Pretend Synonym

Her back hit the cold wall before she could even breathe. Damian’s hand slid to her jaw, tilting her face up to his. His voice was a low, trembling threat. “Do you feel what you’re doing to me, Aria?” Her heartbeat stuttered. “You’re my sister’s husband…” “Exactly,” he whispered. “That’s why I shouldn’t want you.” He leaned closer, his breath brushing her lips. “But wanting you is all I’ve done… every damn day.” *** Aria Hale has spent her life unseen, ignored by her father, used by her sister, and taught that her feelings don’t matter. But everything changes the day she moves into her sister’s penthouse… the same home ruled by Damian Cross. Thirty-six. Billionaire. Cold. Married to her sister. And quietly, obsessively fixated on Aria. He watches her too long. Stands too close. Speaks too softly for a man with no heart. He looks at her like she’s the only warmth in his frozen world. Aria tries to avoid him. Tries to reject him. Tries to pretend she doesn’t feel the air tighten when he enters a room. But Damian does not let go. He corners. He interferes. He destroys anything that dares approach her. Because wrong or not, forbidden or not— he has already decided she belongs to him. And when the truth behind his obsession finally comes to light… Aria will learn that some desires, once awakened, are impossible to escape.

My husband, Adrian Cross, was a high-profile lawyer. We'd been married for seven years. I'd always wanted a child of our own, but he had never touched me because his heart belonged to someone else. Not long ago, I got into a car accident trying to save him. He promised he would grant me any wish. Everyone assumed I would ask him to have a child with me, but I calmly asked for a divorce. Adrian laughed, a cruel, public sneer on his face. "Don't pretend," he mocked. "I've never met anyone as shameless as you. You'd risk your life for me, yet you think you could ever leave me?" My heart, long hardened, turned even colder. He had no idea that I had been given a second chance. … In my previous life, I finally became pregnant with his child. But his obsession, the one he couldn't forget, took her own life. All his rage fell on me. On the day I went into labor, he locked me in the basement and forced me to swallow a massive dose of abortion drugs. As blood gushed from me, he laughed like a madman. "Ella died because of you and that wretched child you're carrying. For the pain she endured, you will pay twice over!" I died from hemorrhaging. And he went on to hold a wedding at the grave of his lost love. But reborn, I returned to the day of the car accident, ready to see their doomed love come to its bitter end.

For years, Ciara had hidden her feelings from her college friend, Austin, until she finally mustered the courage to confess. But just as she was ready to lay her heart on the line, he blindsided her with a gut-wrenching surprise: he had been secretly dating her childhood best friend, Yuri, and they were now engaged. Despite the sense of betrayal, Ciara feigned happiness and congratulated them, even fabricating a story about having found a boyfriend herself, instead of confessing. However, that only led to another problem when he asked her to bring her boyfriend to their wedding. Now trapped by her own lie, Ciara had to find a boyfriend in just three months. But before that, she escaped on a quick vacation to Paris, where a chance encounter led to a passionate one-night stand with a stranger she had already met twice. When she woke up the next morning and realized what she’d done, panic set in. She ran away. She thought she could leave the whole thing behind, but when she returned to the country a week later, fate twisted the knife—the stranger from Paris was now her new boss. Just when she thought her life couldn’t get any more complicated, he offered to play the role of her fake boyfriend for the wedding. This unexpected arrangement sent her tangled emotions into an unpredictable whirlwind of romance and drama, especially when she discovered a series of shocking secrets, and one of them was that her boss and pretend boyfriend was, in fact, the older brother of Austin.

“I bled for us. Now it’s your turn to bleed.” From impersonation, she filled the gap of a missing woman. Now she pay the price.................. Emily Vicente never imagined she'd ask herself that question until she saw the news: a $1 million reward for information on Elena Morgan, a missing pregnant woman and the ex-wife of billionaire Kelvin Edwards. The shocking revelation was that Emily looked exactly like Elena. It was almost as if she had lived a second life without knowing it. Her boyfriend, Sammy, desperate to escape poverty, sees a fast ticket out and pushes Emily to step into Elena’s life. Pretend to be a pregnant Elena. Collect the money and disappear. Emily, emotionally blackmailed and cornered by her present situation, gives in. But what she didn’t know was that she wasn’t just stepping into another woman’s life she was stepping into a storm. The lion’s den. Kelvin Edwards isn’t just a cold billionaire, he’s a desperate father trying to save his terminally ill child. And Elena is the key to that salvation. But now, she’s gone… and Emily has taken her place. What began as a lie quickly spirals into a web of secrets, danger, and emotional warfare. And just when Emily begins to lose herself in the act Kelvin finds out the truth. What follows is both heartbreaking and a solution to his problem. ...With the upper hand and nothing to lose, Kelvin gives Emily two choices one that could shatter her completely, and one that would bind her to him forever. What she thought was a way out... might be the beginning of her undoing.

Luca Knight knows exactly the kind of woman he wants to settle down with some day and it's certainly not anyone like Skylar Simpson, his personal assistant. After all, Skylar is a sex addict who knows nothing about commitment. She sleeps with a different man every week, changing men like she changes her sheets. What happens when Luca pays Skylar to pretend to be his girlfriend at his family reunion? Sparks fly. Soon Luca realizes that he wants Skylar all to himself. Skylar has sworn to never love again after getting her heart broken twice which is why she loves to sleep with different men, and so Luca sets out to do the impossible; he's going to seduce her and drive her crazy until she possibly can't think of anyone else but him. ****** "Have you forgotten that I'm just a whore who can't stick to one man?" I ask breathlessly. ”I'm going to make you want only me, Skylar." Luca takes my ear into his mouth and nibbles it gently, sending a shiver down my spine. “That confident?” I whisper, trying hard to fight against the delightful sensations running through me. "Yes." He licks my neck in the most sensual way. “I'm going to make you beg for it. I'm going to drive you crazy until my dick is the only one you want to sit on.” Oh fuck.

Content Warning: This book contains sexually explicit material and is intended for readers aged 18 and above. "I’m engaged to your sister. You can’t do this." His dark-green eyes bored into mine under the sheets, as he stroked my cheeks. "You’re not even into women, Liam. You know you’re not. You know you want this. You want me." And Liam couldn't deny it, He lived to burn for Jackson Maddox. ~ Liam Sinclair had always lived according to his father’s rules, polished, quiet, and hidden in the perfect image of a future CEO. Behind closed doors, he carried a secret that could destroy everything his father built. He was gay. But scandal had no place in the Sinclair legacy, and Liam made sure no one ever found out. That is, until the night everything changed. When his father arranges an engagement with Avery Maddox, a woman Liam barely knows, he unravels. A single night of rebellion leads him to a club, where a one-night stand with a seductive green-eyed stranger spirals into something far more complicated. The next morning, the stranger's identity is no longer a mystery. His name is Jackson Humin Maddox, the brother of his intending Fiancee. Now Liam is trapped between duty and desire, legacy and love. But Jackson doesn’t care about titles or contracts. Engaged or not, he wants Liam, and he is not letting go. This is a forbidden tango of chemistry, but Liam Sinclair has to choose, to either pretend his one time mistake was baseless, or to fall maddeningly in love with it.

Richard's parents died in a car accident when he was eight years old. Life has not been easy for him and his two sisters because no one was willing to help them. His older sister decided to sacrifice everything she had to see that Richard and his younger sister have the best of life. At age of 18, Richard happened to find himself in a university as a result of his sister's effort. She warned him seriously not to get involve in trouble. But his trouble began when he fell in love with one of his professor's daughter which resulted in him leaving school. Will he be able to face his sister after making all her efforts go in vain? Or will he find a way to succeed without obtaining a degree in an effort to make up for his mistake? Meanwhile Rebecca is very naughty highschool student that was terrible at mathematics and physics and has never been in love. Her mother hired Richard to teach her mathematics because he had the best result in his faculty. But Rebecca hated him so much that she could anything to make him stop teaching her. One day, Richard stood up for her while she was being humiliated at school. That made her to start seeing the good in him. Just as things were about to get interesting between them, a very tragic incident happened to Richard causing him to leave school. Rebecca did not see Richard again until after five years and he wasn't like she used know him. Will she fall for him again like before? Or will she turn a blind eye and pretend he doesn't exist?

"I warned you, Lena. No man touches you except me. You're mine now, let that stick." That was his first warning. Delivered with a cold stare and a voice that didn't allow defiance. "Now, I'm going to fuck you till every other man looks like a woman to you." That was her punishment, and she couldn't even lie to herself about how much she enjoyed it. Abandoned by her father, Lena Anderson, whose dream was to become a surgeon, never planned to end up in a mafia-owned strip club. But when your sister is diagnosed with cancer and your mother can barely walk because of a stroke, you do all it takes to keep them alive. All it took was one night to change her entire life. She didn't plan on killing her first VIP client. But when he forced himself on her without permission, she made sure he never touched anyone again. It wasn't her intention, nor was it getting caught. But she was. Not by the police. By someone ruthless, Lucano Baricelli, her boss, heir to the Baricelli family. A mafia don. A man known to break bones before asking questions. He should have turned her in. Instead, he offered her a deal. Pretend to be his wife for five years so he could win his father's trust and take over the mafia empire. In return? He keeps her out of prison and makes sure she never lacks anything. She accepted. But there were rules. Never get pregnant. Never be caught with any man. Rules are made to be broken, so they say. Lena Anderson broke both, and it drove Lucano nuts.

Joseff Uller Anderson Nieverro known as “Juan” was never been interested in anyone. He’d rather busy himself with studies than to lay any glimpse to anyone. He may be an extremely good-looking and intelligent man but his personality was never been good. He always wore this menacing look no one would choose to look except for his best buddy, "Pedro". The only person who can see him through the deepest of his being. Pierro Ezrael Dela Rama Olivarez, known as “Pedro” was Juan’s ass best buddy. A very playful and handsome man. Pedro is popularly known as a local young celebrity. His captivating smile and charming personality made everyone love him. But behind every man’s happy face is a boy lost and still haunted by his past that even the closest person he has does not know anything. For years of being best buddies, Juan and Pedro thought that they are bound to live together only as best friends. But a lot of things happened when Juan started feeling a weird sensation whenever he and Pedro is close together. The confusion made him distant himself to Pedro. But what he does not know is that Pedro felt the same ever since. Until that night happened, that cause everything to change. They started unveiling and experimenting with the secret both of them had found out. And when good things happen, the bad one comes in the midst of it, which causes them to separate. Years had passed, both successful and living the life they chose. Juan and Pedro’s path will come across again because of a deal. And that deal could lead to many things, either it will fix them or they will leave everything from the past and will pretend that they never know each other.

Who would have thought that an accident would lead Pancho to find his true love? Astrid Marie Smith's dreams and whole life were devastated when her long-term boyfriend married her cousin Castela Newton. She wanted to forget the hurt and pain they had caused her. She went to a bar, got totally drunk, and ended up in bed with a stranger whom she believed was a gay man. They indeed had hot, steamy rebound sex all night. Pancho treasured all this and savored the night with her, but she ran away and could no longer be found. She went abroad to start a new life. After three years, Astrid went back, in timely for a revenge, when Castela ordered her to spy on her husband while abroad for six months as Philip's replacement secretary. She continued to pretend to be a dumb and mischievous. She was set up for an eviler and more destructive plan. She never realized that the hot alpha male she slept with was the elder brother of his ex-boyfriend, the Vice President of the company, Pancho Carbonel. Pancho Carbonel fell in love with Astrid the first time he set his eyes on her. He had the chance to court her, but it didn't go as he planned. A rumor circulated in the company that she was Philip's mistress. However, nothing changed. Astrid is still Pancho's dream girl, and she alone is enough for him. Until one day, she confronted Pancho, and what happened to them meant nothing to her. One night changed their lives and they are bound to end into something unexpected. Will Pancho ever have the opportunity to fulfill his heart's desire to love and be loved? Will rebound sex find its way to tie the knot with his estranged lover?