Drama

On Employee Appreciation Day, every woman in the office got a $500 bouquet of roses. Every woman except me.

When I went to HR to ask why, I overheard the interns laughing in the breakroom.

"Julian spent Morgan's flower budget to buy Chloe a massive custom bouquet! Who cares if Morgan is the Creative Director? She's just a sad workaholic obsessed with the CEO."

What those interns—and that spoile...

Seven years ago, I unexpectedly transmigrated into the treacherous world of the North American mafia.
 
The System told me that as long as I accumulated a 100% "Angst Index" in this world, I could escape and return to reality with substantial rewards.
 
But after crossing over, I became the most pampered princess of the entire Koschei family.
 
My mafia father would buy all the roses in Manhattan ...

Six weeks after his girlfriend had twins, my husband got himself fixed. He billed it to my insurance.
Then he spent nine years driving me to fertility clinics. Two surgeries. Four rounds of shots. He held my hand every time and told me next time.
The whole town said it was my fault. His mother asked me every Sunday if there was any news.
I died at forty-four. Three days before the end I couldn't o...

I've been able to see clocks above people's heads since the day I was born. As long as the hands keep moving, the bond between us is still alive.

Once the hands spin backward and stop at zero, that bond is finished.

When I was seven, the clock over my best friend's head just stopped one day. She drowned in the reservoir the next morning.

When I was fifteen, my grandfather's clock started tickin...

"Valerie, you've been working yourself to death. I booked you a flight to Switzerland—take Leo, go relax for a while." My husband Cedric set an Hermès scarf down on the table. "Early gift for our tenth anniversary."
I was thrilled, twirling in front of the mirror with the scarf, admiring how it looked.
That's when my son came around the corner, iPad in hand. "Mommy, a message just popped up. Daddy...

Everyone in Grey Harbor said Julian Ashford was a hopeless romantic.

He had spoiled me into the most envied woman in town: Mrs. Ashford.

Only I knew what life inside that house was really like.

Every day I watched him bring women home, one after another.

Then he brought home Sienna, and introduced her as the household's new "lifestyle manager."

Her first week, all my cards were frozen, half m...

I found the thirteenth piece of evidence of Reid's affair today.

Black lace panties, shoved deep between his car seats.

The first time, it was designer lipstick in his glove box. "Oh, that's mine," my friend Mia shrugged. "Must've fallen out when Reid gave me a ride."

The sixth time, a hotel key card in his console. "I borrowed his car for a business trip," my brother Owen explained calmly. "St...

I was dying in an emergency room when my husband chose his ex-girlfriend over me.

"Stop being dramatic, Olivia," Matthew said over the sound of champagne and laughter. "Rebecca's gallery opening is tonight."

Dramatic? I was hemorrhaging from a miscarriage, signing my own surgical consent because my husband of seven years couldn't be bothered to save my life.

While I flatlined twice on the opera...

My father was critically ill, wheeled into the operating room. As his attending physician and my husband, Aaron was nowhere to be found.
Dressed in my pajamas, I waited alone outside until the early hours, my hands trembling as I repeatedly dialed Aaron's number. Finally, the call connected, but a sweet, soft female voice answered on the other end: “I’m here with Aaron, and we’re admiring the Eif...

I was with Dorian Hayes for ten years. Married for three. And yet, he cheated on me countless times.

This time, the woman he’d been hiding—six months pregnant—showed up at my door, demanding I divorce him.

I didn’t raise my voice. Didn’t throw a scene. I just calmly called him.

“Congratulations. You’re going to be a father.”

His voice came back shaky, panicked. “Come home. We need to talk abou...

"You'll regret this," he said, certain I was only bluffing.
I still signed the divorce papers—without asking for a single extra dollar.
For three years, I was the wife who left a light on for him, who knew exactly how warm he liked his water, how strong his coffee should be, even what his silence meant. He never once asked what I wanted.
"I can't live without you," he now begs, kneeling in the rai...

I, Evelyn Stone, found the videos while clearing old files from my husband’s computer.

At first I thought I had opened the wrong folder. Then I recognized Martin Grant’s face. The woman beneath him was Claire Weston, my best friend.

After Nicholas got engaged, his assistant handed me a plane ticket.

"Leave. Don’t ever show your face in Silverlight City again."

"Otherwise, Mr. Jackson has more than enough ways to ruin you."

All those years I spent by his side, I was admired by everyone, living in the spotlight.

Yet when I finally left, I was reduced to a pitiful, laughable sight.

I said, "Fine."

But that very night, the ...

I spent eight months making hit content for Halo Digital. My mentor Sienna Blake spent eight months putting her name on it.
I thought she was looking out for me. The big sister every new girl dreams of. Shielding me from tough meetings, "polishing" my scripts before they went to the CEO.
Then one morning, her beauty blender started talking.
It said her skin was a disaster. That she couldn't come u...

I thought I was the Jones family's "legitimate wife."
Until the day I saw it with my own eyes, my husband, Carter, resting his hand on my stepsister Nora's bump belly, gentle like he was cradling the future.
Everyone told me to be "big-heated": when the baby was born, they'd put it under my name, make him call me Mom, because the family needed an "heir."
Even the private doctor they hired announce...

Terminal. One month, maybe less.
I folded the report and put it in my bag. The doctor asked if there was family I could call. I told him there wasn't.
My husband rang while I was crouched against the hospital wall, waiting for the pain to pass. I could hear waves behind his voice. He didn't ask what the doctor said. He wanted to know why his money hadn't come through yet. His first love needed i...

The night before the West Coast League Championship, Logan's childhood sweetheart Maddie tried to dump a packet of cold medicine into his water bottle.

I snatched it away and warned her it contained a banned substance. He was a pro player heading into the draft. One positive test, and it's a lifetime ban.

She just smiled, sweet as sugar, and said I was only jealous of what she and Logan had.

Sh...

My younger sister, Freya, was preparing for her advanced training in New York the following week, so she dragged me to the dance studio to help her correct her movements. I put on my dance shoes as usual and stood in the center of the floor, ready to demonstrate a turn.

The moment my foot slipped, I didn't even have time to react.

My body hit the ground hard, and the sharp pain from the back of ...

I died in New York on a cold November night, a piece of guardrail through my chest.

Choking on blood, I dialed my ex-fiancé Damien's number.

In the background, jazz played at the Waldorf Astoria. People cheered for Aria—the girl my parents raised in my place.

"Thea, are you SERIOUS right now?" Damien's voice dripped with disgust. "Faking your own death to ruin Aria's engagement? Jesus, Thea. Ev...

My boyfriend pulled off a drone-sky proposal that lit up the entire city.
Crowds cheered, “Congratulations to Mr. Gunson and Mrs. Gunson—at last, true lovers become family.”
But the woman curled in his arms was his secretary.
The “me” in their mouths had long since turned to white bones beneath a mound of earth.