Fake Smile Emoji

Two months after I died, it finally occurred to my parents that they'd forgotten to bring me back from their trip. My father scowled in frustration. "She was supposed to walk back herself. Does she really need to make such a big deal out of it?" My brother, ever smug, opened our chat and sent an emoji, along with a message. [You'd better die out there. That way, Scarlett and I will split Grandma's inheritance.] He received no reply. With a frosty expression, my mother said, "Tell her if she shows up for her grandmother's birthday on time, I'll let the whole pushing-Scarlett-into-the-water thing go." They never believed I hadn't made it out of those woods. After digging six feet into the ground, they finally found my bones deep in the forest.

After being missing for 18 years, Mom and Dad finally found me. Jillian Swain, the fake heiress, crumples to the floor and starts sobbing. "Goodbye, Mom and Dad. Thanks for taking care of me all these years. But now that Wanda is home, I'm sure you don't have any use for me anymore." Mom and Dad hug her, completely heartbroken. "Sweetheart, don't talk like that! You're our only real daughter, now and always!" Even Harvey Schumer, the guy I was promised to as a kid, declares his love for her. "Forget who you really are. You're the only one I love." They're all tripping over each other to fuss over Jillian. They even throw a birthday celebration for her dog while I'm barely hanging on after a car crash. So I pack up my things, accept the space agency's offer, and slip away into a five-year confidential satellite research project. But the whole family freaks out the second I'm gone, turning the country upside down, searching for me.

I was a street performer with no name, a ghost hired to wear a dead man’s skin. My mission was simple: Become Alexander Blackwood. Marry his icy fiancée. Sign over the forty-billion-dollar empire. In exchange, my dying sister lives. But the woman waiting at the altar isn't the socialite I was trained to seduce. She’s a wolf in silk—a twin who murdered her own sister to take her place. She doesn't want my money; she wants my soul. She knows I’m a fraud, and I know she’s a killer. In the gilded halls of the Blackwood estate, we are two monsters playing house, waiting for the first one to blink. Every night is a battlefield. Every kiss is a betrayal. She pins me to the silk sheets with the cruelty of a Queen, but when she whispers my real name in the dark, the mask slips. I was supposed to be her puppet, but I’m becoming her obsession. And as the real killers close in, I realize the only thing more dangerous than the lie we're living... is the heat of the truth. He’s a fake heir. She’s a replacement bride. In a world of silver spoons and sharpened knives, love is the deadliest sin of all.

My boyfriend is trapped in the mountains, and I head there alone to search for him. However, I don't find him despite a night of searching. Instead, I end up falling off a cliff and passing out due to severe blood loss. When I open my eyes again, I hear laughter coming from outside my hospital ward. "Sonya's such a fool! She fell for it again!" "This is our 99th time tricking her, right?" "When you pretended to fall into the water, she jumped into an icy lake to save you in the middle of winter. When you pretended to be poisoned, she went to dig up the herbs that you'd need for the antidote… "This time, you pretended to be trapped in the mountains, and she ran there without a care for her life! She's truly head over heels for you!" I struggle to sit up. That's when I see my boyfriend, Austin Miller, standing at the ward's door. He stands out among the crowd and has a bright smile on his face. He doesn't look like he's lost his way at all. His friends continue talking. "It's her fault for abandoning Austin when he was down on his luck!" "She deserves to get played like this! When this is all over, we can throw the invitation to Austin and Dion's engagement party in her face!" It turns out Austin is already engaged. Yet, to this day, he has no idea why I broke up with him in the first place.

He circled her slowly. "Strip. Get on your knees." His silver eyes burned. "I'm going to f** you until your legs give out." Seraphina held his gaze without flinching. "No." A slow smile curved her lips. "I decide now. And you'll beg before I let you taste me." His mouth opened, then shut back. The most powerful king on the continent went silent. *** She was an omega maid auctioned as tribute to settle a war debt while carrying her alpha's secret child and a bloodline that could bring every alpha to his knees. King Vaelarion wanted her body. He never planned on needing her soul. But Seraphina Vale didn't survive twenty-two years of chains to spend the rest of her life on someone else's terms.

After the wolf packs clashed, my sister's mate, Jacob, returned safely. But my mate, Liam, lost his life on the battlefield. The entire pack mourned my misfortune. Yet deep inside, I knew the truth. The one who came back was not Jacob—it was my mate, Liam. They were twin wolves, equal in strength and nearly impossible to tell apart. No one noticed the difference. Not even my sister, who sensed the lie through the mate bond, chose to speak up. In my past life, Liam once told me, "Elena, I'm doing this for the future of our pack's territory. My brother is the Alpha's heir. If the pack finds out he's dead, it will cause chaos. Your sister is pure and gentle. She couldn't endure the pain of losing her mate. I'm only standing in as Jacob, looking after her for a while. Once the pack stabilizes, I will come back to you." And I believed him… until the night of the eclipse… when Liam branded me a traitor and executed me with his own hands. As I lay dying, I saw him standing close beside Isabella, and the truth finally hit me: it had all been his scheme from the very beginning. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day of our victory—the day word spread that Liam had fallen in battle. Yet there he was—"Jacob"—holding my sister tenderly, while the pack looked my way with pity. This time, I chose differently. I severed the mate bond and knelt before the Moon Goddess, begging her to grant me a new mate. Liam believed that by pretending to be his brother, he could claim the title of Alpha of the Black Moon Pack. But he never realized—by abandoning me, he had already destroyed the only path that could lead him to the Alpha's throne.

After my grandmother passed away, I returned from my countryside home to Oberis City, ready to tidy things up and prepare for my wedding. But no sooner had I arrived at the wedding planning company, ready to book an extravagant, luxurious wedding, than the staff there delivered a piece of news that struck me like a thunderbolt. The groom—my groom—had already gotten married. Three months ago, Cain Bassett, the eldest son of the wealthiest family's conglomerate, tied the knot with his childhood sweetheart, the daughter of the mayor of Lith City—Mary Schindler. Now here I stood, frowning in front of the grand gates of Cain's villa. But the thing is, I am Mary Schindler, the daughter of the mayor of Lith City.

While my sister was protecting me from the vampires hunting us, a blade coated with poison slit her throat. I hid in the bushes and watched the whole thing in silence. I even took the antidote from Sophia. Because of that, the poison had spread through her entire body. With her self-healing ability suppressed, she was going to die in agony. My parents found me and begged me, disregarding their dignity as leaders of the pack. "Anna! Please! Give the antidote back to Sophia!" "She needs the antidote to flush out the poison and live!" Even with my parents begging and swallowing their pride, I just held onto the antidote in my pocket tighter. "I didn't see any antidote."

Cleo Carrington used to be Northvale's brightest spark—wild, fearless, impossible to pin down. And then she married Damian Joubert. The most controlled, rigid heir in their world. Damian ran like a machine. Perfect standards. Zero slack. And he expected the same from his wife. Cleo loved noise—clubs, music, bodies moving. He had every venue in the city blacklist her. She loved freedom—the blazing Afriyan sun, the northern lights in Icelorn. She raced cars. She jumped out of planes. He took her passport. Shut it all down.

“Miss Mia Bowen, are you sure you want to divorce Mr. Timothy Barrett?” In response to the clerk’s inquiry, Mia nodded calmly. To the world, Timothy Barrett was a celebrated billionaire. But only a handful knew he had a wife—a wife he kept hidden. For the past three years, Mia had played the perfect wife to Timothy—managing his family affairs and keeping a low profile. That changed when his first love, Maya Lane, returned to the country. Again and again, Timothy abandoned Mia for that woman. On their wedding anniversary, he even shamelessly slept with Maya. That was the last straw. Mia decided to set him free. Then she tricked him into signing the divorce agreement. Timothy always believed his wife was an orphan who couldn’t survive without him. What he didn’t know was that her long-lost family had already found her—her three brothers were eager to take her home. Only seven days remained until the divorce became official. In a week, Mia would vanish from his world forever. Later, when she disappeared without a trace, Timothy tore the city apart searching for her. To his shock, he discovered she was the long-lost daughter of the Lane family! He tried to win her back, but her three powerful brothers blocked his way. “Mr. Barrett, stay away from our little princess!”