Faking It

After I come back to decades ago, the first thing I do is feed a million-dollar production patent to the pigs. In my previous life, I handed that patent over to the government. My husband turned me in, accusing me of faking the data and scamming a fortune in patent royalties. Overnight, I went from being a celebrated genius researcher to a lying thief that everyone despised. As I prepared to pull out my manuscript to prove my innocence, my husband's childhood sweetheart beat me to it. She waved it in front of everyone and accused me of misconduct and plagiarism. My husband took her side, reprimanding me, "I know you've always been jealous of Juni for being well-educated, but I can't believe you were bold enough to steal her hard work. What are you going to do next? Embezzle state funds?" I couldn't defend myself. No matter what I said, no one chose to believe me. The other researchers assaulted me so badly that I bled out and died. After my death, my husband and his childhood sweetheart took my patent without a second thought. The never-ending stream of patent royalties made them rich and powerful. When I open my eyes again, I'm back on the very day she accuses me of stealing.

After ten years together, my boyfriend bailed me and marked my sister—Rose Howell. Right after, Jack Sterling—Silvernorth's youngest professor—blasted our engagement on the academy site. We were bonded seven years. He acted like the perfect mate—quiet, loyal, like I was his whole world. Then I caught him talking to a colleague. "Rose is the most promising healer in Silvernorth now. How long are you gonna keep faking it with that she-wolf?" "For Rose to have peace, I'll keep Wyettta around. She won't dare mess with their bond." Seven years, trashed like a strategy memo. His journal? All her name. [May Rose shine.] [Let Rose be the happiest she-wolf alive.] [I'd stay mated to someone I don't love if it makes her smile.] Seven years, and I woke up in a nightmare. On our mark anniversary, I took the gondola. Sun rising. Drop, endless. Blocked the mind link. Drank the potion. Severed our mate bond. Jumped. Soon as word spread, Jack led Silvernorth's top warriors into the cliffs, launching the most brutal search the region's ever seen—trying to recover his "lost mate." He howled my name into the mountains like regret could bring me back.

The night before our wedding, my Alpha, Charlie, was attacked by rogue wolves on his way to pick up my wedding dress. He survived, but the doctor diagnosed him with severe PTSD and no memory of me. Any mention of our wedding made him collapse. Around the same time, I found out I was pregnant. "Perhaps the child’s arrival might awaken the part of him that truly loves you," the doctor said. I clung to that hope，until I overheard them at the pack training grounds. "Faking PTSD to dodge the wedding? Damn, Charlie, that’s next-level." One of his brothers laughed. "You really pulled it off, man. Playing the tragic Alpha just to shake off that boring little fiancée? Genius." "Shut up!" Charlie snapped, but there was no real anger in his tone. "I love Eve. I’m only lying to her this once. Let me have my fun at The Velvet Bite a little longer, and then I’ll marry her." "Especially her cousin, Lisa," another voice jeered. "Damn, Charlie—a brothel and the fiancée’s family? That’s low, even for you." Charlie chuckled. "You don’t get it. Those women… I can’t live without that feeling. It’s addictive." My hands shook as I tore the ultrasound report into pieces. Without a word, I turned and walked away. That night, at the pack hospital, I made an appointment for an abortion.

While my husband, Gerald Brown, was abroad negotiating a business deal, he was drugged and spent the night with a female secretary from a rival company. The drug’s side effects scrambled his memory so badly that he forgot who I was. He kicked me out of the master bedroom and let the secretary smash my grandmother’s heirloom. I told myself he was sick and stayed silently by his side. But when I suggested taking him for a medical checkup, he hit me for the first time. “Who do you think you are? Only Ailey is allowed to touch me. If she gets jealous, you’ll regret it.” When the secretary framed me, he pushed me down the stairs, and I suffered a miscarriage. Late one night, when my heart condition flared up, I went to his study for medicine but overheard him talking to his friend outside the door. “Faking amnesia to bring Ailey home is one thing, but why replace your wife’s heart medication? Now, she’ll never return to the hospital for surgery.” Gerald just chuckled. “If I don’t keep her weak, she’ll go to the hospital and check the hospital records and find out I was never drugged. Ailey’s been timid since childhood and even went undercover for me in a rival company. I can’t betray her.”

I took my in-laws to our place for Christmas without telling my wife. It was supposed to be a surprise, but the moment George, my father-in-law, stepped into the house, my wife's assistant shoved him. He crashed into the shoe cabinet and threw out his back. "Ms. Sampson's villa doesn't let homeless people in. I can't believe you're her father-in-law. Look at you. Even a homeless guy wears better than you." I told the maid to hold George, but the male assistant stopped me again. He even shoved my mother-in-law, Diane. "You think you own this place? That's Ms. Sampson's maid. It's enough she has to serve a leech like you. You don't get to make her serve your parents." The fury consumed Diane whole, and she had a heart attack. I called my wife and asked her to come to the hospital. Wendy Sampson, however, shrugged it off. Scoffing, she said, "Zack told me everything. I can't believe you brought your parents to my house! And you want me to see your mother? She's faking her heart attack! I know she is! I want them out of my house! So what if they die? Best Christmas gift I could ever hope for."

The boy, George Larson, whom I once saved as a child, when he was struggling with asthma, repaid my kindness by imprisoning me for seven long years. "Luna, you're my everything. I won’t let you out of my sight," he said, his voice filled with obsession. He tied my hands and feet, keeping me bound to the bed like a helpless doll, but I did not love him; I wanted to escape. In his madness, he set fire to my family’s ancestral home. The last traces of the Sachs burned to ashes, disappearing into the wind. He said that since my home was gone, I could just live with him and that it would be my new home. However, because I refused to let him touch me, he found someone else—a girl with a beauty mark under her eye, just like mine. The girl, drunk on his affection, thought I was trying to imitate her by faking the same tear-shaped mark. In a fit of jealousy, she gouged out my eyes. My face was covered with tiny, bleeding holes, blood streaming down my body. When George came home, the girl gleefully stuffed me into a trash bag, proud of her handiwork. “George, look! I caught some trash that broke into the house!” George did not even glance at me. He just loosened his tie, his voice calm and detached. “Just toss it where trash belongs.”

Two years ago, as a graduate of Werewolf Medical School, I volunteered to go to the most remote and poorest pack, as it had always been my dream to help werewolf patients in need. I heard from my teacher that the werewolves in the Rogue Pack were the poorest and that their living conditions were the worst. Most of the werewolves there were old and weak, so I volunteered to go to that pack as soon as I graduated. After I arrived, I helped them build an infirmary and even set up a blood station. Every year, I led them in voluntary blood donations. But one time—right after I had taken a short break following a blood donation—they turned on me. They slandered me, calling me a selfish and heartless healer. Worse still, they accused me of faking illness, claiming I was lying comfortably in bed while patients were dying—refusing to lift a finger to save them. Not only that, they stormed into the infirmary, seized all my herbs and equipment, and completely trashed the place I had built for them with my own hands. Recalling the days I had spent day and night healing them—only to see my infirmary destroyed and my dream shattered—I let out a bitter smile. I picked up the phone and called the dean of my home pack. "I'm ready to return," I said. "I want to serve the patients in our own pack." Then, without a trace of regret, I left that place behind. However, after I gave up, the whole pack regretted it and begged me to return.

My family was the wealthiest in River City, with assets worth trillions. On my eighteenth birthday, my brother, Calvin Chester, gifted me an entire jewelry production line while my parents built a private museum and named it after me. The greatest hardship I’d ever faced? Learning how to spend my inheritance. Then I met Dario Darwin. For him, I cut ties with my family and helped him build his empire from scratch. But when I was three months pregnant, he demanded I drink on behalf of his assistant, Fran Fallon, a woman “slumming it” as an intern while secretly being the heiress to another fortune. “Stop pretending,” he sneered. “You’re not like Fran, raised in pampered luxury. You’re older, so act like it and take care of your juniors!” Then, to the clients leering around the table, “My wife’s just being dramatic. She can hold her liquor. Don’t hold back—pour her another!” Amid their jeers, he left with Fran, abandoning me to a room of drunken men. Years of sacrifice, only to be humiliated. I scheduled an abortion and called him. “We’re done.” Through the phone, Fran’s simpering voice chimed in, “It’s my fault that Clea is upset… I should quit and go home to my family’s billions.” “Ignore her. She’s faking it,” Dario cooed back. On the day Dario signed the divorce papers, my parents and Calvin came to take me home. Our marriage came to an end, but his tragedy was about to begin.

On the day of the Lunar Convergence, Jasper Draven, son of the Alpha of the Pacific Moonrise pack, gets rejected by his mate, Seraphina Darkwater. Gwen Blackthorn of the Pacific Moonrise pack is rejected by Jasper's best friend, Reginald Nightshade, the son of the Alpha of the Golden Gate Guardians. Gwen and Jasper are both taunted for being mateless and rejected. Jasper's ego is hurt. He comes up with an idea where he meets Gwen, the girl he bullies and dislikes, to forge a fake mate bond. He tells her they only have to pretend to be real mates until the next Lunar Convergence when they might be able to find their second chance mate. Reluctant at first, Gwen agrees. The secret is Gwen has always had a crush on Jasper even though he treats her badly. Trouble brews when Reginald decides to reclaim Gwen but she refuses to go back to him. Reginald fights to have her back but Jasper is not willing to let her go. Reginald soon discovers the secret about Jasper and Gwen's mate bond being fake and he threatens to expose them if Jasper does not give her up. Despite Jasper's initial dislike for Gwen, they push to stand by each other in times of danger and fight to stick together. Now will Jasper be willing to let Reginald have Gwen back to avoid the harsh punishment for faking a mate bond? Or will he hold onto Gwen as he is now head over heels in love with her? Find out in this interesting book! This is a Love Story Like No Other You've Seen or Read!!!

After checking my final exam results, I hand the bottle of water given by my mother and the amethyst bracelet given by my childhood friend to the school bully with AIDS. In my previous life, my exam score of 1250 was swapped with the score of 600 of my younger adopted sister, Adelia Quentin, right after I drank that bottle of water. My health immediately deteriorated in the following days. I had a high fever and kept on coughing up blood. I was even nearly bedridden from severe pain. On the other hand, Adelia miraculously recovered from her stomach cancer. I begged my mother to send me to the hospital. But not only did she refuse, but she even mocked me and accused me of faking my illness. She then locked me in the basement. They celebrated Adelia's enrollment in university while I writhed helplessly in pain. In the end, I died in the basement all alone. After my death, Adelia used my exam score of 1250 to study at a renowned university. She also officially started her relationship with Thomas Haynes, my childhood friend. It was only then that I finally realized that the bottle of water my mother handed me had been cursed. My exam results would be swapped away when I drank it. Meanwhile, the amethyst bracelet Thomas gifted me would swap my health condition with Adelia's three days after I wore it. I'd get Adelia's stomach cancer and die a painful death. Just as I open my eyes again, I find myself back on the day I checked my exam results.