reports on the table in front of them. For the first time, they both looked terrified.

Can you ever understand the feeling of having sex with your husband as he keeps calling out another woman's name? Yes, that was my life as the wife of the ruthless, stoic CEO. With my sister, his childhood sweetheart on the run with her boyfriend and his need for a Mrs Levine and an heir, I was picked in the stead of my sister to temporarily fill up the space. “ You're not pregnant yet?!” He banged his hand against the bedside table in anger. “; I guess we just have to keep trying then,” he smirked. I was always afraid of that statement, he indirectly meant sleeping with me every single day but no one dared to say otherwise even if I would fall sick after. What's weird about the heart is how it falls in love with the weirdest persons. I loved Asphalt even though he didn't love me and I believed I could make him love me but that dream came crashing down when Janet returned. As I pushed my babies into the world, I wondered if  Asphalt would love me once he sees our kids but with his plans of taking my kids and reuniting with my sister, I wasn't going to wait until I was kicked out. Taking my babies in my arms, I ran away from the hospital as the rain went pit-pat concealing the tears and I for the first time resented Asphalt.

After I succeed in helping my wife, Claire Gibson, establish her company, I decide to become a full-time stay-at-home dad without a worry in the world. Since my daughter, Nancy Davidson's 10th birthday is coming soon, I want to make the event fancy. So, I decide to place an order on Hill Hotel's birthday banquet services, where one full table of food costs 18 thousand dollars. When I'm swiping my card, the hotel employee shoots me a look. "Mr. Davidson, your card can barely foot for a 500-dollar bill." Embarrassed, I go home and question Claire about the family's finances. She looks at me apologetically instead. "My company has been participating in a bidding process lately. The newly-appointed governmental senior official is a greedy one, you see. I've spent quite a lot of money in bribing him just to get things done. "Once my cash flow is back, I'll definitely throw Nancy a fancy birthday banquet!" In a considerate manner, I tell Claire that I completely understand her situation. But soon, I start calculating the assets I still have. After all, my dad is the newly-appointed official. There aren't any bidding processes going on in the government at all. I'd like to see where on earth Claire has spent all of her money.

My sister had struggled with depression since childhood. The doctor warned that she could not tolerate any kind of stimulation. As a result, my entire life fell silent. To avoid upsetting her, I never dared to laugh at home. I never dared to cry. When I got hurt, I did not even have the right to say it hurt. My parents would hug me with apologetic expressions and say, "You're the good one. Your sister's illness requires the whole family to work together. You're healthy. You're strong. Let her have more, okay?" One day, I accidentally knocked over a cup. The crash sounded enormous in the quiet room, and my sister's emotions shattered at once. My father struck me for the first time. He roared, "Can't you be careful? Do you have to push her until she dies before you're satisfied?" He shoved me to the floor. The back of my head slammed against the corner of the table, and blood poured out. But my whole family rushed to my screaming sister. No one even glanced at me. I lay on the cold floor as my vision blurred and my consciousness began to fade. To them, my sister's feelings were the only emergency. My small injury could wait. They did not know that bleeding inside the skull does not wait.

My mother-in-law was rushed to the hospital with sudden chest pain and sent straight into emergency surgery. However, my wife, who was the head of the thoracic department, insisted that her clueless young male apprentice be the lead surgeon instead. The apprentice stood in front of the operating table. He couldn’t even recognize half of the surgical instruments laid out before him. He pouted and fidgeted a little. “I forgot again…” My wife just smiled indulgently at him. Even though the patient’s chest had been opened, she patiently spent ten minutes explaining the instruments to him before the surgery finally began. In the end, the apprentice’s hand trembled, and he accidentally punctured the tumor. Terrified, he let out a sharp scream and threw himself into my wife’s arms. To console him, my mother-in-law’s only chance at survival was gone, and she died right there on the operating table. My wife walked out of the operating room, supporting her badly shaken apprentice, and glanced at me indifferently. “Before you take your mother’s body away, provide an affidavit of non-prosecution to the hospital. Your mom couldn’t have been saved anyway. Anthony is still young. His future can’t be ruined because of your mother.” Only then did I realize that she thought the person lying on that operating table was my mother. I chuckled and said, “I'm afraid I'm not qualified to do that.”

I ran into my boss when I was complaining to my best friend about how he actively made the workplace hostile for me. He fired off a barrage of questions, "Where's the annual report? Where's the script for the speech? I can't believe you have the gall to enjoy a meal when you have a mountain of work to do!" That was it. I slammed the table. "It's due tomorrow! What's the rush? Are you going to hold a funeral for yourself tomorrow?" My boss stormed off in a huff. I asked for the bill, but the waiter came with two. My table came up to 60 dollars, but the other ran up to 3,750. "Your boyfriend said you're paying for both. Cash or credit, miss?" Shawn Goodall put that impossible bill on my tab and called himself my boyfriend? Unbelievable! I called him, utterly incensed. Yet, he had the gall to say, "Get the receipt and claim it from finance." Then, he hung up. The waiter was going to call the cops if I didn't pay up, so I had no choice but to accept this bitter defeat. I was trying to claim the money the next day, but the cops arrested me instead. "Shawn Goodall died at midnight and was found in his house. You're his girlfriend and the last person he met. You're coming with us."

Amelia's leg tapped against the table as she asked, "What are your thoughts on love?" Her hands were clasped together on her lap, but her eyes sparkled with curiosity. Lucas met her gaze, a smirk playing on his lips. "Love is a waste of time," he replied. "It's a tool designed to weigh people down. Without it, we could achieve so much more." Amelia's eyes lit up with interest; he had just ticked almost all her boxes green. "I agree," she said, her smirk matching his. "Love is nothing but bullshit. We could save a lot of time by keeping our relationship minimal." With a proactive glint in her eye, she added, "What do you say? We should get married to fulfill our filial duties." _____________ Their marriage was a facade, a contract between two individuals who didn't believe in love but were forced to get married to fulfill their obligations. Everything was going as planned, until suddenly... "Have you eaten, dear?" "How is my baby?" "Is he doing well?" Lucas's words, once empty and mechanical, now held a tender tone. Amelia found him falling for her, and she seemed to be falling too. Why were they succumbing to the very thing they once scorned? Love, once a distant possibility, was now becoming an option. But would they choose it?

What goes on between the ex wife they discarded and the uncle they plotted to kill? A second chance in love? Or simply a path to take revenge. Three years ago, Camilla Voss abandoned her billionaire inheritance for love. Three years later, she walks into her bedroom and finds her husband in bed with her best friend. Humiliated, blamed for infertility, and discarded the moment another woman becomes pregnant, Camilla finally learns the devastating truth: She was never the problem. Her husband was. So on the same night the Hartford family celebrates their future heir, Camilla serves divorce papers at the dinner table and returns to the powerful family she once betrayed. But her homecoming comes with a price. To reclaim her place as the sole heiress of the Voss empire, Camilla must enter a new arranged marriage with a man far more dangerous than her ex husband ever was. Luca Xavier Milano. Cold. Ruthless. Sinfully unreadable. The billionaire owner of Nova Corporations. And the one man capable of destroying the Hartford family overnight. There’s just one problem. Luca isn’t only Nathaniel Hartford’s business rival. He’s his uncle. Now the woman they mocked as barren and disposable returns wearing another man’s ring, standing beside an empire powerful enough to bury them all. And as revenge, desire, and old family secrets collide, Camilla begins to realize her marriage to Luca may not be a contract at all. It may be the beginning of a war.

After losing her mother to royal games and securing her revenge, Alba Crane leaves Ketria after her eighteenth birthday, carrying two dangerous secrets. Eight years pass, and a coincidental meeting with her stepbrother, the new Lycan king, has her back where she lost everything, chained and bound for his revenge as he unravels all her hidden secrets. Marko Ivanov desires to be the greatest ruler of Ketria. He would do anything for his dream to come to fruition; right the wrongs of his father, marry the perfect queen that would strengthen his Kingdom, and live a repressive scandal-free life. However, all his efforts shatter at the realisation that the person he hated most in the world, his irresponsible 'runaway' stepsister, is his mate. Blinded by his desire for revenge for the havoc she wreaked before her departure, Marko keeps Alba bound to Ketria using everything he can, including their mate bond. When using the lust between them as revenge spirals beyond their control, blurring the lines between love and hate, their inevitability dawns. Will the two enemies in heat reconcile their differences to find a way for the existence of their scandalous happy-ever-after, or will they settle for dragging each other to ruin at the cost of everything? ** "Which part of him aroused you? Or was it that you played naughty games under the table?” "Is that something you should ask your sister?” "Step.” The Lycan King growls in correction.

Theodore Callahan has built his entire life on two things: the ice and his reputation. He's a captain, leader and son of a woman who survived hell and raised him to be iron. He does not lose. He does not bend. And he absolutely does not think about Elijah Voss. Elijah Voss is everything Theodore has been trained to hate — polished, untouchable, and annoyingly good at everything Theodore considers his. When a bar fight and a reckless dare birth the most dangerous bet of both their careers, Theodore doesn't think he has anything to lose. Then he loses. What follows should have been simply a debt paid and a night to forget. Instead, it is the beginning of something Theodore has no language for and no safe place to put. And when their parents sit across from each other at a dinner table with rings on their fingers, simple becomes impossible. Now they are living under the same roof, sharing the same hallways, breathing the same air. The bet is still active. The rivalry is still blazing. And something far more dangerous than hatred is building in the space between them. Theodore has always known who he is. He is starting to suspect he has been wrong. As secrets, lies, and temptation spiral out of control, their pride clashes with their desire. With careers, reputations, and hearts on the line, the question remains: in this dangerous game of dominance, who will surrender first—and at what cost?