Konoha Spring Novels & Stories

On the night of my wedding, my best friend's younger brother wiped the sweat from his forehead and asked me, “It’s a little big. Can you handle it?” I stared at his perfectly defined abs, my mind going completely blank. “What?” He repeated, “Can you handle it?” My voice jumped an octave from my panic. “Aren't we supposed to take things slow? Isn’t this way too fast?” That night, the sound-activated lights in the house flickered on and off until dawn. Meanwhile, my ex-husband was squatting downstairs. His eyes were swollen red from crying, but I did not even spare him a thought. Back then, when I agreed to let him proceed with a fake wedding with his childhood sweetheart, Miles Carter thought our cold war was over. When he explained things to me, he said, “Vivian and I will only be married on paper. The ceremony is just to satisfy my mom. I swear, when this is over, we’ll live as a real couple.” I remained silent. I just stared at the countdown on my phone, counting the days until I could finally leave. He did not know that the moment he tricked me into signing the divorce papers, our marriage had already ceased to exist.

I had spent years paying for Damian Grant’s infertility in every way a woman could. Doctors, treatments, private clinics, and humiliation I swallowed in silence. Then, against every odd, I finally got pregnant. It was the child the Grant family had been waiting for. The miracle Madam Evelyn Grant had prayed for. The one thing Damian had been told he might never have. On the night before our wedding, I saw a local post climbing the trending list. [Another day of being the only girl who gets under my boss’s skin.] In the video, a young woman smiled sweetly at the camera. [My boss is terrifying to everyone else. Cold eyes, bad temper, the whole package. But today, during a meeting, I secretly stepped on his shoe under the table. He actually smiled at me. Then he texted me and told me to behave.] The comments were full of people swooning. [That has to be love. A man like that only softens for one woman.] [Look closely. There must be some little detail on him that belongs only to you.] I scrolled down and saw the influencer’s reply. It was a photo of a dark silver tie clip pinned right over her chest. [This is the gift he gave me. He said whenever I see it, I should think of him.] I stared at that tie clip for a long time. It was the engagement gift I had spent a month polishing by hand for Damian. And inside it, there was still a tiny heart made from his fingerprint and mine.

I've spent the day trying on bridal gowns with my fiance, Philip Dillon. Just as I'm about to pay for the wedding gown that I really want, another woman suddenly snatches it out of my hands. "Sorry, but I had my sights set on this gown first!" I frown instantly at her words. That's when one of my friends suddenly pats me on the shoulder before murmuring to me, "Hang on. Let your fiance deal with this situation. He already placed an order on this wedding gown when it was first released, so he must be specifically waiting for you to come here and pick it out." I turn to look at Philip instinctively. As expected, I see him approaching the woman… only to help her stuff the gown's hem, which is sticking out, back into the gown's bag. "Since someone else has already set her sights on the gown, then I suppose we don't have any other choice." Philip then pinches me on the cheek, the smile on his face tender yet casual. "My Elyse is the most gracious woman I've ever known. It's not like this is the one and only gown for you, right?" I just stare at the woman's smug look, feeling very dazed. Instead of responding to Philip, I just shoot a small smile at my friend, who looked pretty awkward on my behalf. "It's fine. I don't want the wedding gown anymore." It's true that the gown isn't the one and only gown for me. Similarly, it's not like Philip is the one and only man for me in life as well.

Given a new chance at life, upon learning of my husband's supposed death, the first thing I did was to register him as dead. In my previous life, after my husband, Jonah Lloyd, learned that his elder brother, Noah, had died in an accident, he resolved to assume his brother's identity and provide for his widowed sister-in-law. All because the young widow from the city couldn't withstand the gossip of the village. As for me, coming from humble origins, even without my husband, I could survive on my own. When I heard the news, I truly believed that my husband had died in an accident. I was determined to raise our daughter with all my heart. That year, during a blizzard, while his family huddled together and celebrated in the warmth, I was out there fighting over the money after selling my body. I bled out and died in the harsh, cold night. My daughter, Tina, left waiting for me to bring back good, starved to death in the bitter winter. Only after death did I learn that my husband hadn't died. He had spent his entire life in his brother's name, protecting the widow, living to see his children and grandchildren grow old around him. And now, reopening my eyes, I had returned to the very day my husband died in an accident.

We had been married for five years, but Chuck Gorman spent more than half his time at the condo opposite the river. He claimed that his older brother, Calvin, had passed away at a young age, leaving behind his widow, who had no one to depend on, and that as Calvin's brother, he was responsible for taking care of both families. This was a Gorman family value of upholding loyalty and kinship. I had believed his words then. To help him uphold his loyalty and dignity, I tolerated it whenever he was absent during important holidays and said nothing when he split his time between his sister-in-law and me during Christmas dinner. I even had to hold back my tongue when others mocked me for being a weak woman who was willing to 'share her husband'. However, Chuck had always been gentle yet distant when he spoke to me. This continued until we were involved in an accident with several collisions. The car we were in was wrecked. As I shielded my heavily pregnant belly, I broke out in cold sweat from the pain. I kept hitting the window while shouting, "Chuck! Save the baby…" Chuck climbed out from the driver's seat and glanced at my bleeding body, only to turn away to pry open the car door of the back seat. He shielded Sandi Lemming tightly in his arms, holding her against his chest despite her suffering only minor scratches on the forehead. "Don't look, Sandi. It's okay. I'm right here." He patted her gently on the back while comforting her over and over to calm her nerves. As for me, I was stuck inside the car due to the dented car door. I realized that it was not loyalty and kinship he was practising. He was just unable to see Sandi come to harm at all.

Fall in love with these hot first responders featuring friends to lovers, second chances, and suspense at every turn. The Laurel Springs Emergency Response Team is created by Laramie Briscoe, an eGlobal Creative Publishing Signed Author.

The day after his beloved falsely accused Yvonne of hitting her with a car, her husband and two sons hung Yvonne’s younger brother above a massive vat of bubbling oil, threatening to deep-fry him alive. Yvonne rushed forward like she had gone mad, but the bodyguards held her back tightly. “Have you learned your lesson?” Justin stood nearby in a crisp suit. His sharp features were cold, and his voice was edged with ice. “Will you dare hurt Sophia again?” “I never hit her!” Yvonne cried, struggling desperately. “Justin, let my brother go! He’s only 18. He just got accepted into MOT University!”

It was our seventh anniversary. Christopher Quinton proposed to me with nothing but a ring pull. He got his true love a house. When I said no, he rebuked me like I was some sort of gold digger. "I thought my love for you was worth more than anything money could buy. I only got Rachel that house to pay her back for all she did for me. I can't believe you thought I still loved her. You disappoint me." I broke up with him and tossed the ring pull into the bin. Then, I walked off. The next day, Christopher took away my position as VP and told everyone he was getting engaged to Rachel. … Five years later, we ran into each other at a charity horserace. He was a successful businessman, and the woman beside him was Rachel, all dressed in custom-made clothes. I was dressed in janitor attire and stuffing plastic bottles into my woven bag. He mocked, "Look at you, Queenie Dean. Scavenging for a living. Bet you didn't see this coming when you ditched me, did you?" I ignored him. My son had run off, and I had to look for him. The boy noticed the plastic bottles that were strewn across the ground, and he insisted that we stay back to finish his social practice activity here.

Five years ago, my then girlfriend betrayed me for Ethan Reid. Together, they staged a car accident that killed both my parents. Then they hired someone to assault and murder my younger sister, who wasn't even sixteen, and framed me for it. I was thrown in prison where I suffered every day. It was Serena Cole who risked everything to become my defense attorney. She cleared my name and courted me with everything she had. She told me I was all she could see, that I was her whole world. When I finally gave her my whole heart, I looked down from upstairs and saw her kissing Ethan like she couldn't get enough of him, days before our wedding. Right there in our wedding car, they crossed every line. "Bold move, bride. Not worried the groom might see?" Ethan whispered. "His legs are crippled because of you. You know better than anyone whether he can even make it downstairs," Serena replied. "What's this, feeling guilty now? Every dirty thing I ever did to him, you were the one who planned it. You want me to tell him that?" "If you say a word, I swear I'll take you down with me," came her ragged response. Ethan bit her ear roughly, driving her over the edge. "Sure, sure. I know you love him so much. So doesn't this make it even more exciting? Say it. Who's your daddy?" She broke apart beneath him, saying his name over and over, breathless and undone. The tears hit me before I could stop them. She had known. All along, she had known everything that happened to me. And not only that, she had helped plan it.

As the year’s end approached, the city of Portlas’ high society joked that there was no need to worship Lady Fortuna. They only had to worship me instead. That was because, after our remarriage, I became the most materialistic husband in all of Portlas. I no longer cared how much Lana Gable doted on that man. Even when my daughter called him “Daddy,” I turned a blind eye. There was just one new rule in the house. Every time they mentioned Eliot Speke’s name, they had to give me one hundred thousand dollars. Thanks to that, I saved up thirty million dollars in less than two weeks. On our wedding anniversary, Lana and my daughter mentioned Eliot once again. The two of them looked stiff, while I simply held out my hand with practiced ease. “One hundred thousand dollars. Transfer it to my account.” My daughter finally could not hold back any longer and looked at me with utter contempt. “Daddy, you’re so vulgar. Is money the only thing on your mind? You’d even demand money for such a trivial matter. You can’t even compare to a speck of dust on Uncle Speke’s shoes.” I did not argue. I simply held out my hand to my daughter as well. “One hundred thousand dollars. Since you brought it up first, you have to pay too.”