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Author: Ava Sinclair
last update publish date: 2026-06-15 05:21:52

The next morning, Rachel arrived at the office earlier than most of her colleagues. She had not slept well. Her sleep had been broken, and she woke up several times during the night. By the time she got to work, she felt tired, but she was used to working like this. The office was still quiet when she arrived. A few people were already at their desks, and others were just coming in. The usual sounds of typing, phones ringing, and soft conversations slowly filled the space. Rachel went straight
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  • Paid To Pretend, Destined To Love   THE RETURN

    Monday morning came quietly, the kind of morning that looks peaceful from the outside but doesn’t always feel that way on the inside. Rachel was already awake before she fully wanted to be. She lay still for a moment, eyes open, staring at the ceiling as the soft light from the window slowly filled the room. Everything around her looked normal. The house was quiet, the morning air was calm, and there was nothing about the moment that suggested anything was wrong but she didn’t feel fully settled. She stayed in bed a little longer than usual, not because she was tired, but because she didn’t feel like jumping into the day immediately. Her mind was already awake, even if her body wasn’t ready to follow yet. The weekend kept coming back to her. The conversation with Benjamín was the first thing that came back. He made the issue feel easy and she knew that if she wanted clarity, she should ask Joseph directly. That was what he had told her. Rachel had not replied much then, but the word

  • Paid To Pretend, Destined To Love   THE TALK

    Saturday morning came quietly, without urgency or interruption. The apartment felt different in a way that had nothing to do with sound or movement. It was simply slower, as if the world outside had agreed to delay itself for a few hours. Rachel woke earlier than she needed to, not because of habit this time, but because her sleep had not fully carried her through the night. She lay still for a moment before getting up, listening to the faint sounds of the apartment settling into the morning. Benjamín was already awake when she came out of the room, sitting on the couch with a steadier posture than before, his recovery now visible in the way he moved without hesitation. Rachel noticed it immediately, but she did not comment. She moved into the kitchen and began preparing something simple, not out of necessity but because routine had become something she could do without thinking. The sound of water, the movement of cups, the small rhythm of a normal morning filled the space between th

  • Paid To Pretend, Destined To Love   IMAGE

    Rachel did not plan to check anything that night. It began like most of her evenings had started recently, quiet and without structure, with Benjamín already resting on the couch and the apartment settling into its familiar silence. She had finished what little she could manage at home, cleaned the small space around the kitchen, checked his medication twice even though she already knew the times, and then sat down without fully committing to rest. Her phone was in her hand out of habit more than intention, the screen lighting her face in a soft glow that made the room feel slightly farther away than it actually was.She opened Instagram without thinking deeply about it. It was something she had been doing more frequently in small moments of pause, not because she was interested in anything specific, but because it filled the gaps between exhaustion and sleep. She scrolled slowly at first, seeing familiar posts, updates from coworkers, random content that did not stay in her memory fo

  • Paid To Pretend, Destined To Love   THE LONG WEEK

    Rachel noticed the change in her supervisor’s attitude towards her before anyone explained it to her. It started on Monday morning when the office felt slightly more crowded than usual, not because of clients, but because unfamiliar faces were moving between desks with printed schedules in their hands and quiet instructions being exchanged at reception. By the time she logged into her system, she was already being informed that two temporary interns had been assigned to Sterling Tech for the week to support operations during staff shortage. No further explanation was given, and no one seemed interested in discussing why the shortage had suddenly become important enough to require new people.The two interns were introduced briefly during the morning briefing on Wednesday. They were both young men, newly arrived, still adjusting to the structure of the office. One of them was Étienne, a French student on internship placement, who spoke first, polite but uncertain, carefully choosing hi

  • Paid To Pretend, Destined To Love   JOSEPH’S ABSENCE

    Rachel saw Joseph’s message later that evening. He had sent the message before she left work but she was too busy to notice it. She had been dealing with customer complaints when her phone vibrated. She looked at the screen and saw his name. For a moment, she just paused, then she opened the message.> “I will be out of the country for a week. Italy. Business and personal matters. I won’t be at the office. Take care of yourself.”She read it twice. There was nothing complicated in it. It was just a piece of unnecessary explanation and no extra explanation. She knew she had no right to ask further questions. The man was the CEO whom she had private deal with. She was surprised that that was what he said he had to tell her. After a short pause, she typed a reply.> “Okay. Safe trip.”She sent it and placed her phone back on the side of the bed.The next morning, Rachel arrived at Sterling Tech like usual. She greeted the few people she met on their seats and went straight to her desk i

  • Paid To Pretend, Destined To Love   NEAR MISS

    On Wednesday afternoon, Rachel was still at work. The office was calmer than the morning. Some people had already started finishing for the day, while others were still completing small tasks before closing. Rachel was at her desk going through emails and clearing pending work. She checked her phone once or twice between tasks, mostly to see if there was any message from Benjamín. There was nothing urgent, so she continued working. After a while, one of her co-workers walked up to her desk.“Rachel,” she said, “are you going home soon?”Rachel looked up. “Not yet. Why?”“I’m leaving now,” the woman said. “We stay in the same direction. We can go together.”Rachel thought for a moment. “Okay. Wait for me. I’ll finish soon.”“Alright,” the woman said. “I’ll wait downstairs.”Rachel returned to her work and finished what she could. She closed her files, logged out of her system, and packed her things. Before leaving, she sent a quick message to check on Benjamín, then stood up. A few min

  • Paid To Pretend, Destined To Love   SILK AND SATIN

    The final note of the music faded into the hall and, for a moment, the entire room reacted at once, applause rising in a steady wave that filled every corner of the space. Rachel remained still for a second longer than necessary, still trying to settle back into herself after the dance, while Josep

  • Paid To Pretend, Destined To Love   THE BALL

    Immediately after Isabel returned to her seat, the room seemed to recalibrate itself at once. Conversations lowered into restrained murmurs, chairs shifted in slow coordination, and attention naturally gathered toward the cleared centre of the hall where the open space now carried a sense of prepar

  • Paid To Pretend, Destined To Love   WHAT FEELS LIKE STAGE

    Rachel followed Joseph without needing to be guided verbally. Her nerves were calm because his hand did not just hold hers, but he stayed close enough that she could feel more confident in the room. The earlier tension had not disappeared entirely, but it had softened into something she could cope

  • Paid To Pretend, Destined To Love   THE CONCEALED TRUTH

    Across the room, Diego watched the interaction from a distance. His expression darkened briefly because he seemed to understand exactly what had happened and exactly how uncomfortable Rachel had become. The evening had only begun and he already suspected that winning over Abuela had been the easy

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