Sweet Romance14 min read
Married by Mistake, Loved by a Little Wolf
ButterPicks15 views
I woke up to a loud, boyish voice next to my ear.
"Big sister, wake up. We have guests."
I held my head like it weighed a ton. My brain felt fuzzy, like someone had left lights on all night.
"You— why are you in my bed?" I croaked.
"You married me yesterday," he said simply. His eyes were bright and clear as a new day.
I sat up and saw two marriage certificates on the bedside table. I flopped back to my pillow and blinked at the ceiling.
If I hadn't been dizzy enough to nearly have a stroke, why on earth would I have married someone three years younger than me?
Forest Bishop had been my online shop's new model and part-time driver for only a short time. He looked like he had stepped off a magazine cover. The clothes he modeled flew off my shelves.
Yesterday was my twenty-fifth birthday and I had planned to register with Efrain Dixon, the man who had courted me for three years. He promised to marry me at the registry office.
Then life dropped a bucket of soap in the tub.
Efrain didn't show. He was at the hospital with his "white moon"—the woman everyone whispers about. She was his patient, abused, and he was her attending physician.
When I barged into the ward, the "white moon" was crying into his chest. He didn't even try to push her away. He scolded me for being rude and frightening her. His face, usually calm like an old well, went black.
I felt rage like steam in my skull.
"Efrain, I'm done," I declared.
"Su—" he started, but I cut him off.
"Don't call me that. Leave."
He tried to be the wounded man, the noble doctor who would resurrect his career from my pity, but his hands were cold as an operating room.
"I can't marry you if you're like this," I said. "This marriage is off."
He hissed, "Who else would marry you with that temper? I'm the only one patient enough."
I wanted to punch him, but Forest grabbed my wrist.
"Big sister, I'll marry you," Forest said. He had been my driver that morning, watching me fall apart and quietly fixing things.
So, we walked to the registry. He booked a birthday cake, a bottle of red wine, and let me be ridiculous. I remember drunk laughter, a blur of lights, and then two signatures.
"Did we— did we actually do it?" I whispered later, stomach tightening.
Efrain was a city doctor who lived inside the hospital. He always put work between us. He told me to wait until after the wedding to be intimate. But last night—drunk and messy—I wanted warmth. He was absent. Forest was present.
He took off his T-shirt and showed me a ring of teeth marks on his shoulder. "A special mark from my wife," he said, smiling like a sun.
I pretended to be dead, face buried under the blanket. The doorbell would not stop.
"Go send them away. I have a stroke," I complained, pulling the duvet over my head.
Forest padded across the floor in slippers and opened the door.
"Efrain, she's still sleeping. It's not a good time," he said politely.
"Why are you here?" Efrain asked when he saw Forest.
"I was helping her last night," Forest said.
"Helping her into bed?" Efrain snapped and pushed past. He aimed for the bedroom.
Forest blocked him at the doorway, like a little loyal dog grown fierce.
"Hope!" Efrain called, exasperated.
I poked my head from under the duvet. "Let him in."
Forest stepped forward in a guard's posture. Efrain ripped the blanket off me. On the sheet, a dried smear of red shocked us both.
Forest grinned like a boy with something delicious, and then touched the papers on the bedside table.
"Doctor, my wife is Mrs. Bishop now. Please don't bother her."
Efrain's calm eyes ignited. He hadn't believed last night would be real. But the certificates said otherwise.
He left like he wanted to burn down the building.
When the door slammed, I kicked at the dried stain. "It wasn't mine."
Forest showed his palm—scratches, a crooked wound.
"Big sister…" he said softly, holding his hand out. I could smell the faint scent of antiseptic.
I felt guilty, messy, human. I had drunk with grief and anger, and apparently left marks on a man half my age.
"Work has things to talk about," I said. "I need to get back to the shop."
"I'll drive you," he offered.
"No need," I said. "Rest. I'll manage."
He went anyway.
At a plaza we drank milk tea with my cousin. "You really picked a husband out of thin air," she laughed and spat her drink on the ground when she heard the story.
"That's not fair. He could be from anywhere," I said.
"So where did he come from?" she prodded.
"A client referred him," I replied.
We watched a billboard for wine and I remembered stumbling after a bottle broke. I had slipped, cut myself, and Forest had caught me on glass. He'd saved me from scars.
"Maybe he's a scammer," my cousin worried. "What if he used you?"
I slapped my forehead. "Oh god. I gave Efrain twenty thousand. He said he needed it."
"Get it back," my cousin said.
I went to the hospital fuming. Efrain was feeding his patient. The woman's cheek still bore the print of a hand.
"Give me back the twenty thousand," I demanded.
Efrain's pupils widened. He sent me to his office. He accused me of using marriage to hurt him and demanded I return the wedding and write an apology or else he would take everything.
"You want me to sign a paper to explain my worth?" I shouted.
He sneered, "If you separate and apologize, maybe I'll consider marrying you."
"You are delusional," I said and launched a plastic chair at him.
A strong hand stopped the chair. It was Forest. He caught the chair, set it beside me, and said softly, "Sit, big sister."
"Are you my ally or my hindrance?" I snapped.
Then Forest hit him. Hard.
"Stop!" my cousin shrieked.
Forest's fists knocked Efrain down. He towered over Efrain, like a wolf protecting his den. Three blows and Efrain crumpled.
"Are you insane?" I yelled. Forest stopped, surprised, then slackened. He became small again in front of me, like a puppy returned to being safe.
Security came. Forest was taken away for the brawl. I felt my fire go out, cold as water on marble.
Efrain stayed in the hospital to treat a bruised ego.
Later I went to the ward and showed the staff my transfer record. I tried to make them believe Efrain had taken my money. They walked away half-skeptical. Efrain slapped a "victim" face on and refused to return the money unless I accused Forest.
"If I don't press charges, the twenty thousand stays with me," he said.
Forest's impulsive fists could ruin his life if Efrain played it right. I drove to the station to get him out.
When I saw him, he brightened like a puppy. "I'm sorry, big sister. I caused trouble."
"Don't say sorry," I said. "Come home."
Efrain saw us leave. He looked like someone frozen into a statue.
On the ride home, I told him off. "If you do that again, I will fix you."
He looked at me with a shaky seriousness. "I want to protect you," he said.
The words lodged in my throat. Women sometimes want protection more than they admit. It made something in me soften.
Back home, the apartment had been cleaned. Forest had washed floors, fixed the glass, folded laundry. He had even made the bed.
"From now on I will clean," he said, grinning.
"You're too much," I muttered. He put a cup of warm water in my hands and sat across from me. There was a simple warmth in his act, and I felt my heart wobble.
He bent forward, and when my fingers almost touched his Adam's apple, he moved so that his throat brushed my finger. It tingled like a little current.
My phone jolted me with a call from my cousin. I fumbled.
"Who's Forest?" she asked.
"He's cooking," he blurted, covering for me.
My cousin decided to stay for dinner. He cooked ma la tang, and his care felt like a soft blanket around my half-broken spirit.
Later that week, he asked for a week off. He left with a small backpack.
A few days later I saw a Maybach outside the building. Forest had come back in a different light. I felt dizzy.
I asked him about the car. He smiled and brought me shrimp dumplings. "I shipped your orders," he said. "Can I take a week off?"
"Sure," I nodded.
A month later a flashy woman stormed into my shop—Cassandra Lefebvre, dripping designer labels.
"I'm Forest's fiancée," she announced, like a headline. "My family can pay for your husband's father's liver transplant."
I spread the marriage certificate on the table. Cassandra gaped.
"I married him," I said. "Forest is mine."
She snarled, "He only married you to spite his mother. He needs money."
My stomach turned. I had saved six thousand six hundred and sixty-six from shop sales and slipped it into his pocket earlier. If he had sold himself, why would he accept my small gifts?
I tracked him to the hospital where his father, Edsel Jensen, was admitted. I had nothing like five million in my pocket, only hopes and a weird little pile of coins.
Forest found me outside the ward, a little dirty, exhausted. He hugged me, and I saw he had aged fast in three months. He smelled of worry.
"Big sister…" he said, voice breaking, "I'm sorry."
The look on his face made me soft. He had not sold himself. He had worked day and night building an app. He had saved, he had fought for his father.
He slipped his hands in my pockets. "Don't use my money to divorce me yet," I said, trying to make a joke. He looked at me like I had hurt him.
I left him to his hospital. He came home later, thinner, shabbier, but upright. He cooked, packed, and at night, he slept on the couch to leave the bed for me.
One evening we were dining in a quiet steak house when Efrain and his woman—Chaya Lange—walked in. Of all luck. He tried to reclaim me with polite intimidation.
"Hope, will you marry me?" he said, like he had a right.
"No," I said. "We are done."
Efrain looked like he couldn't process defeat. He tried to stand his ground. Forest rose and said flatly, "Hope is my wife. Leave her alone."
Efrain went pale. The two men faced off.
"Call the police," Efrain threatened, but then slowly retreated. He was afraid his reputation as the perfect doctor would be stained by a brawl.
When we reached the parking lot, Forest held me closer than I expected.
"Tonight you come with me to dinner," he said.
"You're clingy," I teased, and he kissed me before I could resist.
Time swayed us into each other like tides.
Then came the first real storm.
A woman in a tailored coat approached me in a cafe. She slid a card and five hundred thousand across the table. It was from Forest's mother, Janet Dawson.
"You don't deserve my son," she said. "Take this and leave him."
The card was meant to humiliate. Forest's jaw clenched, and I felt a flash of anger.
He took my hand like a shield. "You can't buy my family," he said.
Not long after, Cassandra sent me photos: a middle-aged man hugging Chaya. She claimed Forest had married me to embarrass his mother, because Chaya had been the reason Mr. Forest's mother had lost face. The story tangled.
I called Forest home. He listened. Then he pushed me aside, not roughly, but with a steadiness that forbade my interference.
"Listen," he said, "I came to you honestly. I knew Efrain's woman was tied to something. I didn't plan to use you. I wanted you."
His breath hit my ear. "I told you in the studio long ago—I liked you."
"Forest," I said. "Don't make me a pawn."
He flinched as if from a hit. "I'm not that cruel."
The more I pushed, the harder he clung. My fists slammed and I hit his chest. He carried me out and locked the car doors.
"I'm taking you somewhere," he said.
He held me down with a hand over my mouth, and a trace of fear flashed through me. But then he brought me into a studio in an old courtyard. Paintings lined the walls—my life painted from some other eyes.
"Who did this?" I whispered.
Pierce Sandberg stood in the doorway. He was my childhood art teacher, who used to give me crayons and never scold when I painted outside the lines.
"Little Hope," he said, and my throat hitched. The paintings were of me—at six, at sixteen, at twenty. Forest had kept them all.
He carried a jar of tiny paper cranes.
"Do you remember?" he said. "You promised then that if I folded nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine cranes, your wish would come true."
Forest had folded a mountain of them. He had kept every scrap of my smallness in his heart. He had followed me, protected me, loved me since we were children.
The truth washed over me like warm rain.
"You used me," I said, but my voice trembled. "Then why—"
"Because I wanted you," he said, simply.
I wanted to be angry and I was angry, but his eyes were older and kinder with grief. He had turned all his plotting into a mission to keep me safe.
We started to settle into a clumsy, tender life. He cooked for me. He wrote code and built a small company. He packed orders at my shop. He was my model, my driver, my lover.
But Efrain wouldn't go.
He kept trying to make me feel small. So I decided he had to be shown in public for the liar he was.
I arranged a small charity evening at the hospital—a fundraiser to support victims. Efrain was to speak. The chief doctor had invited him because of his reputation. I showed up with Forest at my side.
The air in the hall tasted like lemon and cheap perfume.
"Efrain will speak about medical ethics tonight," the announcer said.
I sat in the front row. Forest squeezed my hand. He kept glancing at me, ready.
When Efrain walked up, his white coat was crisp. Chaya Lange smiled beside him like a ribboned trophy. He began with textbook talk and a practiced face.
"Medicine is a calling. We must keep patients' trust," he said, voice calm.
I stood up. The room hushed because I was once the shy shop owner who never raised her voice.
"Efrain Dixon," I said clearly. "You told me you would marry me. You took twenty thousand from me claiming emergency funds. You brought Chaya here as your patient and your lover. You treated my money like a joke."
Gasps rippled.
He blinked. "This— this is slander."
"Here," I said, and I stepped forward with my phone. I had all the messages, the bank record, the receipts. I had also asked witnesses to come: nurses, patients, and people who had seen him escort Chaya in and out of the ward.
Forest handed me a sealed envelope. "I found things," he said quietly. "Contracts. Photos." He slid a small folder to the stage where Efrain stood.
"These are transfers from the hospital account," Forest said. "And these pictures show visits that were billed to personal donors. You used your position to hide personal favors."
Efrain's face drained color.
"I can explain," he started, but his voice cracked.
"Explain how you told me I was selfish for confronting you while you hid this?" I asked. "Explain why you pushed your patient into a private room and left her crying into your arms?"
Chaya wilted. Her smile fell off like a mask.
"People, look at this," Forest said. He handed printed photos to nurses. "Look at the ledger. Look at the messages where he lied to Hope."
The crowd murmured. A junior nurse shouted, "We were told to look the other way!"
"How dare you—" Efrain began. He reached toward me, but I stepped back.
A young resident shook his head. "He billed his patient as if she were a charity case while funnelling funds. The accounts don't match."
An older doctor rose. "We need an audit."
Efrain's eyes grew wider. He tried to salvage his dignity. "This is private—" he started, but his private life was now public record.
"You're a liar in a white coat," a recovered patient shouted. "You used your oath as a ladder."
Cameras on phones lit up. People took pictures, recorded. The sound of little shutters was relentless.
Efrain's breathing quickened. He looked around, the confident façade crumbling. "This is defamation. I will sue."
"You're a man of healing or a man of hiding?" Forest asked, voice low. "You left a woman battered and told her to be quiet. You accepted money and gave nothing. You built a life on lies."
Efrain's expression shifted—first anger, then panic. He tried to deny. "I didn't—"
"Call HR," someone ordered. "Call security."
The hospital staff gathered. A crowd formed in the lobby outside the conference room. Nurses who once fawned over him turned away. His peers whispered. A few patients stepped forward. A woman he had helped months ago looked straight at him and said, "How many of us were used?"
He tried to break free, to put his coat on and flee, but it was too late. People around him recorded his face as it went from smug to shocked to desperate.
"Please, I'm a doctor," he said to the crowd, voice cracking. "I'll lose my license!"
"Then answer for it," the sister of a victim shouted. "You answer for your crimes."
He slumped into a chair like a man who had fallen through ice. It was no longer the sharp, clinical man of the hospital. He was a small figure in a white coat amid a crowd of witnesses.
Chaya, who had sat mute, finally stood. "He's not the man he claimed," she said, voice thin. "He bought me with attention. He promised safety and only brought shame."
Someone filmed the whole exchange. A nurse posted it. Within hours, hospital staff texted the administration. The hospital's legal team arrived.
Efrain's face turned to ash.
He begged, then shouted, then apologized, then denied, then tried to bargain. "If you don't report me, I'll—" he stammered, grasping.
"Get out," the head nurse snapped. "We will report to the board."
People murmured. Security escorted him out. Cameras flashed. The crowd followed, recording, whispering, condemning. He stepped out into the cold night and realized his reputation, his careful armor, was gone.
I walked with Forest as the crowd watched Efrain disappear. His steps were small. Someone shouted, "Shame!" Another clapped. Others recorded the evidence that would be shared online. The man who had preached ethics had been undone by the truth in public view.
When it was over, Forest took my hand. "You satisfied?"
"No," I said, then I laughed. "Yes. Mostly."
A few days later, the hospital announced an internal investigation. Efrain was suspended. He had lost the air of invincibility. The public had seen the man beneath the coat—a small, angry man who traded promises for favors.
The punishment had not been an arrest, but it was worse for Efrain: he lost trust. Patients who once relied on him turned to other doctors. Sponsors withdrew. He became a cautionary tale among hospital staff. At a staff meeting a week later, a long line of nurses and colleagues refused to stand with him. He sat alone, soup cooling in a plastic bowl.
I heard he posted long, regretful messages online—then his accounts were flooded with screenshots and testimonies. When he stepped into the coffee shop near the hospital, strangers crossed the sidewalk. His phone buzzed with missed calls and angry texts. He tried to call me, but I didn't pick up. He tried to come by my shop, but a staffer showed him the door.
He watched, and the watching punished him. He had burned bridges built from custom, basis, and broken promises. When he stood in a meeting room to defend himself, the eyes that looked at him were not pitying—they were measuring the gap between his words and his deeds.
In the weeks after, there were more small, public moments. A nurse he had once belittled now read a letter of complaint out loud in the staff room. An ex-patient posted side-by-side photos of her bruised face and a message about being silenced. Efrain tried to argue, to explain, to cry—it was a show. The crowd, the recordings, the witnesses, and the evidence ate at his defenses.
One morning he came to the clinic where my cousin worked and found himself ignored by the receptionist he had courted three years ago. She looked up, saw him, and turned the page of her magazine. The emptiness around him was the loudest punishment of all.
He had been a doctor with a clean dress and a dangerous heart. Now he had to watch his image dissolve in public view, to feel the records and the memory of his deeds shape him into someone small.
Forest and I walked away from the hospital hand in hand. People looked, whispered, and some smiled. The truth had been laid out in light. The liar had been humbled. The public had watched and judged and punished him with attention and exposure.
After that, life settled into a small, steady rhythm.
Forest's father recovered. Forest's company took its first clients. He and I kept folding tiny cranes on the balcony, and sometimes he unfolded one and kissed my palm.
"How many do you have left?" I asked one evening.
"Enough," he said. "Enough for two wishes."
We painted, cooked, argued, and made up. He called me silly names. I bit him and pretended to be angry. We walked through the neighborhood market, Forest carrying a bag of garlic like a man of many trades.
Months later, at a small family dinner in a courtyard studio filled with paintings of me, Forest's mother knocked on the door. She pushed a bank card across the table.
"Take this and leave my son," she said in a voice that tried to be kind.
"You can't buy love," Forest answered. "And you can't trade respect for money."
She left. A card can offer comfort, but it can't buy a lifetime of mornings cooked chestnut by someone who knows how you sleep.
At night, in the studio, among the cranes and the portraits, I would reach for the little scar on Forest's knuckle. He would smile, and sometimes he would show me the ring of teeth marks on his shoulder and call them "my special mark."
The world had been messy and raw. The liar in the white coat had been exposed and punished in public with the harshness of a crowd. The boy who had once been a little crying tail had grown into a man who would stand in front of me and say simply, "I will protect you."
"Promise?" I would tease.
He would grin, "No promises. I just keep showing up."
I liked that better.
The End
— Thank you for reading —